Guild Wars 2

Well This latest fiasco with multiple players getting banned has left me somewhat confused. As from what I have read on this forum is they have been banned for something that has always been possible to a certain degree anyway.
It has always been possible to generate Ectoplasms using cheap mats to craft rares and then salvage. Yes it seems that profit margin was greater on this due to “underpriced” components but the process is the same in both case’s.
———————————-
Crafting Rare Silk Shoulders:

15 T5 Mats + 3 Bolts of Silk + 1 Cured leather thick hide + 11 Silk string = 0 to 3 ectos + 1 to 3 silk scraps. ( might not be 100% accurate working from memory atm)

Now this recipe generates Ectoplasms, from a input of some other components.
If you can buy the components cheap enough and in bulk you can quite happily make a huge batch of these , salvage em all down for a nice stack of Ectoplasms.
You then sell some Ectoplasms to cover your materials cost and have Ectoplasms left over which are profit.

This can then be repeated Ad Infinitum to keep generating profit. Or at least till your component supply adjusts in supply on the trading post to make the profit dissapear.

Snowflake Mithril Earring of Winter

1 Ectoplasm + Pristine Snowflake + Orichalcum or Mithril Ore (12)
=0-3 Ectos +1-2 Mith/ Ori Ore + chance to get Snowflake Back

Again you are generating Ectoplasms from other components, so you make a huge batch of em , salvage them and sell back some Ectoplasms to cover costs. Which then leaves you Ectoplasms as profit.

Again you can repeat Ad Infinitum until your supply of materials on trading post start to adjust.

Now yes I am aware that due to the way this works with the Pristine Snowflake and the cost of the materials for the recipe , the wintersday recipe was much more profitable.

The problem is that in essence its exactly the same process but one is a " Legitimate " way of manipulating the trading post to make money and the other is a “Permanent Ban”.

Yes other arguements can be brought to the table such as the recipe for the wintersday jewellry was incorrectly designed in that it only used one ectoplasms, which yes is partially valid but surely the developers have to take some degree of responsibility for that. And the fact is you can generate ectoplasms of recipes that dont require any Ectoplasms to make so ( as shown with the shoulders ones above).

There has been comments made by people and I believe a Dev/Official of some sort that it was wrong as it was a infinite loop, which is just basically wrong as at each craft you had to input orichalcum/mithril and eventualy more Pristine Snowflakes.

Dont think anyone can deny it was much cheaper due to the price of materials but those materials were already adjusting on Trading post to reduce this profit ( eg mithril 1 silver a ore and Pristine Snowflake 30s even hitting 40s-1g.).

Anyway so where do we draw the line? What crosses over from making a load of money from using the shoulder recipe and this new one . Is it a question of scale as thats what its coming across to me as really. The wintersday recipe made a lot of gold with that easy supply of materials and its “undervalued” components but was using a existing process that you can still do in game now.

Personally i think its a very “grey” area , yes it seems Anet dropped the ball on this one and introduced a recipe that was to good due to it requiring one Ectoplasms and people have used this to generate money.

The question is how are people supposed to know this is a exploit of some kind when you can do the same process elsewhere to generate similiar results.

Well thats my 2 cents on it , and yes personally I feel the permanet bans are a step to far on Anets behalf on something that is this cloudy about if its wrong or not.

I think there were two things that make the methods different:

1) The snowflake pretty much always came back when you salvaged. It was way cheaper to make than the silk shoulderpads. That the market -eventually- adjusted doesn’t mean much.

2) The people who did it made hundreds upon hundreds in hours. Have you made that much from silk shoulderpads recently?

Valmarius.4150:

I think there were two things that make the methods different:

1) The snowflake pretty much always came back when you salvaged. It was way cheaper to make than the silk shoulderpads. That the market -eventually- adjusted doesn’t mean much.

2) The people who did it made hundreds upon hundreds in hours. Have you made that much from silk shoulderpads recently?

1) The chance to get your snowflake back is the same as every other item using a master/mystic kit, which is supposedly .8.

2) The people who made the most got in at the beginning, many people who got banned made very little gold or even lost gold before finding that it wasn’t very profitable on the last day before they fixed the recipe. I know people who were banned on both sides of the spectrum.

2B) The people who made hundreds weren’t any different then the people who made hundreds on many of the other recipes that were introduced through patches. The false information from devs that this was an infinite loop is incorrect, it was an exchange of ‘A’ material for ‘B’ material, it did not create items out of thin air or generate infinite gold, it was actually good for the gold economy to reduce inflation since the only thing it did was take gold out of the economy through kits and TP taxes.

People who got in early on the butter/wood in the mystic forge patch made hundreds, people who converted glacial cores to charged lodestones before they patched the recipe fixed made hundreds, people who bought up T6 mats before the Fractal patch made like 3000% profit margin, or the lvl 65 godskull weapons to create precursors, hey the Candy Corn Orichalcum Amulet still only takes 3 ectos instead of 5 which many people used to trade for commendations since it was cheaper to get BL keys that way then through gems. Banning for a recipe that eventually created a market equilibrium that Anet let go for days while there have been many other recipes and methods that generated wealth for people through market equilibrium is just shady and is bad precedence. It’s not the same as people “minting” 100s of gold through the chili pepper popper bug, or the obvious 21 karma bug. To ban for this, just leaves a bad taste in many people’s mouths as you can see from all the posts on this forum and reddit, even from people like me who weren’t banned. It was a market altering recipe that Anet created, they let go on for days even when people asked if it was a bug on the official forums, and eventually the market made the recipe have a similar profit margin to other things you can do to make money. To me, that’s no different then the other multitude of things Anet has done to alter supply/demand of different items without actually creating pure gold in the economy, and it’s a bad thing to permanently ban many loyal players over.

One of my guild members actually LOST money doing the snowflake thing. RNG hates him, so very very much.

Strifey.7215:

1) The chance to get your snowflake back is the same as every other item using a master/mystic kit, which is supposedly .8.

2) The people who made the most got in at the beginning, many people who got banned made very little gold or even lost gold before finding that it wasn’t very profitable on the last day before they fixed the recipe. I know people who were banned on both sides of the spectrum.

2B) The people who made hundreds weren’t any different then the people who made hundreds on many of the other recipes that were introduced through patches. The false information from devs that this was an infinite loop is incorrect, it was an exchange of ‘A’ material for ‘B’ material, it did not create items out of thin air or generate infinite gold, it was actually good for the gold economy to reduce inflation since the only thing it did was take gold out of the economy through kits and TP taxes.

People who got in early on the butter/wood in the mystic forge patch made hundreds, people who converted glacial cores to charged lodestones before they patched the recipe fixed made hundreds, people who bought up T6 mats before the Fractal patch made like 3000% profit margin, the Candy Corn Orichalcum Amulet still only takes 3 ectos instead of 5 which many people used to trade for commendations since it was cheaper to get BL keys that way then through gems. Banning for a recipe that eventually created a market equilibrium that Anet let go for days shows while there have been many other recipes and methods that generated wealth for people through market equilibrium is just shady and is bad precedence. It’s not the same as people “minting” 100s of gold through the chili pepper popper bug, or the obvious 21 karma bug. To ban for this, just leaves a bad taste in many people’s mouths as you can see from all the posts on this forum and reddit, even from people like me who weren’t banned.

1) Great, except you realise the recipe needed only a single snowflake, right? You ever crafted a rare/exotic, salvaged it, and got back every T5/T6 material you used? No? There you go then.

2) Source? While your anectodal evidence is interesting, I don’t put much faith in it. I can link you a post from Anet saying the worst offenders were banned, and that it was a LOT of money earned. If you want it, ask and I’ll go find it.

2b) All debatable unless we know the exact amoutn of money the people banned earned. Again, I’ve seen Anet say it was enough to put the ecomomy at risk. Infact, I’ll go find the post now and edit it in.

Wouldnt mind a comment why one is considered Legitimate and one is considered wrong , from the two examples I posted.

As shown they both use the same method to generate profit.

One of the reasons it bothers me so much is i noticed this on the first day of Wintersday and quite happily chatted away in my guild about it , saying oh its the same as the silk shoulders but people are selling the snowflakes really cheap etc etc . Result 20 guild members banned as yeh ofc they thought oh a decent way to make money on trading post when they could .

Many where old players but some also new people , so they wouldnt have been around for this warning in regards to the “karma” event ( i wasnt either ).

Kuruptz.4782:

Dantos.1065:

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

The number of accounts terminated as a result of this exploitative activity is actually very small—fewer than 200. However, these people are the very worst offenders, and engaged in this exploit to egregious levels—hundreds and even thousands of times. They knew exactly what they were doing and they knew that their activities would damage the economy.

As a reminder, when we dealt with the karma exploit incident in September, we said that we would show some leniency for that particular incident. However, we made it clear that future exploits would be dealt with more firmly. As a result, we have terminated the accounts of the worst offenders in this most recent incident.

As always, if you have an exploit to report, please email exploits@arena.net.

Thank you.

I’m sorry, I do not believe this for one second, my guild alone saw ~10-15 people banned, I seriously doubt that we had ~ 10% of ALL exploiters game wide. We have many members, but a smaller number of very active ones.

As a result of this my guild is now without leadership and according to your support we have no way of making anyone else leader.

Our only recourse, for all the members who did NOT get banned and are players is good standing is to leave our guild, which had all guild options built up, and start all over again.

actully ive seen several in my guild who did this a little and did not get banned

it might be more than 200 i dont know maybe he is saying different number but what i am more sure that they actully banned the ones that profit most

And Every SINGLE Mofo knew about what they were doing and every SINGLE ONE Deserves A BAN RIGHT IN THEIR FACE

While other have it 30232343255r23532253354% harder to get gold

Or buy gold with gems, because manipulating the economy is ok as long as Areanet gets their cut.

This is why I’m starting to not trust the B2P model now, they got your money, now nothing is stopping them from banning you for any little thing, hoping you go out and buy another copy. If you protest, you’ll be called a liar (which some are) and dismissed.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

The number of accounts terminated as a result of this exploitative activity is actually very small—fewer than 200. However, these people are the very worst offenders, and engaged in this exploit to egregious levels—hundreds and even thousands of times. They knew exactly what they were doing and they knew that their activities would damage the economy.

I agree, they knew what they were doing. They were playing a game your team created, crafting an item your team patched in the game and an item your team supposedly tested. And if it’s such an obvious exploit that players were expected to recognise it immediately and see the consequences instantly…why didn’t your team see the same thing? Didn’t your team know what they were doing? You are literally banning the people who thought your team was competent enough to not have missed a bug this obvious and thus assumed it has to be legit. And with this whole thing in mind, how do we, the players, know what is “intended” and whether knowing the game better than your team might get us banned?

TrapjaW.4983:

Wouldnt mind a comment why one is considered Legitimate and one is considered wrong , from the two examples I posted.

As shown they both use the same method to generate profit.

The difference is the “items used vs the items recovered”. With the shoulders, you’re ALWAYS losing 15 tier 5 mats as well as most of the silk and all of the leather. With the jewels, you only lost a few mithril and only ~20% of the time did you lose the snowflake.

The fact that the recipe only took 1 snowflake was an oversight that didn’t match with all other comparable recipes in its tier. That alone should have tipped off that they’d made a mistake.

Is it fair? Maybe not. But if you can honestly look someone in the eye and say that you didn’t realize that converting 80 mithril + 2 snowflakes into 15-30 ectos was an obvious oversight and not an intended mechanism, then I have to question your intelligence. The people who exploited this weren’t naive and didn’t stumble on it. You need to know how the crafting system works and how the market works. If not, then you were mislead by someone who did know and then the only person you can be angry with is the person who told you about it.

Edited to deal with formatting issue ~ Dalmarus

ye.. i feel bad for the moron who buys gems to gold seriously alot more from sites
know i dont wanna defend Anet at all I am usually one that is mad at them but is exploiters really trying to defend themselves? I mean SINCE when of the years of gaming has it been allowed to exploit? in what game am i allowed to exploit? i get a free pass if wow makes a mistake and i make millions of gold and mess up all prices and i say HEY it isnt my fault you put the bug there my friend. Hey i found a bug to Clear whole raid and get realm firsts of everything. Hey its not my FAULT i know what i was doing but its your game that had the bug

i TOTALLY agree about banning worst offenders.

they ALL deserve it, and really, i hope that the affected guild can start over with better people.

everybody was aware of the punishment, then why do it ? it makes you feel smarter ?

whatever.

im 100% on anet s side in this one.

Nope, they deserved the ban.
They knew exactly what they were doing, and took the risk anyway.

This case is no better than hackers on botters, only the feel that it is “ok” because it was overlooked.

Well guess what…

Soul.5947:

1st of all what is your qa team doing? this is the 3rd time you have banned players because of your bad game design.
2nd i don’t get why players have to pay for your mistakes. Do players have no rights in this game?
3rd Next time you add content maybe take your time 2 check for exploits and stop banning players for playing a game you poorly design and do not test.

4th You actually agreed to the Terms and conditions contract at the begin of the game…when registering…do you remember ? oh yeah…that passage wich said NO FRIGGING HACKING , BOTTING OR GLITCHING WILL BE ALLOWED.
Now stop being a wussy and blaming Anet for doing their work, they’re releasing thing MONTHLY…they don’t have the material time to check and double check everything…and since it’s clarely stated that glitching=wrong and may cause bans ppl have no right at all to complain…
It isn’t their mistake…it’s mistake of the glitchers who like being “oh look, i’m so smart, i check the forums waiting for remunerative bugs and make free money out of them kitteno, i won’t get banned for sure…so let’s make like 300 of them !” and then you get banned…it’s a contract, you can’t break it nor can contest it.
Now grow up and have a good day sir.

My question is where did i agree that anet can ban me from the game for their mistakes when i purchased the game ? An exploit is usually considered something hard to find and not something obvious to everyone. This is crafting so excuse me if i don’t consider this an exploit. Btw nice job ruining the holly-days for everyone that got banned.

Dantos.1065:

Kuruptz.4782:

Dantos.1065:

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

The number of accounts terminated as a result of this exploitative activity is actually very small—fewer than 200. However, these people are the very worst offenders, and engaged in this exploit to egregious levels—hundreds and even thousands of times. They knew exactly what they were doing and they knew that their activities would damage the economy.

As a reminder, when we dealt with the karma exploit incident in September, we said that we would show some leniency for that particular incident. However, we made it clear that future exploits would be dealt with more firmly. As a result, we have terminated the accounts of the worst offenders in this most recent incident.

As always, if you have an exploit to report, please email exploits@arena.net.

Thank you.

I’m sorry, I do not believe this for one second, my guild alone saw ~10-15 people banned, I seriously doubt that we had ~ 10% of ALL exploiters game wide. We have many members, but a smaller number of very active ones.

As a result of this my guild is now without leadership and according to your support we have no way of making anyone else leader.

Our only recourse, for all the members who did NOT get banned and are players is good standing is to leave our guild, which had all guild options built up, and start all over again.

actully ive seen several in my guild who did this a little and did not get banned

it might be more than 200 i dont know maybe he is saying different number but what i am more sure that they actully banned the ones that profit most

And Every SINGLE Mofo knew about what they were doing and every SINGLE ONE Deserves A BAN RIGHT IN THEIR FACE

While other have it 30232343255r23532253354% harder to get gold

Or buy gold with gems, because manipulating the economy is ok as long as Areanet gets their cut.

Actually, it’s okay as long as ArenaNet regulates the exchange rates.

It doesnt take much to understand that infinite or near infinite perpetual gold making machines are horrible for the economy. They devalue the gold that others gain legitimately (including through controlled methods such as trading gems for gold at the regulated exchange rate).

Im not debating the validity of permanent bans (the developers have made themselves clear enough on that) – simply pointing out that anyone who does this has to know they are severely inflating the game’s economy for their personal gain. Regardless of your stance on the appropriate punitive action, you cannot debate the fact that this shouldnt be allowed to happen in the game.

There does seem to be a problem with testing in this game. IMO this could have been avoided entirely if there were a PTR. I for one don’t understand why jewelry is the only profession punished for making rares that one can salvage for ectos. The other professions (of which i have 2 maxed) don’t seem to have this problem at ALL. It’s so weird having to get extra ectos to make 5 gems to make 1 jewelry piece and if you try to make rare jewelry you have to have 3 ectos per rare jewelry type.

We need improved jewelry recipes so our rares cost the same as the other professions it’s not right to punish 1 profession.

The permaban thing is a little harsh for this type of behavior imo. Many of these people probably were doing this because like me their account seems to have a permanent all day everyday all across their entire account DR happening where there’s not a drop in sight from open world ventures with or without MF. I wonder how many of those people were regular players trying to get enough gold to get the mats they need to gear their alts in exotics for example which is something I had no trouble doing until Nov 15th.

Thanks for banning the exploiters who knowingly took advantage of this and proceeded to do it 100s of times or more.

Avatar.1923:

i TOTALLY agree about banning worst offenders.

they ALL deserve it, and really, i hope that the affected guild can start over with better people.

everybody was aware of the punishment, then why do it ? it makes you feel smarter ?

whatever.

im 100% on anet s side in this one.

We’ll probably move on to another game, we’ve been together since the days of Age of Conan, been through probably 10+ MMO releases, have active branches in around 4 games atm, we have NEVER had one member banned from any game what I remember.

The ones banned, have been the ones who put the most of themselves, and their time, and yes, even their own money into the community, managing all the guild drama that comes with it, always managing things with a fair and even hand for the most part, creating all the events that we did. I guess this is why I am so passionate about this subject, because my guild being here, and this particular game, for me, was the best possible combination of events, now that most of the most dedicated members are gone (Ive been with them long enough to believe strongly that they did NOT think this was an exploit, call me a fool, i’m sure you will.) the game doesnt have the same draw anymore.

I absolutely LOVE this game, it has everything I want, except my friends to play with anymore. I’m selfish, sure, I think everyone has the right to be a little selfish once in a while, with all the crap that can happen in life.

Omega.1473:

But if you can honestly look someone in the eye and say that you didn’t realize that converting 80 mithril + 2 snowflakes into 15-30 ectos was an obvious oversight and not an intended mechanism, then I have to question your intelligence. The people who exploited this weren’t naive and didn’t stumble on it. You need to know how the crafting system works and how the market works. If not, then you were mislead by someone who did know and then the only person you can be angry with is the person who told you about it.

Isn’t “obvious oversight” a bit…oxymoron-ish? If it’s obvious, how can it be overseen? I think that’s why people are pleading “i didn’t know”. And by questioning the intelligence of those who saw it as intended, you are indirectly questioning the intelligence of the people who created and tested it.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

The number of accounts terminated as a result of this exploitative activity is actually very small—fewer than 200. However, these people are the very worst offenders, and engaged in this exploit to egregious levels—hundreds and even thousands of times. They knew exactly what they were doing and they knew that their activities would damage the economy.

As a reminder, when we dealt with the karma exploit incident in September, we said that we would show some leniency for that particular incident. However, we made it clear that future exploits would be dealt with more firmly. As a result, we have terminated the accounts of the worst offenders in this most recent incident.

As always, if you have an exploit to report, please email exploits@arena.net.

Thank you.

Well done, but please be even stricter in future. All people who exploit boss bugs (eg. making them unable to fight back) frequently should at least get suspensions.

Dantos.1065:

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

The number of accounts terminated as a result of this exploitative activity is actually very small—fewer than 200. However, these people are the very worst offenders, and engaged in this exploit to egregious levels—hundreds and even thousands of times. They knew exactly what they were doing and they knew that their activities would damage the economy.

As a reminder, when we dealt with the karma exploit incident in September, we said that we would show some leniency for that particular incident. However, we made it clear that future exploits would be dealt with more firmly. As a result, we have terminated the accounts of the worst offenders in this most recent incident.

As always, if you have an exploit to report, please email exploits@arena.net.

Thank you.

I’m sorry, I do not believe this for one second, my guild alone saw ~10-15 people banned, I seriously doubt that we had ~ 10% of ALL exploiters game wide. We have many members, but a smaller number of very active ones.

As a result of this my guild is now without leadership and according to your support we have no way of making anyone else leader.

Our only recourse, for all the members who did NOT get banned and are players is good standing is to leave our guild, which had all guild options built up, and start all over again.

Oh wow 10 to 15 people including leader all banned from the same guild..?
For being cheats…
Oh no sorry i mean….
Exploiters..
Oh no wrong again maybe..
Ahh yes Traders/crafters thats right yea ?
Oh dear how sad… never mind..
Like a lot have said you agree to the TOS when you click on the ’’accept’’ button on downloading the game, if you can’t be bothered to read it then hard luck.
It’s there game they make the rules… you play by them or there’s the door cya around don’t bother the rest of us on your way out..
Bye.

Kuruptz.4782:

you knew this was an Exploit there is NO EXCUSES 0 Nada ZERO 0 Not 1 Can be found!

There are excuses. They are just all neutralization tactics used to make the offenders appear to be innocent or to shift blame elsewhere.

There are no legitimate excuses. But that won’t stop people from making Anet out to be the villains.

Dantos.1065:

Ah yes, the WHOLE guild should be penalized for what a few did. How very enlightened of you.

Birds of a feather.

Soul.5947:

actually i havent been playing the game since the lost shores update but i want to stand beside the community on this subject because it’s not the 1st time they have done this and i would like it to be the last. it is not a players fault for bad game design, so if anyone has to be punished it should be their incompetent qa team and not the players.

What you are saying is the equivalent to saying in a crime of opportunity, the criminal is innocent and the victims deserve the consequence because they put themselves in that position. Let that sink in for a bit so you get how totally kittened up the idea is.

Soul.5947:

My question is where did i agree that anet can ban me from the game for their mistakes when i purchased the game ? An exploit is usually considered something hard to find and not something obvious to everyone. This is crafting so excuse me if i don’t consider this an exploit. Btw nice job ruining the holly-days for everyone that got banned.

“An exploit (from the verb to exploit, in the meaning of using something to one’s own advantage) is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or sequence of commands that takes advantage of a bug, glitch or vulnerability in order to cause unintended or unanticipated behaviour to occur on computer software, hardware, or something electronic (usually computerised). Such behavior frequently includes such things as gaining control of a computer system or allowing privilege escalation or a denial-of-service attack.” I do not see where it must be "hard to find "…and after all it kinda was…who would make an accessory to just recycle it afterward, thus finding the bug. Bet not so much ppl found it that way lol.
And yes, you agreed to that in the Terms and Condition contrat right when you registered…that small tick box…with an hyperlink…THAT NO ONE FRIGGIN READ.
They don’t ban you for their mistakes…they ban you for UTTERLY ABUSING they mistake it’s the difference from making 1 item and making 100-2000 of them.
If you still can’t see the flaw in your thought process then, by all means, please don’t start a career as a policeman, politician,judge and lawyer, thanks

Please dont De-rail the thread with wanton attacks on other posters about oh "haha " they got banned, oh they " deserved" it etc . Everyone s going to have a different view on the correct course of action.

I made this thread to highlight that the exact same process could already be done with another crafting recipe ( yes ofc it depends on mats prices which ive managed to get cheap enough for the mats to work out, and sat and made 250 pairs of shoulders ). The problem is a question of profit scale it seems as the input mats wre “to cheap” leading to its a exploit.

TWMagimay.9057:

Isn’t “obvious oversight” a bit…oxymoron-ish? If it’s obvious, how can it be overseen? I think that’s why people are pleading “i didn’t know”. And by questioning the intelligence of those who saw it as intended, you are indirectly questioning the intelligence of the people who created and tested it.

No, its not an oxymoron. I’m sure you’ve made pretty obvious errors at your place of work (or school, as applicable) that have passed multiple levels of inspection before you see the mistake and slap yourself on the forehead.

What you have to realize is that this is a job for ArenaNet’s developers and they had to deal with dozens of new recipes for that update. The crafting team might be a handful of people. Hell, it could be as pathetically small as the class balance team which Peters admitted was only 2 people as of a month ago. Did they make a mistake? Yes, but what 5 specific people didn’t see is painfully obvious for a random 5 in 400,000 people to see.

ArenaNet’s QA is lacking. But that’s no excuse for what the banned players did. They knew exactly what they were doing.

AcidicVision.5498:

Kuruptz.4782:

you knew this was an Exploit there is NO EXCUSES 0 Nada ZERO 0 Not 1 Can be found!

There are excuses. They are just all neutralization tactics used to make the offenders appear to be innocent or to shift blame elsewhere.

There are no legitimate excuses. But that won’t stop people from making Anet out to be the villains.

Dantos.1065:

Ah yes, the WHOLE guild should be penalized for what a few did. How very enlightened of you.

Birds of a feather.

I guess I should start asking here as well, see if any of you can come up with a good enough answer.

You honestly believe that exploiting is inexcusable, players’ fault and deserves a perma ban, right? So how about this list:
- Hitting the last seal in fotm with a character skill
- Standing in the safe spot in Arah p3
- Jumping the dredge fractal
- Using EA prior to the fix
- Using stealth in WvWvW to cause perma invisibility due to culling
- Taking shortcut in a JP(from a stone in the middle to special skills that blink you through holes)
- Using a mesmer portal in a JP
- Pulling the champ karka to where it gets “stuck” to pick the ori node safely
- Using various skills to go through walls(WvWvW and dungeons in particular)
Do I have to go on or are you already in the list of people you want to see banned?

Omega.1473:

No, its not an oxymoron. I’m sure you’ve made pretty obvious errors at your place of work (or school, as applicable) that have passed multiple levels of inspection before you see the mistake and slap yourself on the forehead.

What you have to realize is that this is a job for ArenaNet’s developers and they had to deal with dozens of new recipes for that update. The crafting team might be a handful of people. Hell, it could be as pathetically small as the class balance team which Peters admitted was only 2 people as of a month ago. Did they make a mistake? Yes, but what 5 specific people didn’t see is painfully obvious for a random 5 in 400,000 people to see.

ArenaNet’s QA is lacking. But that’s no excuse for what the banned players did. They knew exactly what they were doing.

Actually…no. I have never made an obvious mistake. Neither in school, nor in the uni nor at work. Because, guess what, I’m actually good at what I do. I’m a translator btw. I’ve had to translate hundreds of pages over short periods of time. Once I’m done with the first draft, I’d carefully go over it again to make sure I didn’t screw up. Then I’d submit it for proofreading where smb else makes sure I didn’t screw u. And if the clients were to find a mistake, we wouldn;t ban them from the company. Actually, we’d take full responsibility and compensate them. Because it’s our mistake. We delivered a flawed product. And when we have a severe deadline(one time had to translate a 400 page book in 2 days), we hire extra people for it.

Yes, that I agree with. People knew what they were doing. They were playing a game made by a competent team that knows what they are doing and doesn’t casually let obvious bugs slip through the cracks. Obviously, they were wrong to put their trust in the GW2 team.

TrapjaW.4983:

Please dont De-rail the thread with wanton attacks on other posters about oh "haha " they got banned, oh they " deserved" it etc . Everyone s going to have a different view on the correct course of action.

I made this thread to highlight that the exact same process could already be done with another crafting recipe ( yes ofc it depends on mats prices which ive managed to get cheap enough for the mats to work out, and sat and made 250 pairs of shoulders ). The problem is a question of profit scale it seems as the input mats wre “to cheap” leading to its a exploit.

The problem you “hightlighted” is missing the most important and vital point…that they were BUGGED…after crafting the core jewerl and making the effective jewel…you could recycle it…and…you got the ectos…the mithril…and the already made core part!
That where the bug reside…with the core part back…you just needed to add another hook and ta-da ! another earring ready to recycle…plus ectos ofc…repeat 1000 times → illecit profit.
And THATS why they banned ppl…not for recycling items for ectos…i did that and still do it, and i’m totally fine.
Glitchers and pro- glitching players are just mad they got banned and want to discharge all the fault to Anet for making mistakes (wich is quite understandable since everyone like the monthly patches , but do not like the bugs it may cause since they have no time to test them)

Power.2957:

And the saga continues…

I’ll never stop beating myself up for not screenshotting the dev I asked in game about the snowflake recipe who responded “get it while it’s hot.”

http://i.imgur.com/0SICA.jpg

Something similar.

I’m sorry, but I do not understand this…

There was a recipe that you could salvage to get ectos…and you could do it multiple times. Am I the only one that understands why people might not see that as an exploit? Is it the player’s fault that a recipe drops the wrong stuff. And does that really deserve a permenent, irrevocable ban?

And on a related note, is buying materials, making a rune and selling it for more an exploit? Can I get banned for selling 50+ runes a day? Because that’s basically the same thing. I’m making money that’s essentially free money for me by crafting and selling stuff in bulk.

Is making the troll fight Kohler an exploit? Can I get banned for that?

Seriously, should I just block my account myself? Because from what I’m reading, I could get permanently banned for just about anything any minute now…and it may very well be that I didn’t even know that what I was doing was actually wrong. Because nobody’s gone tell me in advance that something is an exploit…only afterwards.

Maybe they should just make an announcement if you make money in the game you are exploiting and will get banned. The game is designed so you can’t make money and need 2 buy gems.

Braghez.7529:

TrapjaW.4983:

Please dont De-rail the thread with wanton attacks on other posters about oh "haha " they got banned, oh they " deserved" it etc . Everyone s going to have a different view on the correct course of action.

I made this thread to highlight that the exact same process could already be done with another crafting recipe ( yes ofc it depends on mats prices which ive managed to get cheap enough for the mats to work out, and sat and made 250 pairs of shoulders ). The problem is a question of profit scale it seems as the input mats wre “to cheap” leading to its a exploit.

The problem you “hightlighted” is missing the most important and vital point…that they were BUGGED…after crafting the core jewerl and making the effective jewel…you could recycle it…and…you got the ectos…the mithril…and the already made core part!
That where the bug reside…with the core part back…you just needed to add another hook and ta-da ! another earring ready to recycle…plus ectos ofc…repeat 1000 times -> illecit profit.
And THATS why they banned ppl…not for recycling items for ectos…i did that and still do it, and i’m totally fine.
Glitchers and pro- glitching players are just mad they got banned and want to discharge all the fault to Anet for making mistakes (wich is quite understandable since everyone like the monthly patches , but do not like the bugs it may cause since they have no time to test them)

Ok think we gonna have to disagree on this as the process for it is still the same which ever recipe your using . At no point is there a ever perpetuating cycle , you are always inputting new materials of some sort onto each craft and obtaining Ectoplasms ( dont get me wrong the wintersday stuff mats is way cheaper, well at least at start ).

And saying the recipe is “bugged” well dont think you can say its bugged it produced the same effect as other recipes , so that might not be the right word.
While i will agree that it was advantageous over other recipes and yes poorly designed when released since it used a core mechanic of the game crafting/salvaging it dont think you can scream oh its a “Exploit” as clearly as people would like to say.
Yes it gave people advantage on money making but thats exactly what trading post manipulators use the TP for everyday.

TWMagimay.9057:

You honestly believe that exploiting is inexcusable, players’ fault and deserves a perma ban, right? So how about this list:
- Hitting the last seal in fotm with a character skill
- Standing in the safe spot in Arah p3
- Jumping the dredge fractal
- Using EA prior to the fix
- Using stealth in WvWvW to cause perma invisibility due to culling
- Taking shortcut in a JP(from a stone in the middle to special skills that blink you through holes)
- Using a mesmer portal in a JP
- Pulling the champ karka to where it gets “stuck” to pick the ori node safely
- Using various skills to go through walls(WvWvW and dungeons in particular)
Do I have to go on or are you already in the list of people you want to see banned?

oh goody, lets get started…

1.) saves maybe 15 seconds on the entire run, does not detrimentally effect the entire economy and every player in the game.

2.) actually takes longer to complete because you are stationary and limited, but saves you a few respawns, does not detrimentally effect the entire economy and every player in the game.

3.) saves the party a few minutes on the run at the cost of drops from the trash, does not detrimentally effect the entire economy and every player in the game.

4.) I am not positive what EA stands for here, but ill just make a wild assumption and (correct me if I am wrong), does not detrimentally effect the entire economy and every player in the game.

5.) Using class mechanics and utilities that are a core part of the profession and build with no control over if you will cull out or not or even knowledge of when you or opponents are culled is not an intentional exploit annnnnnnnnd does not detrimentally effect the entire economy and every player in the game.

6.) Mesmer portals in jumping puzzles are creative problem solving. Working as intended. I’m surprised more Mesmers don’t sell portals. JP rewards are lackluster, done mainly for the achievement and challenge, if you decide to cheat your way out of that, then whatever buuuuuuut it does not detrimentally effect the entire economy and every player in the game.

7.) Saves a few minutes, can be done with portals, or shadow refuge, or stuns and haste. Most people just let someone kite it around while everyone else mines anyways. Pathfinding bug that will likely be fixed, but the ori is still obtainable in the same amount of time and thusly does not detrimentally effect the entire economy and every player in the game.

8.) I know someone personally that was banned for being a kitten-head and exploiting wall glitches in WvW. So that happens already and is sort of moot. And even though that sucks….does not detrimentally effect the entire economy and every player in the game.

That’s was fun. We can do more if you want.

TWMagimay.9057:

AcidicVision.5498:

Kuruptz.4782:

you knew this was an Exploit there is NO EXCUSES 0 Nada ZERO 0 Not 1 Can be found!

There are excuses. They are just all neutralization tactics used to make the offenders appear to be innocent or to shift blame elsewhere.

There are no legitimate excuses. But that won’t stop people from making Anet out to be the villains.

Dantos.1065:

Ah yes, the WHOLE guild should be penalized for what a few did. How very enlightened of you.

Birds of a feather.

I guess I should start asking here as well, see if any of you can come up with a good enough answer.

You honestly believe that exploiting is inexcusable, players’ fault and deserves a perma ban, right? So how about this list:
- Hitting the last seal in fotm with a character skill
- Standing in the safe spot in Arah p3
- Jumping the dredge fractal
- Using EA prior to the fix
- Using stealth in WvWvW to cause perma invisibility due to culling
- Taking shortcut in a JP(from a stone in the middle to special skills that blink you through holes)
- Using a mesmer portal in a JP
- Pulling the champ karka to where it gets “stuck” to pick the ori node safely
- Using various skills to go through walls(WvWvW and dungeons in particular)
Do I have to go on or are you already in the list of people you want to see banned?

-It’s a minor glitch, still a glitch, but they do not want to ban ppl for it since it’s not “game-breaking”
-The safe spot is good if it’s reachable by normal means.
- Any place you shouldn’t go /pass/ etc etc to make the dungeon faster (running not included, since you simply run the lose aggro, passing trough walls, on edges etc yes)
-Taking shortcuts in JP is fair as long as you don’t glitch the textures etc…even the mesmer portal is, since they’re just using mechanics and skills of the class, not all are able to do it, nor influence the game.
- They’re trying to fix that matter about the perma inv since ppl is arguing about it…not that easy since you have to fix it without breaking the stealth mechanic (i would simply add the cooldown even if you don’t hit anyone of put that, like in many other pve missions, you can cap a point anyway with a superior number of ppl in the circle)
-Don’t know about the karka if it’s fair or not, still not game-breaking enough to be worthy of a ban

Kuruptz.4782:

( he obv said cant talk about it cause he didnt know but he shouldve known )

I thought this exploit was so obvious and egregious that everyone knew it straight off.

Awesome.6120:

Kuruptz.4782:

( he obv said cant talk about it cause he didnt know but he shouldve known )

I thought this exploit was so obvious and egregious that everyone knew it straight off.

i said he shouldve known read

i agree the one in SS if he got banned he shouldnt

the other BAN them AGAIN just to make sure they got the message

( there is small chance some ppl got banned not knowing that is a exploit BUT its VERY little and they made very much money of it dont know how to fix this one ) BUT THE Majority oh hell no dont even try i am 99% sure the majority knew this was an exploit

System AINT PERFECT!

@Kuruptz, you should consider wiping your last few posts. You are starting to get rage-y and sound irrational. I could also see your typing degrading with your patience and its making it hard to read.

You may end up regretting them later, so friendly advice…delete them before they get quoted all over the place.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

The number of accounts terminated as a result of this exploitative activity is actually very small—fewer than 200. However, these people are the very worst offenders, and engaged in this exploit to egregious levels—hundreds and even thousands of times. They knew exactly what they were doing and they knew that their activities would damage the economy.

As a reminder, when we dealt with the karma exploit incident in September, we said that we would show some leniency for that particular incident. However, we made it clear that future exploits would be dealt with more firmly. As a result, we have terminated the accounts of the worst offenders in this most recent incident.

As always, if you have an exploit to report, please email exploits@arena.net.

Thank you.

Say that as many times as you want. However, this is the reason I am sad I got gems for Christmas.

Kuruptz.4782:

there is small chance some ppl got banned not knowing that is a exploit but I’m 99% sure the majority knew this was an exploit

To be honest, I still don’t get why this is considered such an obvious exploit.

If you’d have a 100% chance to get your materials back + ectos, then yes, I’d agree it’s obviously an exploit.

But a 90% chance still means there’s a good chance at a failure…so I honestly don’t get why it should be an offense worthy of perma bans? Why not simply remove the items, give a warning, maybe a temporary block and be done with it?

Why must players suffer the loss of their account simply because Anet made a mistake? Just so everyone can see how tough they are as a gaming company?

Euler.3259:

Say that as many times as you want. However, this is the reason I am sad I got gems for Christmas.

Looks like you got…gembal locked. Buh-dum-tish

(I really hope you are a math guy that can appreciate that, or it will be totally lost)

So, from your answers….you are all exploiters. You also think it’s perfectly ok, because it’s “not a big deal”. What happened to that ToS you were talking about? Because it doesn’t say “huge game changing exploits”. It says “exploits”. Period. And you agreed to it, didn’t you? And then you keep saying how exploits are inexcusable, yet there are a few posts excusing exploits. How does that work? You should pick a story and stick to it instead of changing it the second you realise you are also guilty of the crime and then coming up with lame excuses for your own actions while dismissing the excuses of others for theirs. There is a reason a lot of games don’t have a ban policy when it comes to exploiting.

I find it funny that so many people are immediately leaping to the conclusion that ANYONE who used this recipe MUST have known it was an exploit. There’s this tacit assumption that the activity was undertaken purely out of malice, with an aim toward destroying the economy.

Let me offer you a different view.

First, Dantos (who is in this thread) and I are in the same guild. Several of our leadership (including the guild lead) were banned for this crafting incident. Did they exploit this recipe because we are a gaming community full of hackers and cheaters?

No. It’s because we’re a gaming community of casual players.

You see, we don’t play hard enough to get rich. We’re adults, we have jobs and lives; we can’t spend 10 hours a day playing the market. Out of our ~240 members only two of us have Legendary weapons; I’m one of them, and I only have it because most of the guild helped me get the items needed.

When our ONE genuinely skilled market player mentioned this recipe, we discussed it on Mumble. Was it an exploit? It didn’t seem so; it was a crafting recipe, for god’s sake. How could the design team have screwed up something so fundamentally obvious as that? We decided that it was probably a subtle attempt by ANet to deflate the skyrocketing Ectoplasm market; increase supply, decrease cost. (Much like they did with precursors and the Karka event.)

So many of my guildies jumped on this because it was a way to get things like ascended backpacks or legendary pre-reqs that they – as casual players – might never see.

When we learned about the ban, our members were horrified. We genuinely did not know this was an exploit; it had been around for DAYS. There was a POST about it right on these forums! Several of our banned members sent support tickets offering to have their characters rolled back, their gear trashed; whatever. This was not out of shame at “getting caught” – this was genuine regret for the misunderstanding.

What is worse is that ArenaNet’s technical incompetence has cost us our guild. Because our guild leader was banned, and because they have no way to move leadership to a new person we have had our head cut off. We cannot manage our guild properly, so we are forced to continue in a broken guild, or lose our name and influence. That is – in effect – punishing every single member for the actions of a few.

Lastly, I’m sure that a lot of you are eager to assume my guild is full of scummy hackers and exploiters. I’d just like to include an attachment here, which I just screenshotted from our community website. We have what we call the “Ten Commandments” of our community, which are the rules we expect all members to follow or be removed. Feel free to read #1, and tell me you still think their motivation for using this recipe was malice.

Truth is, this was sloppy coding on ANet’s part, followed by a gross overreaction. I understand and fully support their stance against exploiting, as does my gaming community. But this? This was poorly executed, and their doubling down on their stance by labeling my fellow gamers – most of whom are working professionals with families – “economic terrorists” is insulting, childish, and stupid.

logging in to make comments on this one.

This exploits is very different than flipping mats in TP.

By flipping stuff in TP(in stablized market), u dont make money out of thin air, u r simply taking money from other players, u gain from the other player, and whoever sold the stuff to u, lose money, therefore, no massive incoming or outgoing in the entire economy. Although u r ripping off other fellow players, the money flows around players, economy is stable. i.e. buying a lobster near coast and sell it at central.

before the exploit, there was a constant cost and gain of ecto in the market, keeping it at 33 silver.
By converting 80 mithril + 2 snowflakes into 15-30 ectos in the forge, u r not gaining from players, u r gaining from the system, so out of nowhere lots and lots of ecto flows into the market while the total coin in the system remains the same, it will cause ecto price drop and ecto related things like rares. its like changing metal into gold using ur newly developped alchemy, will make u rich but will also drive the economy down.

yes it is a design flaw and yes its anet’s fault to have this flaw but it is each individual’s fault who used this flaw and drove it to a certain degree that can “put the economy at risk”.

First we got acid

Who is trying to Defend exploiting who is trying to teach us

Exploiting is OK!

Why must player suffer?`
its Anet Mistake?

Yes its Anets Mistake no doubt but why exploit something like that mess up the economy for the other people who are playing the game

it affects everyone

as i said which game allows anyone to go free with hundreds of gold?

blizzard? they would say Heyyyy.. those poeple made 1000k gold but its ok i accidently made that bug happen its not his fault

some poeple made 100+gold of this

Awesome.6120:

Power.2957:

And the saga continues…

I’ll never stop beating myself up for not screenshotting the dev I asked in game about the snowflake recipe who responded “get it while it’s hot.”

http://i.imgur.com/0SICA.jpg

Something similar.

OUCH so does any one know if General Thevious was one of the ones banned?

Pity your question was so general though:

Q:Do you know the recipe
A: Sure making some

not

Q:Have you heard of how making 50 snowflake earrings and breaking them gives you 150 ectos is this an exploit?

Would have given you a better stance.

Valmarius.4150:

1) Great, except you realise the recipe needed only a single snowflake, right? You ever crafted a rare/exotic, salvaged it, and got back every T5/T6 material you used? No? There you go then.

2) Source? While your anectodal evidence is interesting, I don’t put much faith in it. I can link you a post from Anet saying the worst offenders were banned, and that it was a LOT of money earned. If you want it, ask and I’ll go find it.

2b) All debatable unless we know the exact amoutn of money the people banned earned. Again, I’ve seen Anet say it was enough to put the ecomomy at risk. Infact, I’ll go find the post now and edit it in.

1) Except you don’t get back every mat and the market eventually corrected itself just like every other recipe.

What you get (expected value): .9 Ectos, .8 of your jewel, 1-3 mithril.
What you lose (expected value): .2 of your jewel, 5-7 mithril, 60 copper.

So every 10 crafts, on average you would gain 9 ectos and say 20 mithril ore
Every 10 crafts, you would lose 2 ectos/snowflakes, and 80 ore.

So net 10 crafts, you would gain 7 ectos at the cost of 60 ore and 2 snowflakes. At the beginning, obviously people were making alot of gold (not out of thin air, but through the market which actually takes gold out of the economy through taxes and salvage kits) just like many other recipes that have been added to the game since release. As prices reached equilibrium, ectos dropped in price, and mithril and snowflakes rose, until you hit the ~3s per craft expected value which is similar to other things you can craft ingame. By the time Anet fixed the recipe, the market had already adjusted based on supply/demand, and I personally know one person who was banned who made maybe 5-10g because they tried a couple hundred crafts but found the profit wasn’t worth their time.

2) From knowing people who got banned and from all the threads on reddit, it’s obvious that they banned for amount of crafts, not amount of gold made. I know one person who made a couple hundred gold who got banned because they got in early, but I know someone who was banned who hardly made any because the market adjusted itself. Like I said, I personally did it about 50 times (not getting banned) but found it wasn’t even worth the time by the time I found out about it.

If Anet thought this was game breaking, they should have done something sooner. They let the recipe last 4 days, during that time there were threads on both the official forums and reddit. Naturally, some of the most loyal players are ones who are active on message boards, and got banned because of Anet’s inability to both test their content, and then quickly correct it when something went mainstream, even after countless threads were up for at least 2 days before their correction.

In many people’s eyes, how are they to know a recipe which exchanges mats for different mats through supply/demand is an exploit after it was up for 4 days and already had alot of advertisement throughout the community without the devs taking action?

I don’t see it being any different then things like the butter/wood mystic forge to reduce supply, Candy Corn Orich Amulet only costing 3 ectos to craft and people using hundreds of them to trade for commendations to get cheaper BL keys, or the many recipes Anet has added that has drastically changed the market supply/demand making many people much more rich for much less work then crafting and salvaging for hours. This also came at a time when people were complaining about the high ecto cost of ascended gear, when ectos rose from 25s up to as high as 38s.

The person I know who was banned who made ~200g crafted for over 10 hours, which isn’t completely unreasonable compared to other market strategies to make money. It’s not like they were minting gold out of thin air, they were taking advantage of supply/demand just like people do everyday.

Overall it just sets a bad precedence and really ruins moral of many of the other players as well, because it wasn’t a blatantly obvious exploit and it affected many active community members because it was allowed to go for so long, with no comment, and with large threads on the biggest community websites.

ThiBash.5634:

Kuruptz.4782:

there is small chance some ppl got banned not knowing that is a exploit but I’m 99% sure the majority knew this was an exploit

To be honest, I still don’t get why this is considered such an obvious exploit.

If you’d have a 100% chance to get your materials back + ectos, then yes, I’d agree it’s obviously an exploit.

But a 90% chance still means there’s a good chance at a failure…so I honestly don’t get why it should be an offense worthy of perma bans? Why not simply remove the items, give a warning, maybe a temporary block and be done with it?

Why must players suffer the loss of their account simply because Anet made a mistake? Just so everyone can see how tough they are as a gaming company?

Yes I feel Anet are using this as a example to show " how tough they are as a gaming company". Its a deterrent strategy to highlight how hard they will come down on people when they feel something is wrong.

I think its a bad incident to do it on as it isnt not as clear cut as most “exploits” due to the reasons i posted in the original post ( if you can remember the original post after its been derailed onto tangents a million times :P ).

Edited for spelling

cargan.5689:

OUCH so does any one know if General Thevious was one of the ones banned?

Pity your question was so general though:

Q:Do you know the recipe
A: Sure making some

not

Q:Have you heard of how making 50 snowflake earrings and breaking them gives you 150 ectos is this an exploit?

Would have given you a better stance.

I would just like to clarify that the screenshot was not taken by me. I think it’s from reddit.

wait if this one is so Equally as everything else people claim its
Why the hell do you even use it?

if you notice a recipe who gives ALOT of gold the only one rather than anything else dont you get suspicous?

ppl though yep this recipe anet gave us this one so we can make 200+ gold endless?

TWMagimay.9057:

So, from your answers….you are all exploiters. You also think it’s perfectly ok, because it’s “not a big deal”. What happened to that ToS you were talking about? Because it doesn’t say “huge game changing exploits”. It says “exploits”. Period. And you agreed to it, didn’t you? And then you keep saying how exploits are inexcusable, yet there are a few posts excusing exploits. How does that work? You should pick a story and stick to it instead of changing it the second you realise you are also guilty of the crime and then coming up with lame excuses for your own actions while dismissing the excuses of others for theirs. There is a reason a lot of games don’t have a ban policy when it comes to exploiting.

There are various degrees to exploitation. Does every crime get you life in prison? Does every write up at work get you fired and unhirable? Every infraction in school get you expelled? Get real dude.

It comes down to this:
(b) If You violate the Rules of Conduct, then NCsoft may, in its sole and absolute discretion, terminate Your Account under Section 3(b)

Their discretion doesn’t mean its for you or me to decide. It means its for them to decide. And they made the decision that breaching the code of conduct on such a level that it could impact the entire game was a ban worthy offense.

You agreed to it by playing the game. You agreed to it by using these forums. If you disagree with it now, then Im all for your account actually being reset so you have to agree to it again if you want to continue playing or participating in the community. If you don’t agree with the ToS and CoC I honestly don’t see any business for you to be here.