The Tale of Two Jewellry Recipes...
I find that hard to believe.
They would have been stupid to do that thinking it wasn’t an exploit, and clueless if they only did it a couple dozen times.
Were it the later, they may still be playing tonight.
They were neither stupid nor clueless. Maybe I’m wrong! Maybe they were stupid? Anythings possible.
I tend to think pro traders are a bit more savvy then that myself. Feel free to argue the negative all you want.
It’s been argued for the last several pages, including where I admitted that I knew about this problem and didn’t know it would be classified as an exploit, as well as the part where it explains why a “pro trader” would have a different perspective.
It’s all right here in this thread, if you’re curious.
All I know is that now I’m afraid of being banned for completely unknown reasons.
This guy summarizes all perfectly. Im now scared to do something that will marked as exploit and get a perma ban for that…
All I know is that now I’m afraid of being banned for completely unknown reasons.
This guy summarizes all perfectly. Im now scared to do something that will marked as exploit and get a perma ban for that…
Follow this rule,then you will be fine.
“Thou shall not make a profit – that is what the Gem store is for”
I find that hard to believe.
They would have been stupid to do that thinking it wasn’t an exploit, and clueless if they only did it a couple dozen times.
Were it the later, they may still be playing tonight.
They were neither stupid nor clueless. Maybe I’m wrong! Maybe they were stupid? Anythings possible.
I tend to think pro traders are a bit more savvy then that myself. Feel free to argue the negative all you want.
And how do you feel about the dev team and the QA team? Especially the QA team. Are they stupid or clueless in your opinion?
Most game companies have this policy: It’s not a bannable exploit until we say it is. Because that’s the fair, reasonable, responsible-for-own-mistakes stance. Removing the gain? Yes. Banning? Never.
ok so someone help a cluless folk like me…
You mean to tell me, when you salvage the wintersday ring with a master salvage kit, you have a 80% chance of retaining the ecto. On top of that you have a chance to get an extra 0-3 ecto?
Let me preface this by saying the following:
I salvaged 175-200 (if my count is right, exactly 184) of the Mithril Snowflake rares for ectos during the course of this Wintersday event and created ecto.
I was not banned for it, nor did they want to ban me for it after I brought it to their attention by ticket because it did not cross into the bannable levels. I consider myself lucky in some ways, but in others I don’t. I lost one of my best friends in-game to this exploit, to a difference of only 75 or so salvages, and this is my post explaining the tale. Having said my piece to ANet about it, and talked to some members of the team personally, I understand their stance, despite not agreeing with it. I want to share my experience with this exploit with you all, so that you can understand that you do not have to be stupid to not realize this was an exploit, you do not have to be malicious in your intent to use this recipe repeatedly, and that this could have happened to anyone.
—
There is a lot of grey area with this exploit that I will cover first. In the game, currently, and noted as not an exploit, there are many ways to create 0-3 ecto out of 0 ecto. This is a typical way of obtaining ectos in the game. Examples include the rares generated through Tailoring, Leatherworking, and Armorsmithing. Along with the Wintersday patch, which is the patch that introduced this exploit, Regina made this post in the news, which discussed a lot of changes to the cost of Ascended items, which, mind, cost a metric boatload of ecto. Now while there is no mention of a new recipe that specifically makes ecto less rare, ANet has set the precedent in the past repeatedly that recipes are meant to be discovered, and are nearly never given out to the public except in rare cases (like the Mystic Chest recipe).
Thus, I make the argument that it is not at all unreasonable for someone to make the connection that “this is ANet’s intentional attempt to make ectoplasm cheaper”. By the time I had personally seen this recipe and what it could do, there were countless posts about it on Reddit and on the forums, no indication by anyone that it was an exploit, and the market had completely balanced around the change. I said to myself that “Finally I can afford to get my Mystic Clovers!” The reduced price of ecto was a godsend, and I had so many Black Lion Salvage Kits that I was never going to use that it was wonderful. I actually thanked ANet in LA and was genuinely really happy with their patch and what could be done with it.
Flash forward a day, and I find out that it was an exploit based on John Smith’s post here. I was terrified! I had no idea what to do, since the deed had already been done. I felt terrible, and although it seemed totally fine to me before because it had been in the game for so many days, I wished I hadn’t done it. I said I’d be more careful in the future.
I do not like being labeled as a cheat, or a fraud, or as actively engaging in wanton and willful destruction of the economy. I did this because I was excited, I thought it was fair because the market had balanced and everything seemed fine, and because at the time the costs balanced out the rewards unless you were really lucky (which I’m not); I have been in good standing with ANet for ~7.5 years, and the only reason I even make mention of that is because I never actively seek to abuse economy-based exploits or things like that.
I don’t think my friend should be banned, but I can’t argue that point with ArenaNet. I can only hope that they reconsider their very harsh stance for an exploit hardly of the same magnitude of the karma weapon exploit of olde. Perhaps they shouldn’t ban people in the hundreds, only the thousands. How do they decide the cutoff between people like me and those inflicting wanton destruction on the economy? The difference for me was 75 salvages. If I had 3 more Black Lion Salvage Kits taking up space in my inventory, I’d be on the other side of the fence right now, banned with no remorse and no appeal. Hopefully they’ll reconsider some of the bans that happened here, and work out a system to better prevent people like me and my friend from getting caught up in the storm.
[VZ] Valor Zeal – Stormbluff Isle – Looking for steady, casual-friendly NA raiders!
And how do you feel about the dev team and the QA team? Especially the QA team. Are they stupid or clueless in your opinion?
Nah, they’re still in the game. The exploiters aren’t. Who won that battle of wills? Who lost all that time they’re never gonna get back?
It’s human to make mistakes developing something as complex as content for a game.
If you’re a coder or dev in something and make a mistake, you don’t deserve to be crucified for it by your users. Out of a million+, 200 bad apples isn’t too shabby.
As the poster above me (Rising Dusk.2408) points out, there were likely very many more then that having fell into a gray area they determined “not actively trying to milk this/ruin the economy” that they let slide.
So there’s your mercy.
They’re pretty generous with it overall. You don’t do this hundreds/thousands of times and sit there feigning ignorance thinking you’re fooling anyone.
It’s immoral of the user to exploit said mistakes for gain. On the backs of other users no less.
Anets game. They have the authority to act on these things. They did. Game set and match. Checkmate.
Crash course in personal responsibility.
Blaming the system for your own behavior isn’t always going to fly, nor should you ever expect it to work that way.
Are you a moral person? You should be honest and think for yourself instead. Common sense: not so common anymore…
There is nothing that would even possibly convince you that this was ignorance rather than malice, is there?
There is nothing that would even possibly convince you that this was ignorance rather than malice, is there?
Do you have anything else to add that hasn’t already been said?
Folks are just mad that Anet isn’t going to give them a do over. They don’t owe them that. They didn’t owe the karma abusers that.
The abusers struck out this round. I’m sorry.
That is not what is going on here. Read my posts. I abused nothing; I’m in the clear here as far as ArenaNet is concerned. It sounds like you came to this thread assuming you understood others motivations and didn’t let pesky things like “people saying the exact opposite” get in the way of that.
While I suppose you have that right, there is absolutely more going on in this thread than abusers complaining about their fate.
I’m going to reinforce a point I’ve seen mentioned here already:
Most of you (including customer support, the community manager, and most of ANet’s staff) are using the word “exploit” incorrectly. An “exploit” is taking advantage of game mechanics in a way clearly never intended by the game design, like bugging out a boss, using terrain to access areas you shouldn’t, or otherwise using features in a way that’s obviously unintended.
What happened with this crafting recipe was NOT an “exploit”. It is not an “exploit” to use a system in exactly the way it is intended to be used.
A lot of people keep saying “they should have known better”. Why? Why should ANYONE have known better? Because it was too profitable? When is a recipe “too profitable” enough to arouse suspicion?
There is neither a fixed ratio of value across all crafts, nor a tacit statement from ArenaNet that all crafting at a given tier will ALWAYS have the same value or rate of return. If you see something as complex as a recipe in the game, why would you even pause to wonder if it’s “right” to use it? It’s a recipe – someone had to have written, coded, and tested it before deployment, right? Right?
People say: “exploiters” obviously knew it was ‘different’, because they made 1000’s of the items. Of course they did. Welcome to capitalism. You see an opportunity to make money – you jump on it. That’s how market economies work; you profit early on before everyone else figures out how it works. And sure enough – within a day or so this recipe was no longer significantly profitable, and its use dropped off.
The only people who should have been “punished” in this laughably draconian debacle is the ArenaNet QA team. Feel free to use their Christmas bonuses to pay back all of the refunds you’re already starting to dangle in front of the “only 200” people you banned for “economic terrorism”. Or maybe use that money to develop better customer support systems, like itemized rollbacks to counteract the unintended consequences of shoddy programming.
That is not what is going on here. Read my posts. I abused nothing; I’m in the clear here as far as ArenaNet is concerned. It sounds like you came to this thread assuming you understood others motivations and didn’t let pesky things like “people saying the exact opposite” get in the way of that.
While I suppose you have that right, there is absolutely more going on in this thread than abusers complaining about their fate.
Awful lot of passion for folks that supposedly don’t have any skin in this fiasco. I’m sorry if you had friends or guild mates banned.
… or otherwise using features in a way that’s obviously unintended.
See, you hang yourself with this bit. It was quite obvious given the whole fiasco and the number of folks. It’s all documented here and on Reddit.
Anet wasn’t quiet about it.
You could have even done it several times or so ‘just to be sure’ and probably slide by. Those that were banned did it in the hundreds/thousands. That’s how the hammer fell.
Awful lot of passion for folks that supposedly don’t have any skin in this fiasco. I’m sorry if you had friends or guild mates banned.
I do know some people who were banned, so I guess I do feel bad for them, but my primary concern isn’t for them. Rather, I’m more worried about myself. I’m sure they can take care of themselves with appeals and whatever else they do—they’re adults, they know how to handle situations. My concern is that I knew what they were doing and didn’t spot an exploit in there, for the reasons I explained earlier in this thread. I had a front-row seat and now I’m worried for myself. I think I’m seeing the situation more clearly than most people had the opportunity/misfortune of experiencing, and the picture isn’t nearly as good from here.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that you heard about this and believed it was a clear exploit—and not unrelated to that, I’m going to suppose that you do not focus your gameplay primarily on the game’s economy and trading post. Again, this only looks simple from the wrong side of dunn-kruger’s experiments. The people who have the most experience in this situation are also the most confused, while people who have only superficial contact with the system believe they have the answers. That’s a huge warning sign right there, whether or not people see it today.
I suppose we’ll know who was right in a few months, when the dust has truly settled and the precedent set here has been put to the test by another situation.
Nah, they’re still in the game. The exploiters aren’t. Who won that battle of wills? Who lost all that time they’re never gonna get back?
It’s human to make mistakes developing something as complex as content for a game.
If you’re a coder or dev in something and make a mistake, you don’t deserve to be crucified for it by your users. Out of a million+, 200 bad apples isn’t too shabby.
Normal people get to pay for their mistakes. ANet is literally pushing the blame onto the players without taking any responsibly for it. If I were to make a mistake like the one their QA team made, I’d be fired. Instantly. Human or not, most people get paid to do their job right. Not to pretend they are working and screw up things in the process.
So there’s your mercy.
They’re pretty generous with it overall. You don’t do this hundreds/thousands of times and sit there feigning ignorance thinking you’re fooling anyone.
Oh, darn, they are so generous, showing mercy for their own mistake… How about I sell you a broken TV and then show you mercy by not banning you from the store and allowing you to buy more of my broken items. How would you feel bout that?
Anets game. They have the authority to act on these things. They did. Game set and match. Checkmate.
Yes, and dictators also had the authority to kill people for no apparent reason. Doesn’t make it right though…
Crash course in personal responsibility.
That’s hilarious. Especially since ANet showed 0 responsibility. Nada. Gar nicht.
Blaming the system for your own behavior isn’t always going to fly, nor should you ever expect it to work that way.
When it’s the system’s fault, I do expect it to fly and work that way. That’s what happens to me every time I return damaged goods to the store. Heck, I even got reimbursed for a laptop after I personally dropped it on the floor and broke the hd.
Are you a moral person? You should be honest and think for yourself instead. Common sense: not so common anymore…
I do think for myself. I’m currently thinking about how they can ban at wimp for anything and it can hit anybody. Common sense has nothing to do with it. This whole issue is about costumer care and ANet showed 0 of that as well.
I’m sure anyone who does it thousands of times and is earning significant amount of money in a short time on a “new recipe” knows this is an exploit… anyone in the right mind in the first place would sense that something is not right.
The common mindset of these people is that, i’ll exploit it as much as I can, then i’ll share it with the general public, that way, with enough people doing it, surely they can’t ban us all. In fact, many people who learned of this recipe initially (the honest ones) asked on forum whether it was an exploit since it seemed “too good to be true”.
You see what i’m getting at? Obviously, the most predominant defense is that Anet shouldn’t have made this mistake in the first place thus it should not be a player fault if this exploit is present. But in reality, it’s impossible to have a perfect game and Anets definition of exploit is already very lenient already. They only target the players who did enough to damage the market. The guys who did it a hundred or so times probably got away with it fine when they “profited enough”. Those other people got too greedy and those are the ones who got banned.
Personally, I knew about this exploit from day 1 and I never even bothered to try it.
I am with the majority of people here. I’m not one of those who have been banned, nor was I aware of the method that lead to the bans, still I think they’re not justified.
From what I understand there was a new recipee that could be used to de-value a certain material and for us as players it was impossible to see whether those changes to the market were intended or unintended from the developers side, yet players receive a ban for them, after they’ve been labeled exploits.
The two main arguments for this are: The players did so, knowing they would manipulate the price of said good and it was an obvious exploit because it would theoretically generate you an infinte amount of money.
Obvious Exploit Theory
Let’s make this clear, the method could not have been used to make an infinite amount of money. From what I gather on these forums the method wasn’t known to too many players yet. As soon as it would have been, the ectoplasm prices would have dropped to a degree that making money was impossible. All it would have done is let ectoplasm prices drop significantly. Of course it’s going to generate wealth for those players who first discoverd the method, but so did flipping dyes or simply having a profession. Which leads to allegation Nr. 2
Market Manipulation Theory
So the second charge these people are facing is that they were trying to manipulate the market. Which is true, I must admit, but the question is: Is it unlawful (or obviously against the Terms of Service?)
Try looking up rare weapons/armor on the market and have a look at the buy orders of these products. For most of these, the highest buy order is placed by a single person, trying to buy said prduct by the dozens in an attempt to monopolize on it an thus being able to dictate the market price.
Is this a manipulation of the market? Of course it is. But it’s also something that happens in economies and judging by the lack of bans issued against these people it’s a manipulation that’s inteded.
Buying Gems from the Gemstore is basically a money printing machine, implemented by the developers. Is it a manipulation of the market? Of course it is. Gold, in the end, is nothing but a trade good. Being able to create an infinite amount of it leads to its decrease in value, which according to the recent reasoning would be exploiting the game, yet it goes unpunished because it’s intended.
The question we have to ask ourselves, finally, is: How are we to know which manipulations of the market are intended and which aren’t? This really feels like there’s a double standard here.
Areanant currently receives a lot of flak for theit actions. Actions that basically say “if we kitten up, you’ll pay for it.”
Players have agreed to TOS that basically say that ArenaNet can at any time permaban them for any or no reason at all. Players agree to such TOS because they’re commonplace and the unspoken agreement is, that the gaming companies feel they have to reserve those rights for legal reasons but won’t use them unless in legal conflicts or for the worst of offenses.
ArenaNet has just demonstrated that all the time and effort spent in the game can at any moment evaporate. I’m not a crafter. I was not affected. However, I can completely understand how people would think that this time-limited (and thus limited in volume of ectos created due to the limited supply of snowflakes) crafting item was indeed introduced to bring down the inflated prices of ectos a bit.
Had I been a crafter and had I been aware of this, I might have fallen into this trap as well.
Bottom line is that seemingly normal actions can get you permabanned in this game. This is a unique feature of GW2, in no other MMO I know have permabans for company-mistakes been issued and issued so easily. Therefore, I highly doubt I will waste more time (let alone money) on GW2. After all, it could all be taken away any moment when the next mistake they make is labelled an exploit.
(edited by phooka.4295)
You need to calm down and take a step back from all this.
How they handle mistakes they made might lead to more “stepping back” than they anticipated.
I’ll explain it,… it’s just bussiness people nothing personal.
Think about it, if they ban a 200 people or more, you know for sure that some of them will likely buy a new box again,..
Easy money !
How they handle mistakes they made might lead to more “stepping back” than they anticipated.
If you say so. This forum is infamous for it’s melodrama. I think lots of video game forums are like that.
From inappropriate names, to karma exploits, fractals and ascended gear, to this newest crackdown, there’s always a very vocal minority heralding the doom of this game or that one based on stupid unsubstantiated things, or in the instance of bannings, their own stupid choices and bemoaning the inevitable result of those choices.
We all strike out sometime. I’ve been banned from my fair share of games for things I’ve done. Live and learn. I’ve owned up to those things and I’ve moved on.
What I see here, lots of QQ. Were there an honest injustice done I’d sing a different tune. I know what happened.
The semantics some would argue is the mindset of the power trader and the casual gamer, but it all amounts to the same thing. We all agreed to the same ToS.
If I go back to what Kiserai said
I suppose we’ll know who was right in a few months, when the dust has truly settled and the precedent set here has been put to the test by another situation.
I would say look at their track record so far. Look at how they handled things in the past regarding the karma exploit, regarding the karka chest, regarding Halloween for folks effected by Sandy.
Some of the folks here have a very short memory and a terrible case of tunnel vision.
I already said I don’t know anybody who got banned. What re you sorry for?
And I’m sure you know exactly how Anet handled their end by being a fly on the wall. Certainly can’t argue with concrete facts like this little treasure.
They didn’t even apologise for it! Not even a “we are sorry for the inconvenience”. And since I’m not naive like you, I don’t believe they took actions.
Cute. No, a more honest comparison would be someone leaving the keys in the ignition of a fine Aston Martin in a rush. The doors unlocked.
Occasion would allow you to hop in and drive away with a luxury car cost free. At least for a moment or so…
Blaming the victim is a bad premise to argue. Not gonna work for the car thief either.
You do realise people paid for this game, right? As in, gave money to ANet for a product. A product that is obviously broken. Try again?
Yes, yes, video game bans are such very serious things to be compared to murderous dictators. Come on now. Where’s the hitler or nazi reference?
When you start paying for games with money you earned, you’ll understand.
That’s hilarious. Especially since ANet showed 0 responsibility. Nada. Gar nicht.
Little veiled, but I’ll run with it.
It’s called German, official language in a number of countries.
Blaming the system for your own behavior isn’t always going to fly, nor should you ever expect it to work that way.
When it’s the system’s fault, I do expect it to fly and work that way. That’s what happens to me every time I return damaged goods to the store. Heck, I even got reimbursed for a laptop after I personally dropped it on the floor and broke the hd.
Obviously not… also got a bit of a paranoia streak going. Or maybe you’re trying to incite that in others?
Like I said, when you start paying for games with money you earned, you’ll understand.
If the whole issue is about customer care, you haven’t got a leg to stand on. There are so very many instances of Anet taking care of it’s customer base, it’s ridiculous.
Give a “for instance”.
You need to calm down and take a step back from all this.
You simply donn’t realise the implications. At any moment they can say “we didn’t intend for you to gather passiflora with a guild bonus on, that’s an exploit and everybody who gathered more than 200 is banned”. Because that’s what a retroactive ban policy means. In the real world you can’t go to jail for a crime committed before a law was introduced. That’s why there are many laws and they are detailed instead of just saying “yeah, ammm, don’t do bad things”.
reading most of the posts here I feel That the dev’s have done a huge mistake with these bans considering they were asked not only on reditt but in game as well and said nothing at all early on.This no direct contact with the community on this problem resides totally on their shoulders as if when asked the question they do not give a response then it would certainly be the general consensus that this was in no way a breach and allowable buy them .
The logic they have taken seams to be an OMG we have stuffed up , our own guys are doing it, we need to shut it down asap before every player jumps on this and we have no market left or a market out of reach. i am sure most here would remeber what SF did to UW and ecto’s and the response to that once they figured it out.
I am sure it will get sorted in time but they really do need to step up their liaison response time and address problems alot quicker then they are currently doing.
What is hilarious is all the people who are like “Good Job Anet Ban all those filthy exploiters” without even knowing the exact recipe. “Cuz you know, it’s an exploit because you created something out of nothing”
Wrong. You created 0 to 3 ecto (average estimated to 0.9) + 1 to 3 mithril (average estimated to 1.5) from 8 mithril + 20% chance of losing 4 mithril, 1 ecto and 1 pristine snowflake.
(I am only talking about the most rentable recipe, using orichalcum or using black lion kits make it much less interesting in terms of benefits)
So on average (if you are not unlucky with RNG) the recipe is
7.3 mithril + 0.2 pristine snowflake + the price of recycling = 0.7 ecto
Yeah, obvious exploit.
And what is really hilarious, is that the guys who made the most gold out of this recipe, are the ones who bought all the mithril and snowflake early, and simply sold them back to the “exploiters” at a higher price. Those guys are still in the game, “Cuz you know, playing the market is not an exploit compared to this”
Cheers
Edit: [disclaimer] I didn’t used this recipe, because by the time I learned about it it was already not interesting.
(edited by Kethryes.5712)
I’ll explain it,… it’s just bussiness people nothing personal.
Think about it, if they ban a 200 people or more, you know for sure that some of them will likely buy a new box again,..Easy money !
Are you trying to say arenanet has been monetizing their game with bans!?
I’m sure anyone who does it thousands of times and is earning significant amount of money in a short time on a “new recipe” knows this is an exploit… anyone in the right mind in the first place would sense that something is not right.
Okay, I should try to clear something up here: This does not raise red flags for pretty much anyone who pays attention to the market. This is standard procedure. A new thing is just about ALWAYS most profitable immediately after it is introduced and the first ones in capitalise on it, whether it’s new recipes, speculation due to announced changes or whatever. In things like EVE Online, a dev can make a forum post and whoever buys up every bit of stock in the first 5 minutes has doubled their money an hour later and probably doubled again over the following week.
Of course EVE now quite sensibly announces the intended behaviour of manufacturing in advance – so when opportunities like this are found, you can refer to the dev blog… right, not intended behaviour, report it and back away. But here, everything is based on discovery. As we see here, that did not turn out so well because it misled people into believing it was intended.
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 consider myself to be a very nice and honest player. I have played this game since early beta and have been a fan boy for the whole time.
After this incident and the way infractions are handed out in this forum as well as Anet changing the game to make it heavily grindy with FOTM and the ascended gear combined with diminishing returns I no longer trust Anet. Oh I forgot to mention the chests with rng from events.
I have decided not to purchase anymore gems because of all the things above combined. I can’t support a developer that creates an environment of paranoia in the game.
Yes I think what these players did was wrong but I also feel the way it was handled was equally wrong and I can’t imagine a company treating customers this way and expecting the customer to trust them.
I’ll probably be infracted for posting this but I will never use this orum again because I want to be able to express my opinions on the state of the game without fear.
Hopefully with future content the devs will test it correctly so this can’t happen again.
Is GW2 a game or a virtual casino?
I don’t mind Anet handing out bans for exploits. Nor am I associated with any one that got banned.
How ever. What I do mind is the arbitrary selection of what is bannable and what is acceptable for the mean time until some thing “not intended by the developers” is fixed. There is no consistency in these bans. There is no communication or certainty either.
I’ve seen the screenshots of Anet members who took part in making the unintended recipe and didn’t know what to say when question whether or not it was an exploit.
It’s alright to say “Here’s a ban. You should know better.”
How ever if Anet members themselves didn’t know whether or not it was an exploit. How do you expect players to know if it was intended or not. That’s blatantly obnoxious to the player base and is bad business practice to get into. It throws up warning signs where people start saying, “Stay away from this game.”
For one. I do not blame them. Because you never know when you may stumble upon some thing that you perceive as legitimately lucrative and find out you’re permanently banned from the game the next day. That is what the player base is concerned about.
Hello,
As this thread was answered by Regina, it is now closed.
Please remember that customer support decisions are not meant to be discussed on the forum, but with our customer support team.
Thank you for your understanding.