Guild Wars 2

Sorry for the silly question, but me and dozens of others on my server have been wondering what exactly is actually considered an exploit in WvW.

• Mesmer portals – are these exploits? Mesmer portals can be used to get large groups of other players into an enemy keep. That can only be done if the mesmer creating the portal managed to hide inside the keep before it was taken, or if he managed to hide after a zerg tried to get it and didn’t manage to. Then he can create this portal (e.g. on the wall), jump out, create the other half of it, and whoops, his fellow players can easily access the keep. This is being considered tactics by many players and not an exploit.

• Thief ink shot – Thieves can teleport themselves on walls from the water. Again, many players consider this a professional use of the thief’s skills, not an exploit.

Me and many other players would be very happy to finally have an official statement about this from ArenaNet, since it is very irritating if you don’t know if you can use your skills to the fullest or if you have to be afraid of being suspended from the game for doing so. Also there are whole guilds out there using those techniques; makes one wonder if it actually could be considered an exploit if so many players use it on a day-by-day basis.

By the way, all of you who agree with me, say so. Otherwise I fear this thread will soon be just one of the many threads that go unseen or unrecognised.

i think the main complaint about mesmer portals is that it is currently exploiting the current rendering issues that GW2 has. People that comes out of mesmer portals are render last and hence anyone around the portals would not be able to see them for a few seconds and get killed without seeing what attacked them.

Imagine if arenanet reverse the rendering logic, making anyone that comes out of mesmer portals render first, hence people that comes out of portal will see only themselves but cannot see anyone else around them for a few seconds while people that are around the portals will see the attackers pouring out of portals first and get a few free hits in before they are seen by the portal invaders. There would be far less complains about the mesmer portal issue.

Elementalists (with water attunement?) also have a bubble skill which lets them teleport from the water into the bay keep (as well as skipping a huge part of the Mistwrought key jump puzzle).

All of these feel like exploits, though aside from rendering issues, the mesmer portal I believe is the only one that’s actually functioning as intended.

The best policy for these things is, “If it’s in the game, and we haven’t made an announcement banning it, then it’s allowed. But don’t be surprised if we patch it later. But also, don’t be surprised if we leave it in there.”

So yeah, imagine if someone posted, “Is it an exploit in Quake that you can fire a rocket at your feet, allowing you to jump higher and reach places on the map that you normally couldn’t get to?” Or, “Is it an exploit in Street Fighter 2 that you can bypass the recovery time of a normal attack by performing a special move?”

Chances are, it probably wasnt originally intended. But once it was discovered, the developers have to make a decision: Is this Emergent Feature good for gameplay, or bad for gameplay?

So obviously in the case of Rocket Jumping and Combos, they decided it was good for gameplay and left it in, and indeed continued to support it in sequels.

But for something else they might decide to ban it and then patch it.

It’s case by case.

Unfortunately, ANet has a worse policy of “If it feels like an exploit, don’t do it, or we might retroactively ban/punish you.” This leads to the sort of confusion that causes threads like this to occur.

Exactly. I sure would like to continue using mesmer portals (that others created, that is; don’t have a mesmer). Also it’s fun to shoot yourself around as a thief. But I would definitely NOT like it to be banned 2 weeks later because now all of a sudden ArenaNet decided it is an exploit, or because someone else thinks it is an exploit and reports me.

Also: to which extent are things an exploit? May I not create mesmer portals inside enemy keeps or am I not even allowed to use one if it’s there? Etc… We need clear wording from ANet about this. Because personally, atm I don’t use this stuff anymore, but it feels unfair that others still do because they are not as cautious as I am and thus have an advantage over me…

I’d like some clarification of this too. Personally, i don’t really see this as an exploit. Simply making smart use of your skills. The teleport skills already (imo) have such little use for thief and ele underwater that this really make it a worthy skill. Then again, i don’t want to be banned for using my skills in a way tehy might not have intended, would kind of suck. It would be really nice to get an official answer on this please.

I have a feeling that when devs “developed” those underwater teleport skills they had infiltrating the keep(s) in mind, like a person above me said, those skills are useless for other purposes, not even good when you chase an enemy underwater, but we will never find out if some dev doesn’t answer

My only gripe with the Mesmer portals are the rendering issues. We’ve had a door on bay ripped down by a golem rush we couldn’t even see.

The mesmer portal part I’d consider absolutely fair game, all the keeps on a map are equally vulnerable to it and correcting for it is a simple matter of doing a mesmer sweep. Just so long as the method of getting the mesmer inside is either due to staying behind when the keep fell or getting inside when a wall fell. Getting inside by jumping on edges caused by the seams on textures or some other type of bug I’d consider absolutely an exploit.

The ele/thief thing I’d consider an exploit. Afaik the bay is the only place venerable to it and besides leaving a force behind there is no defense against it. (as it stands I’ve only seen people use it now and again, which suggests that most people consider it an exploit; so one or two people can guard against most of it, if it were allowed then you would have to leave a much bigger force in the bay). Additionally as you can’t repair siege, or destroy your own siege when it is near destruction anyway, and as there is a limit to the amount of siege you can place, it isn’t entirely possible to repair damage the enemy does by getting in this way.

How about this :

The jump puzzle at the side of garrison watergate, allowing you to bypass the first gate and head up the stairs onto the inner watergate. Most classes can jump the distance with their spells. That an intended feature or exploit?

I would argue that any situation where you use underwater skills for above water benefits is actually an exploit. Only that some situations, like the teleporting unto walls, are more grave than others. As far as I know, underwater skills have been specifically designed and balanced for underwater use only.

Concerning the Mesmer portals, I’d like to know how big that rendering problem is. How many seconds are we talking about? I’m legitimately curious, since I haven’t seen it happen first hand yet.

A mesmer portal is not an exploit. I have no idea why people keep bringing it up.

I do not use portals on my mesmer because there is a culling issue. I use them to move people alot faster.
And if people arent sweeping keeps and towers they deserve to have them retaken plain and simple. I have had many more times where I have been found and killed then than I actually successfully hid probably 1000-1 tbh

Everything else in this thread is an exploit though.
But in all honesty the ones mentioned here are just a mere fraction of exploits. There is alot of geometry problems in WvW right now

Me and one of my commander friend argue about this all the time. He does some pretty stupid stuff, but he refuses to let any thieves ink shot into areas when he’s leading. I, on the other hand, don’t care if they do so or not, but for controversial reasons I never order someone to do it. We do make use of mesmer portals quite a bit, and I honestly don’t see it as any different. I don’t feel these are exploits. An exploit, to me, is knowing that sometimes the west inner gate of the garrison can be walked right through, and using that instead of taking down the gate. I don’t mind mesmer portals, it’s annoying, but then again, since when have Mesmers NOT been annoying? I figure if a class has a mechanic that can be used, use it. That goes for ink shot, portals, bubble thing with eles (i didn’t even know how they did that, i just saw it), and even the “jumping puzzle of garrison water gate”.

The bigger issue with Mesmer portals is the fact that mesmers can glitch into keeps, they do not need to hide in there. In fact I would guess a lot of the claims that they ‘hid’ was more likely they glitched in after the fact. That bug needs to be fixed, otherwise mesmer portals are fine.

I think Inkjet is fine as well, long as you cannot get into the inner part of the keep, it’s usefulness is limited.

While we are asking for clarification, what about mesmer pets being spammed on targets out of LOS? What about catapults shooting through doors and knocking people off rams? What about AoE through doors? Others?

Folks always seem to focus on the particular issues that annoy them, but there are a bunch of issues that need resolution, not just these two.

Niim

The bigger issue with Mesmer portals is the fact that mesmers can glitch into keeps, they do not need to hide in there. In fact I would guess a lot of the claims that they ‘hid’ was more likely they glitched in after the fact. That bug needs to be fixed, otherwise mesmer portals are fine.

THIS! I was on the wall defending last night at Longview and a Mesmer did this over and over. I was watching for her after the first time I caught her, so every time she “magically appeared” on our wall behind the defenders I hit her with rapid fire and set my pet on her, so she had to bail before she could open the portal. She must have tried it at least a dozen times in one siege only to have me nail her on every attempt. Finally I was able to get an angle on her where she was doing it from — in a corner of the wall near the gate — and force her to leave the spot.

This is an exploit — pure and simple. Many of you probably don’t even realize it’s been done to you and are still wondering how several attackers managed to appear on your wall behind your defenders.