Guild Wars 2

I just forged an exotic snowflake with my level 400 jeweler profession and saw that the accessories requiring it require ONLY ONE exotic jewel.

Worst part is, if i salvage my accessory, i get back not only the exotic snowflake but also 0-3 globs of ectoplasm. Since the accessories require only 1 snowflake, i can salvage them over and over and make an infinite amount of ectoplasms just by buying orichalcum at the TP, since rebuilding the jewels only costs me some orichalcum .__. .

Just checked this. It’s still an issue, even with the update.

sounds fine to me.

So if you are a jewelcrafter you can use a specific type of hig level snowflake and then make rare quality rings/etc. You can then salvage those rings or whatever for ectos, but don’t lose the snowflake piece, so you can keep remakeing the ring using metal, and then salvage it for ectos, which while not guarentee’d is common, and the snowflake has a remarkably low rate of breaking.

Now I am unsure if I should explain better, but I worry posting how to do this exactally could be bad.

So then through this it is rather easy to get a fair number of ectos, I wanted to test if this snowflake reagent would break, but it has not and I have received about 40 ectos doing this so far.

So then I’d like to know if this is a bug/unintentional system glitch or what, because it seems rather odd.

Edit: I continued to test if the snowflake can break and have now ended up with an extra 25 ectos. Something definitely feels off.

I’d continue testing to see if it just has a low breaking point or none at all, but frankly since I’m unsure if this is an exploit I’d rather not be banned so this is all the data I can really provide.

Having tried this out, I find that the amount of money you spend on mithril, snowflakes and salvage kits means that you pretty much break even. Unlike you I seem to “break” the snowflake often.

Hmm, so maybe it’s luck on my part? I’m not sure. just want to be sure it’s no exploit if it is. What kinds of snowflaks did you try? I don’t want to put exactally how in case it is an exploit, but I also am unsure if it works with all but one kind of snowflake. I may test it more.

tried and I doubt it counts as an exploit. I agree with Beastageddon

varonecl.4265:

tried and I doubt it counts as an exploit. I agree with Beastageddon

Did you also have breaks then?

Oh, I may be stupid, did you all try black lion salvage kits or others?

Okay, so I found out I was stupid, I was using black lion salvage kits and that was why this was happening like ti was, so with that in mind this isn’t actually an exploit at all, just me not thinking. Sorry. Still if it turns out this is indeed an exploit it would be good if we could know, for now I’ll just assume I was forgetful about the effects of black lion kits.

so an update, I have been testing with the highest grade salvage kits you can buy, and it definately doesn’t feel like an exploit. it was just me over reacting when I have so many black lion ones saved up. When you use vendor ones you get much less ecto and the snowflake breaks fairly often, so wtih the costs of mats/flakes/ecto to make the rings/and kits it isn’t really a money maker. So false alarm everyone.

One final update, I had four flakes on me and I bought a stack of ore to try with the highest grade vendor kits. After doing the process until I ran out of flakes I actually came out slightly in the negative over all considering each flake is about 24 silver, ectos the same, and all other costs, ore, kits. And how many ecto I got (16) I broke even. So this is actually fine. With a black lion salvage kit it’s a money maker, btu without those it’s just fine. False alarm.

yup, also you need gems to get Black Lion kits unless u get lucky from daily. In which case u would have to spend real $ to get Black Lion kit to get ectos.
Which is the same as spending $ to get gems and then trade for gold.

Infact even with a Black Lion Kit, you can loose money if you salavage and dont get Ectos back. So its a gamble like everything else in this game.

But it is working as intended? So if I use my black lion kits and get some ectos and do it again and again and again.. (well, I don’t have that much other resources to use up).. it is okay to do that and not an exploit or similar?

I’ve been trying for over an hour, including just after this new patch, and bugged before and after the patch. I can make Exquisite Snowflakes, but I can’t make any jewelry with them-I get “that content has been temporarily disabled” every time I try to execute any of the recipes. I know somebody’s making them, they’re on the TP. So what happened?

The recipe was bugged and allowed you to exploit unlimited amounts of ectos.

it bugged right b4 the patch and how was that an exploit it cost me an ecto each time i made it

it is not an issue anymore, u can now no longer make the jewlery at all

Actually this is not a bug, you will not retain your snowflake unless u use a BLK. Master kit has a 80% chance to retain but that is not guranteed.
Also there is no gurantee u get ectos from this, which means that if you make Oricalchum hook and setting, you have to spend 16 ores, which rougly cost 32s.
So each Salvage costs you 32s, and no gaurantee of ecto even with a BLK.
You would have to make 2 ectos each time to make profit.
Since 1 ecto is only worth 25s at the current price( which is a 6s loss + you lost 1 salavage from your kit)

yeah this was discussed in another thread. Nothing broken about this given the cost to actually make this item. if you have tons of Orichalchum and just need the Globs then its almost a one fer, but otherwise its costing you to try this. its too expensive.

“This content has been temporarily disabled. Please try again later.”

When I tried to discover the mithril snowflake recipe I got a message that the content is currently disabled.

why?

There was a glitch last night, where people were using this particular item to make large supply stacks of ectos, so it is now disabled until a patch can fix it.

Freelockbox.7035:

varonecl.4265:

tried and I doubt it counts as an exploit. I agree with Beastageddon

Did you also have breaks then?

I didnt have a break, but I thought it was too expensive to warrant being called an exploit. You were guaranteed to get the snowflake back, but not necessarily the number of ectos which meant on some occassion having to use ectos along with the cost of Orichalcum

this would require people to buy BL salvage kits. why would Anet not like that?
Also, from salvaging high level rare items, I was under the impression you get like 1 ecto on average?

Well looks like the threads were merged so a Dev has definately seen it and they acted by disabling the content which means its something they dont exactly approve off.

I’m guessing people would have liked a dev response to this instead of a perma ban =/

Best way to stop inflation. Ban all the wealthy players, and watch as the casual players start to buy gold again with money because it is worth more!

I’m contemplating taking a break from Guild Wars 2. I’m not saying this out of spite that some good friends got banned for an at best “debatable” exploit, or because I’m scared that I might be next for something I’m not even aware of (yet?). No, I’m thinking about taking a break because I found the KOTOR games for about $5 on Steam.

Seriously though, at the end of the day, what is more important, the player… or the banned player? Come on ArenaNet, lets find a solution that doesn’t unnecessarily cut your player base!

Dubious.5379:

I’m contemplating taking a break from Guild Wars 2. I’m not saying this out of spite that some good friends got banned for an at best “debatable” exploit, or because I’m scared that I might be next for something I’m not even aware of (yet?). No, I’m thinking about taking a break because I found the KOTOR games for about $5 on Steam.

Seriously though, at the end of the day, what is more important, the player… or the banned player? Come on ArenaNet, lets find a solution that doesn’t unnecessarily cut your player base!

Mmm I fail to see how this is “at best debatable”. Infinite ectos is pretty blatantly a mistake if you ask me.

I’m legitimately paranoid now that buying rares from dungeon vendors to salvage would be considered an exploit… With an hour and a half of work I could theoretically end up with 36 ectos…

And now you are banned for this. What a sad and sorry state.

Zyphent.2967:

Dubious.5379:

I’m contemplating taking a break from Guild Wars 2. I’m not saying this out of spite that some good friends got banned for an at best “debatable” exploit, or because I’m scared that I might be next for something I’m not even aware of (yet?). No, I’m thinking about taking a break because I found the KOTOR games for about $5 on Steam.

Seriously though, at the end of the day, what is more important, the player… or the banned player? Come on ArenaNet, lets find a solution that doesn’t unnecessarily cut your player base!

Mmm I fail to see how this is “at best debatable”. Infinite ectos is pretty blatantly a mistake if you ask me.

Pretty simply really, Devs release broken content.

I’m sure some players who didn’t know it was a exploit just thought merry christmas and went along to make ectos.

Not everyone is that intelligent or clued up TBH. Anet owes it to its players exploiters included or to manage their behaviour and not perma band them.

When talking about company’s amending their behavior for their customers benefit. Macdonalds comes to mind for selling coffee which was too hot, yeah the customer could not have burnt themselves but in a court of law MD was hit for $160,000 for one single case of coffee being too hot. Because when they compared themselves to other coffee providers temperature it was found to be a little too hot.

It shows how much responsibility a company has to protect its customers.

Which other company have you heard of punishing people for using a service the company offered with no warning of it being illegitimate or wrong?

I can think of none.

Anet needs to look at how other MMO’s manage their player base were they this hardcore in GW1?

Roll backs, temp bans and a warning process are a must and a staple for most other MMO’s.

Zyphent.2967:

Mmm I fail to see how this is “at best debatable”. Infinite ectos is pretty blatantly a mistake if you ask me.

So why didn’t they reply to this thread and say so? Clearly even they didn’t decide it was an exploit until they ran the numbers and saw the effect it could have on the economy, so how could they possibly expect the players to know?

Hyde.6189:

Zyphent.2967:

Mmm I fail to see how this is “at best debatable”. Infinite ectos is pretty blatantly a mistake if you ask me.

So why didn’t they reply to this thread and say so? Clearly even they didn’t decide it was an exploit until they ran the numbers and saw the effect it could have on the economy, so how could they possibly expect the players to know?

Idd Anet are protecting their literal financial interest in the TP with this latest move from what I can gather. A chap on reddit theorized the following and I quote:

“Whats the best way to freeze a very large portion of wealth in the game, put in a lucrative holiday recipe that the smart traders will notice right away. Refuse to give clarification when asked if this is a bug or exploit, or if it’s truly a cheaper recipe to make ecto’s.

Then wait a few weeks, and without so much as a world send out the perma-bans.
Freeze up all the wealthy traders assets, and watch the unthinking majority cheer and dance as they finally got the evil traders."

Great theory which I would give nowhere near as much merit if the players accounts were just temp banned with a warning issued accordingly.

Evilmop.6157:

Hyde.6189:

Zyphent.2967:

Mmm I fail to see how this is “at best debatable”. Infinite ectos is pretty blatantly a mistake if you ask me.

So why didn’t they reply to this thread and say so? Clearly even they didn’t decide it was an exploit until they ran the numbers and saw the effect it could have on the economy, so how could they possibly expect the players to know?

Idd Anet are protecting their literal financial interest in the TP with this latest move from what I can gather. A chap on reddit theorized the following and I quote:

“Whats the best way to freeze a very large portion of wealth in the game, put in a lucrative holiday recipe that the smart traders will notice right away. Refuse to give clarification when asked if this is a bug or exploit, or if it’s truly a cheaper recipe to make ecto’s.

Then wait a few weeks, and without so much as a world send out the perma-bans.
Freeze up all the wealthy traders assets, and watch the unthinking majority cheer and dance as they finally got the evil traders."

Great theory which I would give nowhere near as much merit if the players accounts were just temp banned with a warning issued accordingly.

Kinda sounds exactly like the WarZ scandal…

IDD so we all know this type of underhand tactic has been abused by other companies in the not to distant past. Not saying that is what has happened here but its never outside the realm of possibility.

Ill state it again…… temp bans, warning system and do not make the same mistake again/deal with it in a more constructive manner for the image of the game.

My other half wont even join the game even though she likes the look of it and its due to these situations, interesting how some people vote with their wallet is it not.

She wont give time or money to a company who who operates this way and in retrospect I would never have bought it either If I was aware this was going to happen.

I almost feel like I should email Anet before I play just just in case I’m not playing the game the way they want me too.

You know whats funny, u dont even have to ask anet and u know its a bug and not intended feature – i mean generating ectos as u need with cost cheaper than outcome and you think this is intended feature ? Seriously ? Using bug to your advantage – repeatedly, is an exploit by its basic definition, so bans are only natural result. And pls guys dont pretend its something new to you, in all mmos i have ever played, you would be banned for things like this.

I wonder if ANet is going to “own up” as to why they completely ignored this thread? Yeah, I doubt it.

they dont answer the question and started to ban people.

People ask the question and get no response back and then suddenly people are getting banned?

What happened to, “The customer is King”? Would not the economy even itself out if you just fixed the broken code which you wrote that allowed for such an exploit?

You banned these people and bad spreads much faster than good does. You will loose a lot of people if you don’t treat people with a bit more respect. Its bad when you are the ones who released the faulty items in the first place then ban the people who take advantage of your mistake.

Its like a restaurant sometimes you have to give out free food to a customer to keep them. You keep the customer happy and you get the customers friends and family as customers as well.

Its like you served us food and because someone liked it a little too much and went back for refills too many times, you banned them.

Anet clearly have stated in the past…

“Playing the market is not exploiting. **But finding a loop that reliably produces more and more items in a cycle is an exploit.”

We were warned when mass bannings occurred over the cultural weapon exploit from launch. Leniency was given to those who agreed to delete everything they gained from using the exploit. I doubt there will be much of that this time (rightfully so!) especially for any second-time offenders.

That said, I hope their metrics are accurate and people are not being falsely banned.

AN should do a Server rollbeck after they notice this glich/bug. But no they are bannig….

Hi everybody,

Please report exploits at exploits@arena.net or submit a ticket to the support.

The topic is now locked.