The point is that the community is still after over a year clearly passionate and divided on this topic as I mentioned above. This in itself makes it something that Chris should be aware of regardless of who we feel is guilty or negligent in the whole scenario.
Our opinions on Huntgate are noted in the many threads about it both here on the forums and on both reddits.
I am surprised that so many of you are triggered by the way this topic was presented. People are allowed to have their own viewpoint and the OPs experience with the game and its scandals are just as valid as any of ours.
But yeah lets keep bickering over this LONG DEAD issue and derailing the original point behind this thread because that is what we all do best.
Well, in Master Expeditions a boss sometimes just stops fighting, so what should i do when that happens? Am i allowed to continue the fight, or should i abandon the run since this might be considered an exploit at some point in the future?
And before someone suggest i should report this bug, i've no clue on how to recreate it, it happens rather randomly.
About Huntgate, i think instead of perm. banns they should have gone with account rollbacks to the date the exploit was used the first time, but i guess that would have required more work from their side.
You come to a vending machine, and buy a cola, instead of one it drops two bottles. You go on with your life, sometimes you get two bottles, sometimes whatever you order gets suck, life evens out.
Another person comes to a vending machine, shoves his hand from the bottom with a solid wire trying to fish said cola, while his friend titling the machine and beating on it, so said cola will drop easier.
I suspect any person can see the difference. While there are grey areas, this is not the case, it was not, "I'm doing everything normally and suddenly gained something extra", it was a clear "Do something not intended, to gain something" aka Exploit.
The point would be, when a problem comes up around here, it appears that the people in charge tend to prefer the easy way out, without considering the fallout for all players. The line about Huntgate were just my 2 AD about it - moving on to something else:
- the chat lock to fight AD sellers spam in PE, sure it works most of the time, but it also leaves new players standing in the rain, and going by their feedback (if they find their way into this or any other forum...) it would have been better to include the way to unlock chat/auction house somehow in the "new player experience" thingy too.
- botting, hell at this point i'm not even sure if anything is done actively from the Devs side against bots, and let's be honest, reporting a single bot isn't going to stop someone that has god knows how many up and running.
- scamming around Winter Festival, not everyone has a big guild/alliance or even friends list, so it would have been nice to come up with something more then just a visual gimmick that shows that another player has gifts.
- active companions were working too good for a short while, with some even being exceptional, a swing of the nerf hammer later, nearly all of them were and still are pretty much useless now, but i guess that's just fine, as long as augments are working properly, right?
- the Doohickey, similar story to companions, it would have been nice to keep their damage output within the "helpfull item" range.
- or what about all those changes to armor and weapon enchantments? i've given up on refining those things, since what's the point? what might work now, might get destroyed in a future module...
- ZEN charge promotions were having issues with delivering what they promised again and again, so they simply removed the additional rewards from them. same with those yearly christmas gifts, removed as well instead of improving them.
The OP makes some valid points regarding trust issues the community has with the dev team. Not because there were exploits, not because there were bans, but because of the way in which these exploits/bans were handled by the team.
@thefabricant is also correct in stating that people need to get over it. Honestly, some of the people I hear complaining about these breaches of trust, and bans and monumental events in NW history weren't even around for them.
There are bigger issues to fry in the here and now than huntgate, coalgate, watergate, frigate, whatevergate. Let's move forward instead of rehashing the same handful of events in the game.
All you're telling Chris is, "hey we like you cause you're new and FOTM but those other guys, oh those guys we'll never trust again". Pretty sure he knows this by now.
It's basically good practice and even now that i am in a legal professional, you have to advice client of everything, even if it be obvious. The onus falls on you as professionals and the fact that minors play this game, i think Cryptic had a obligation towards its players to educate them.
Terms. Of. Service. The legality has been handled. The onus does not fall on the studio to determine whether intelligence exists in their users. One could flip your argument and say common sense should exist in users and some exploits are clearly exploits so proceed at your own risk.
The reason they could freely ban these players was because of them admitting the terms and services of Cryptic so that is a blatant disregard to my comment. Since there is no legality issue, there is morally and especially when there are minors playing this game. Cryptic would need to justify for each individual player that he/she knew what he/she was doing was wrong. His age along with his mental stability would need to be considered to presume intention existed and that the intention should be to exploit the game knowing full well of the consequences and that it was prohibited. There is much more to this then, "get a brain in your head, you Hamster". If anything, you should start with giving me a very good and easy to understand explanation on why this wasn't labelled as "exploit" even after the playerbase themselves reported this on preview months before?
imo the people who got banned deserved it in the case of hunt gate (for the vast whole anyway) but it was also communicated that it was not likely that anyone would be banned for it as I recall.. and there could have been some stronger warnings and transgressions prior to the warnings could have been overlooked. it was handled poorly.. but you cheat.. you run the risk of getting banned. the problem is there have been SO many exploits that weren't touched including some that were FAR worse.. that there was an assumption of safety.
the real issue here is communication; Not the bans, not the earlier gates.. but communication.
it really all comes down to we need better communication to the community. just everywhere. in the huntgate instance, a large warning when you log in, recently there has been some exploits in barovia hunts, we're watching you will be banned. boom. can't say you weren't warned.
the devs were coming from a place of we don't want to acknowledge this because.. ppl might find out.. but the horse was WAY past the gate at that point.
communication is the basis of trust.
Post edited by thefiresidecat on
8
kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
imo the people who got banned deserved it in the case of hunt gate (for the vast whole anyway) but it was also communicated that it was not likely that anyone would be banned for it as I recall.. and there could have been some stronger warnings and transgressions prior to the warnings could have been overlooked. it was handled poorly.. but you cheat.. you run the risk of getting banned. the problem is there have been SO many exploits that weren't touched including some that were FAR worse.. that there was an assumption of safety. the real issue here is communication. not the bans not the earlier gates.. it really all comes down to we need better communication to the community. just everywhere. in the huntgate instance, a large warning when you log in, recently there has been some exploits in barovia hunts, we're watching you will be banned. boom. can't say you weren't warned. the devs were coming from a place of we don't want to acknowledge this because.. ppl might find out.. but the horse was WAY past the gate at that point.
communication is the basis of trust.
There was no official communication that people would not have been banned for it. Players spread that rumor and made the assumption that if enough people are cheating, they can't ban everyone. The official communication that was sent out even stated that "any character found using the exploit will be subject to possible actions taken against player accounts as per our Terms of Service".
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
imo the people who got banned deserved it in the case of hunt gate (for the vast whole anyway) but it was also communicated that it was not likely that anyone would be banned for it as I recall.. and there could have been some stronger warnings and transgressions prior to the warnings could have been overlooked. it was handled poorly.. but you cheat.. you run the risk of getting banned. the problem is there have been SO many exploits that weren't touched including some that were FAR worse.. that there was an assumption of safety. the real issue here is communication. not the bans not the earlier gates.. it really all comes down to we need better communication to the community. just everywhere. in the huntgate instance, a large warning when you log in, recently there has been some exploits in barovia hunts, we're watching you will be banned. boom. can't say you weren't warned. the devs were coming from a place of we don't want to acknowledge this because.. ppl might find out.. but the horse was WAY past the gate at that point.
communication is the basis of trust.
There was no official communication that people would not have been banned for it. Players spread that rumor and made the assumption that if enough people are cheating, they can't ban everyone. The official communication that was sent out even stated that "any character found using the exploit will be subject to possible actions taken against player accounts as per our Terms of Service".
that was after this had been going on for a long time though. it's still a problem of communication. that communication should have gone out RIGHT AWAY. the players may have been spreading that rumor but that's because that attitude had a good track record of being true. it has been very rarely that massive bans have gone out for anything.
communication with the player base has been one of this companies failings for many years. almost all of the things players have been outraged about boils down to a failure to communicate with the players in a timely fashion.
coal gate has been a few years now so the details are faint but iirc the outrage was because the communication was such that people sold off their enchants for some reason thinking coals would remain in the store but then they were taken away. there had been some kind of sale where ppl spent real money. if they had told people before the mod was released and before the sale that coals would be removed.. then far less outrage.
hunt gate from the first hint that it was being abused an official notification that bans would happen.. then ppl have no reason to be sour.
there were others.. but it was always the same. let ppl know of things before they get burnt instead of miscommunication or none at all.
and outside of huge community outrage.. for minor community outrage.. communicate with us. it really all comes down to talking to us BEFORE things have a chance to come to a head. are you going to do something that's going to massively affect the economy. tell us so we have a chance to react. are you going to do something that's massively going to change things tell us. are you going to take action against us for doing something naughty. tell us right away. Are we up in arms about something en masse. talk to us right away. will some outrage remain. of course, but it's almost guaranteed to be a fraction of what it would have been without the communication.
And in a more general sense ( not referring to being notified of bannable situations)
when I say talk to us, btw, I don't mean say, "but it's in a good place", iotw "we don't care that you're upset". I mean listen to the player base and work with the player base to make it better received. in our house we have a saying, you have to work with the kitteh: kittehs are stubborn. strong arming a kitteh won't make things work. figuring out what the kitteh wants and then compromising with a solution that works for both of you is the only way to keep him from peeing all over your shoes.
strong arming unpopular decisions thru because reasons, (sorry angry player base).. is going to make the kitteh seek a house where they give him tuna regularly instead of a house where they feed them solely on cardboard and mossy water. and luckily for kitteh there are a lot of houses that could use an extra kitteh. the mouse problem is overwhelming in this neighborhood..
Nah, that's asking a bit much. I've well and truly given up on that one...
lol. there is always hope. I am hopeful. I'm willing to be open on it. you never know. sometimes changes in management really do yield positive results.
Since there is no legality issue, there is morally and especially when there are minors playing this game. Cryptic would need to justify for each individual player that he/she knew what he/she was doing was wrong. His age along with his mental stability would need to be considered to presume intention existed and that the intention should be to exploit the game knowing full well of the consequences and that it was prohibited.
I'm amused at the era we live in where companies are responsible for minors actions. I guess adults no longer supervise minors in any capacity and companies should now take up the slack.
Something being moral does not, and should not, make it an obligation. The company has no responsibility towards deciding if player A is 60 or 16. I mean, it's only in the....terms of service.... that a minor must have parental permission to register and use the product and doing so means they accept all terms. So covered.
People want to absolve others behaviors by hypothesizing that they're minors or lack the mental faculties to recognize something as an exploit.
The reason they could freely ban these players was because of them admitting the terms and services of Cryptic so that is a blatant disregard to my comment. Since there is no legality issue, there is morally and especially when there are minors playing this game. Cryptic would need to justify for each individual player that he/she knew what he/she was doing was wrong. His age along with his mental stability would need to be considered to presume intention existed and that the intention should be to exploit the game knowing full well of the consequences and that it was prohibited. There is much more to this then, "get a brain in your head, you Hamster". If anything, you should start with giving me a very good and easy to understand explanation on why this wasn't labelled as "exploit" even after the playerbase themselves reported this on preview months before?
A game company in no way needs to take each situation and figure out if the person knew they were exploiting or not. You sign the agreement of terms of service before you even start playing. Which means you agree to certain actions can be taken as cheating.
However I do think Cryptics reaction to the exploiting was perhaps too drastic. I know they made the rule but I know there were some "innocent" players who were pressured or through guild reputation, exploited the hunts and said nothing and some even were unaware of what they were actually doing.
The reason I think the bans were a bit harsh is because racking up millions of rough AD does nothing to harm the in game economy. All it does, is give those players the ability to log in, click the refine button and log out. Every player was still limited to 100k rough ad refinement per day. Which even to this day, you can easily build up a backlog of rough AD. So if you do things in a certain way you can still build up to this point where you can skip days of playing where you just log in to hit the refinement button and log out. So players who managed to exploit millions of AD did nothing to really cause harm. Plus Cryptic removed the rough AD those players had made from the exploit anyways which I think should have been enough. The bans were a bit harsh but a rule is a rule regardless of how I feel about it.
The problem with the ban is, many players quit along side their friends who got banned. So the bans were far more damaging to the game then they solved.
The reason they could freely ban these players was because of them admitting the terms and services of Cryptic so that is a blatant disregard to my comment. Since there is no legality issue, there is morally and especially when there are minors playing this game. Cryptic would need to justify for each individual player that he/she knew what he/she was doing was wrong. His age along with his mental stability would need to be considered to presume intention existed and that the intention should be to exploit the game knowing full well of the consequences and that it was prohibited. There is much more to this then, "get a brain in your head, you Hamster". If anything, you should start with giving me a very good and easy to understand explanation on why this wasn't labelled as "exploit" even after the playerbase themselves reported this on preview months before?
A game company in no way needs to take each situation and figure out if the person knew they were exploiting or not. You sign the agreement of terms of service before you even start playing. Which means you agree to certain actions can be taken as cheating.
However I do think Cryptics reaction to the exploiting was perhaps too drastic. I know they made the rule but I know there were some "innocent" players who were pressured or through guild reputation, exploited the hunts and said nothing and some even were unaware of what they were actually doing.
The reason I think the bans were a bit harsh is because racking up millions of rough AD does nothing to harm the in game economy. All it does, is give those players the ability to log in, click the refine button and log out. Every player was still limited to 100k rough ad refinement per day. Which even to this day, you can easily build up a backlog of rough AD. So if you do things in a certain way you can still build up to this point where you can skip days of playing where you just log in to hit the refinement button and log out. So players who managed to exploit millions of AD did nothing to really cause harm. Plus Cryptic removed the rough AD those players had made from the exploit anyways which I think should have been enough. The bans were a bit harsh but a rule is a rule regardless of how I feel about it.
The problem with the ban is, many players quit along side their friends who got banned. So the bans were far more damaging to the game then they solved.
it is harmful to the economy though. it's millions of ad being added to the economy when the economy already has too much ad. it's inflation. if those people would have been earning that much rough ad naturally why would they waste their time cheating and risking a ban? odds are those people would not have made that much money daily. although imo stripping away all profits and anything that looked like it mighjt have been bought with profits and a 2 week ban would have been enough. perma bans seem harsh when player retention is at this difficult place it's been at for the last couple years. the population really was decimated by this.
it is harmful to the economy though. it's millions of ad being added to the economy when the economy already has too much ad. it's inflation. if those people would have been earning that much rough ad naturally why would they waste their time cheating and risking a ban? odds are those people would not have made that much money daily. although imo stripping away all profits and anything that looked like it mighjt have been bought with profits and a 2 week ban would have been enough. perma bans seem harsh when player retention is at this difficult place it's been at for the last couple years. the population really was decimated by this.
No its not, its rough ad, not refine ad they were getting. So all they got was a few million rough ad backlog. It in no way harmed the game economy. They are still limited to 100k refinement per day.
However I do think Cryptics reaction to the exploiting was perhaps too drastic. I know they made the rule but I know there were some "innocent" players who were pressured or through guild reputation, exploited the hunts and said nothing and some even were unaware of what they were actually doing.
I had my fair share of using exploits, be it on NWO or on every MMORPG i had played since the mid 90s, but I have never been ban anywhere, not even for a single day.
Maybe that's because i'm an "old" MMO player and usually quite able to tell apart what is more a trick what is a pure exploit and between exploits, estimate what are the ban risks of each.
I don't understand how someone could not see the hunt "trick" as an exploit with a fairly high ban risk... even if it was "only" rAD which were limited to a 100k ratio conversion/day (though honnestly i can't remember if this change came right away with the release of mod14 or a bit later), it still affecting the economy.
Things like unintended shortcuts to avoid mobs or uninteded methods to kill some of them (pre-mod16 eToS shortcuts and eToS spiders phase-fall in precipices), unintended ways to avoid objects you would normally need to trigger (going through portcullis in pre-mod16 Malabog), were harmless little funny tricks.
Dragging the boss out of his supposedly closed room to let him kill himself in a pit (old eCC last boss), or wipe on a boss in a way his health bar remains so you can, after some parkour in the landscape, kill him safely at range while he is stuck on his platform (old mSP 2nd boss) were clear exploits (though probably both not critical enough to be at risk to be perma-ban for that, but maybe a 3-day ban warning if you did it repeatedly).
Around mod 11-12 if i remember well (before the random queues, when private allowed to earn the "queue" rAD too), there was a not well known exploit that allowed players to earn 2 to 5 "queue" rAD for the timecost of a bit more than 1 (at this era of the game a disconnected toon was not kicked out if you had switched to another one and the instance was still kept alive 4-5 minutes) : friends doing private parallel solo runs, inviting each other rerolls at the last campfire. How does it sound ? Like an exploit with high or low ban risks ?
I don't understand how someone could not see the hunt "trick" as an exploit with a fairly high ban risk... even if it was "only" rAD which were limited to a 100k ratio conversion/day (though honnestly i can't remember if this change came right away with the release of mod14 or a bit later), it still affecting the economy.
Actually cryptic removed all the rAD that was produced through hunt gate from those players who exploited. Possibly some players got their rAD removed and didn't actually get banned. But to say it continues to harm the economy is silly when that rAD was removed. How can it cause harm when it was removed?
Things like unintended shortcuts to avoid mobs or uninteded methods to kill some of them (pre-mod16 eToS shortcuts and eToS spiders phase-fall in precipices), unintended ways to avoid objects you would normally need to trigger (going through portcullis in pre-mod16 Malabog), were harmless little funny tricks.
Dragging the boss out of his supposedly closed room to let him kill himself in a pit (old eCC last boss), or wipe on a boss in a way his health bar remains so you can, after some parkour in the landscape, kill him safely at range while he is stuck on his platform (old mSP 2nd boss) were clear exploits (though probably both not critical enough to be at risk to be perma-ban for that, but maybe a 3-day ban warning if you did it repeatedly).
Around mod 11-12 if i remember well (before the random queues, when private allowed to earn the "queue" rAD too), there was a not well known exploit that allowed players to earn 2 to 5 "queue" rAD for the timecost of a bit more than 1 (at this era of the game a disconnected toon was not kicked out if you had switched to another one and the instance was still kept alive 4-5 minutes) : friends doing private parallel solo runs, inviting each other rerolls at the last campfire. How does it sound ? Like an exploit with high or low ban risks ?
Exploits sure, but bannable behavior? Maybe, perma-bans, definitely not. But then again I am not the judge here nor the rule maker. What I think should or shouldn't be is not up to me. They can decide to ban anyone who has carried out an exploit.
Let's face it though, a game the size of Neverwinter is bound to have "bugs" that allow players to do something that wasn't exactly intended in design but more of an oversight in redundant coding. However I do think there were some things that cryptic has missed that the game seriously needs. One example is the overhang inside the 2nd boss room in Lomm. Perhaps from Cryptic's point of view the overhang is considered an exploit. However from a dnd perspective the overhand is actually clever problem solving and it's not like the overhang was a perfect solution, it just made the problem a little easier to handle. But I think this sort of thing is what Neverwinter is missing, which is minor subtle solutions to problems if players can figure them out. If they did that it would be in keeping with the spirit of what DnD is. So I personally think they shoulda left the overhang in, sure it might have made the second boss fight easier, but they should have acknowledged the players clever discovery and realized this is what players do and perhaps their future designs should have hidden mechanics.
it is harmful to the economy though. it's millions of ad being added to the economy when the economy already has too much ad. it's inflation. if those people would have been earning that much rough ad naturally why would they waste their time cheating and risking a ban? odds are those people would not have made that much money daily. although imo stripping away all profits and anything that looked like it mighjt have been bought with profits and a 2 week ban would have been enough. perma bans seem harsh when player retention is at this difficult place it's been at for the last couple years. the population really was decimated by this.
No its not, its rough ad, not refine ad they were getting. So all they got was a few million rough ad backlog. It in no way harmed the game economy. They are still limited to 100k refinement per day.
and it will be refined into regular ad. that is regular ad that they probably wouldn't have farmed every single day for the next 2 years. it's a lot more ad into the economy than it would have been without the cheat. if it wasnt' better than they expected to do on their own without the cheat why would you waste your time doing it over and over and over again? dur
also important is activity. what motivation do they have to play now anyway. daily ques isn't necessary for ad.
and it will be refined into regular ad. that is regular ad that they probably wouldn't have farmed every single day for the next 2 years. it's a lot more ad into the economy than it would have been without the cheat. if it wasnt' better than they expected to do on their own without the cheat why would you waste your time doing it over and over and over again? dur
also important is activity. what motivation do they have to play now anyway. daily ques isn't necessary for ad.
I have nearly a million rough ad backlog. It is easy to get. I have already done some rough calculations. If one thousand players reach their refinement cap every day that's seven hundred million new ad pumped into the economy. A few dozen players who have a hundred million ad backlog is nothing. They are still limited to 100k refined per day. All it means is they only need to log in to hit the refine button and log out.
But is one thousand players meeting their refinement cap each day an unrealistic number? Is it smaller than that? Is it greater than that? What is the actual number? Because if it's greater than one thousand then the problem is even worse and we are talking about players who aren't even cheating or exploiting. They are playing their dailies and running a few other dungeons every day.
and it will be refined into regular ad. that is regular ad that they probably wouldn't have farmed every single day for the next 2 years. it's a lot more ad into the economy than it would have been without the cheat. if it wasnt' better than they expected to do on their own without the cheat why would you waste your time doing it over and over and over again? dur
also important is activity. what motivation do they have to play now anyway. daily ques isn't necessary for ad.
I have nearly a million rough ad backlog. It is easy to get. I have already done some rough calculations. If one thousand players reach their refinement cap every day that's seven hundred million new ad pumped into the economy. A few dozen players who have a hundred million ad backlog is nothing. They are still limited to 100k refined per day. All it means is they only need to log in to hit the refine button and log out.
But is one thousand players meeting their refinement cap each day an unrealistic number? Is it smaller than that? Is it greater than that? What is the actual number? Because if it's greater than one thousand then the problem is even worse and we are talking about players who aren't even cheating or exploiting. They are playing their dailies and running a few other dungeons every day.
at the end of the day they cheated. For a lot of rough ad. money for nothing and your chicks for free... they deserved to be banned for it. end of. yes cryptic should have opened a conversation much earlier but going into this level of debate for this is silly because they CHEATED.. they did the deed.
at the end of the day they cheated. For a lot of rough ad. money for nothing and your chicks for free... they deserved to be banned for it. end of. yes cryptic should have opened a conversation much earlier but going into this level of debate for this is silly because they CHEATED.. they did the deed.
Although in a way I agree with you, but hunt gate isn't the first time a major exploit has been in NW where players made off. For example there was a bug long long ago where you could put a - (minus sign) into your auction house price request which would actually give you back the AD you spent on an item. So you would get the item in your mail but at the same time it would give you AD. What players were doing was selling themselves their own items and making AD by repeatedly doing it. They quickly fixed the issue but the bug was live for a long time. Who knows how much of an impact it had until they fixed it.
Since there is no legality issue, there is morally and especially when there are minors playing this game. Cryptic would need to justify for each individual player that he/she knew what he/she was doing was wrong. His age along with his mental stability would need to be considered to presume intention existed and that the intention should be to exploit the game knowing full well of the consequences and that it was prohibited.
I'm amused at the era we live in where companies are responsible for minors actions. I guess adults no longer supervise minors in any capacity and companies should now take up the slack.
Something being moral does not, and should not, make it an obligation. The company has no responsibility towards deciding if player A is 60 or 16. I mean, it's only in the....terms of service.... that a minor must have parental permission to register and use the product and doing so means they accept all terms. So covered.
People want to absolve others behaviors by hypothesizing that they're minors or lack the mental faculties to recognize something as an exploit.
Jumping through legal loopholes now.
I believe i touched upon the legality of this issue, so I don't understand the inclusion of parental permission and terms of service. Why has it become rocket science to understand that community's trust is directly proportional to revenue? The issue i see with your approach is already looming in the game right now i.e. Darkened Artifact. The higher ups in my guild have strictly advised us to avoid using Darkened as the dev's label using darkened as an exploit and is an offence bannable. Now kindly advise me, if all those who can be hunted by cryptic, should be banned for this offence? The solution to this problem is the same as ever, just fix the damn thing on time.
I also do not see major warning signs of darkened being an exploit because much of the community is unaware it is an exploit and simply consider it as a bug. If you think about it, it can be classified as an exploit because you are effectively making use of a bug to increase your dps and get the rewards from TOMM. It's basically making use of a bug to make the loot easy to get, which is scaled to the difficulty of TOMM. You just have to look at AH prices of rings to be able to tell that darkened has had an impact. Even now, the community had to constantly remind the dev's to fix the artifact. This lazy attitude and then passing on the blame to customers is why this game is at the stage it is. It is at the door step of being shut down and people like you are probably the worst case scenario for this game, if the dev's ever heed your advice. I do not see how banning people will effect me, do it at your leisure cryptic.
Since there is no legality issue, there is morally and especially when there are minors playing this game.
Those are your words not mine. You also brought up minors to which I responded that they are legally covered in the ToS.
How you can respond by saying you don't understand the inclusion of parents and ToS when you brought minors into the discussion boggles me. Minors lead to parents lead to the ToS since it's covered in there.
I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your drivel and excuse making.
I don't absolve the devs for their part in the handling of exploits. But unlike you, I also don't absolve people abusing clear exploits and try to make excuse after excuse for it.
Since there is no legality issue, there is morally and especially when there are minors playing this game.
Those are your words not mine. You also brought up minors to which I responded that they are legally covered in the ToS.
How you can respond by saying you don't understand the inclusion of parents and ToS when you brought minors into the discussion boggles me. Minors lead to parents lead to the ToS since it's covered in there.
I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your drivel and excuse making.
I don't absolve the devs for their part in the handling of exploits. But unlike you, I also don't absolve people abusing clear exploits and try to make excuse after excuse for it.
Wow, you must have a peanut in your head. There is no legality issue here and that should have been discernible. My initial comment stated "obligation" and you assumed it to be a legal obligation all by yourself, like there is no such thing as "moral obligation". Then, when i clearly stated there is no legality involved as players have accepted the terms of services, you again bring in the parental responsibility. In your dictionary, there is no such thing as a Minor or an Adult, I am not aware of your background, but it definitely isn't very legal based. Just because most laws are managerial or administrative, doesn't mean that Law is not based on Morality. Morality is enshrined in law because law is in a sense "incomplete". Many unfair and wrong business practices are not anticipated and therefore not made illegal until someone invents and uses them in a way that clearly mistreats others. These practices are wrong and immoral from inception, but not illegal until law "catches up" to them. People disagree about moral issues. People also sometimes disagree about which laws should be created or kept, sometimes on moral grounds, sometimes on merely prudential or practical grounds, where different consequences are predicted. When moral viewpoints conflict or are contradictory, law, unless it is to be contradictory itself, cannot reflect the morality of different people.Laws are desired to be crafted carefully and with regard for our moral notion of justice and fairness and with utilitarian regard to their fostering good, rather than harmful consequences, though not all Law mimic that.
Eventhough, i never really touched upon the legality of the issue as you keep on taking this out of context, i do believe that if this was indeed a legal issue, Cryptic would have to compensate some of the players that it banned, if it weren't for the terms of services that all games now have. You cannot treat every player the same, it's complete and utter ignorance of how one views exploit as. Be it that, let us assume that Darkened really is an exploit, I can tell you for a fact that only a handful of players will understand this and refrain from using it. Your approach puts everyone on the same boat for using Darkened, which i am completely against and that was the purpose of my comment that you took out of context each time. To Cryptic, kindly please stop blind banning everyone who uses an exploit that you took months to fix, and admonish select few players to set an example but first, stop lazing out on bugs that are game breaking.
Unless using darkened involves pushing up right right down up left left and kill me so I spawn under the floor it is not a exploit to equip and use an artifact they have given to us to use
Unless using darkened involves pushing up right right down up left left and kill me so I spawn under the floor it is not a exploit to equip and use an artifact they have given to us to use
All i know personally is that it is not an intended behavior and is a bug at the very least. I am fine with people using it as i am occasionally running with friends using it, but darkened was just an example. Even if it turns out to be an exploit, i personally do not think anyone should be punished because Cryptic knew about this long before. It was a good example to use to compare to OP's post. I do expect TOMM completion rate to drastically decrease as darkened gets nerfed and orcus/wiz/ranger nerf will further exacerbate this. If anything, Cryptic needs to be blamed for not fixing this on time, but they apparently got time to fix tamed velociraptor after how long (although still bugged) ? Yes Cryptic, i was definitely born yesterday.
Unless using darkened involves pushing up right right down up left left and kill me so I spawn under the floor it is not a exploit to equip and use an artifact they have given to us to use
All i know personally is that it is not an intended behavior and is a bug at the very least. I am fine with people using it as i am occasionally running with friends using it, but darkened was just an example. Even if it turns out to be an exploit, i personally do not think anyone should be punished because Cryptic knew about this long before. It was a good example to use to compare to OP's post. I do expect TOMM completion rate to drastically decrease as darkened gets nerfed and orcus/wiz/ranger nerf will further exacerbate this. If anything, Cryptic needs to be blamed for not fixing this on time, but they apparently got time to fix tamed velociraptor after how long (although still bugged) ? Yes Cryptic, i was definitely born yesterday.
I'm not sure why you keep banging on about this. it's not an exploit. if it's a bug fine. bugs are in all the things. and if they banned the playerbase for it they'd be wrong (unless there is something I am unaware of to this like they are having to do something in particular to get an unfair advantage, but then it would not simply be from "using darkened") but it has zero in common with the hunt problem. exploits are something you have to do a series of things to access for an unexpected result. bugs are in things and you're playing the game as intended and it's no bodies fault but the devs and after awhile of having a bug open it becomes a feature of the game. with some of the things you've been saying I get the impression you want us to view you as educated and intelligent. as such, I'd pause and wait a day and re read what you post before you post it because that's not the impression that I think most of us are coming away with.
Unless using darkened involves pushing up right right down up left left and kill me so I spawn under the floor it is not a exploit to equip and use an artifact they have given to us to use
All i know personally is that it is not an intended behavior and is a bug at the very least. I am fine with people using it as i am occasionally running with friends using it, but darkened was just an example. Even if it turns out to be an exploit, i personally do not think anyone should be punished because Cryptic knew about this long before. It was a good example to use to compare to OP's post. I do expect TOMM completion rate to drastically decrease as darkened gets nerfed and orcus/wiz/ranger nerf will further exacerbate this. If anything, Cryptic needs to be blamed for not fixing this on time, but they apparently got time to fix tamed velociraptor after how long (although still bugged) ? Yes Cryptic, i was definitely born yesterday.
I'm not sure why you keep banging on about this. it's not an exploit. if it's a bug fine. bugs are in all the things. and if they banned the playerbase for it they'd be wrong (unless there is something I am unaware of to this like they are having to do something in particular to get an unfair advantage, but then it would not simply be from "using darkened") but it has zero in common with the hunt problem. exploits are something you have to do a series of things to access for an unexpected result. bugs are in things and you're playing the game as intended and it's no bodies fault but the devs and after awhile of having a bug open it becomes a feature of the game. with some of the things you've been saying I get the impression you want us to view you as educated and intelligent. as such, I'd pause and wait a day and re read what you post before you post it because that's not the impression that I think most of us are coming away with.
So if a act involves just one step instead of a series of steps, it is automatically not an exploit? Exploit can be defined in various ways. Since you're getting personal, you must be enjoying darkened but alas, my point was that if something is not fixed on time, it can portray to the player base as not being a serious matter or even intentional at times, like i have been thinking with tamed. That is also why my guild is strongly against it even to this day and some of my guildies may use it secretly (their choice) but others won't even run with players using them. That also reflects my opinion about how some players may judge different circumstances differently. If you need to use it as a wizard or ranger, then you definitely need to learn your class better. I mean, when classes were buffed, the first thing the devs did was to buff halaster proportionally, so what is darkened doing to our dps? Surely, some people must have thought mod 14 offence as not capable of a ban, but they still got banned and some got banned who denied any involvement. If that happens again, this game is not going to survive , so it is a good advice to take. Fix game breaking things on time and give the playerbase a clear warning/s whilst you are trying to find a fix. Wow, that was hard to understand, right?
Post edited by sobi#1980 on
0
kreatyveMember, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 10,545Community Moderator
Unless using darkened involves pushing up right right down up left left and kill me so I spawn under the floor it is not a exploit to equip and use an artifact they have given to us to use
All i know personally is that it is not an intended behavior and is a bug at the very least. I am fine with people using it as i am occasionally running with friends using it, but darkened was just an example. Even if it turns out to be an exploit, i personally do not think anyone should be punished because Cryptic knew about this long before. It was a good example to use to compare to OP's post. I do expect TOMM completion rate to drastically decrease as darkened gets nerfed and orcus/wiz/ranger nerf will further exacerbate this. If anything, Cryptic needs to be blamed for not fixing this on time, but they apparently got time to fix tamed velociraptor after how long (although still bugged) ? Yes Cryptic, i was definitely born yesterday.
I'm not sure why you keep banging on about this. it's not an exploit. if it's a bug fine. bugs are in all the things. and if they banned the playerbase for it they'd be wrong (unless there is something I am unaware of to this like they are having to do something in particular to get an unfair advantage, but then it would not simply be from "using darkened") but it has zero in common with the hunt problem. exploits are something you have to do a series of things to access for an unexpected result. bugs are in things and you're playing the game as intended and it's no bodies fault but the devs and after awhile of having a bug open it becomes a feature of the game. with some of the things you've been saying I get the impression you want us to view you as educated and intelligent. as such, I'd pause and wait a day and re read what you post before you post it because that's not the impression that I think most of us are coming away with.
So if a act involves just one step instead of a series of steps, it is automatically not an exploit? Exploit can be defined in various ways. Since you're getting personal, you must be enjoying darkened but alas, my point was that if something is not fixed on time, it can portray to the player base as not being a serious matter or even intentional at times, like i have been thinking with tamed. That is also why my guild is strongly against it even to this day and some of my guildies may use it secretly (their choice) but others won't even run with players using them. That also reflects my opinion about how some players may judge different circumstances differently. If you need to use it as a wizard or ranger, then you definitely need to learn your class better. I mean, when classes were buffed, the first thing the devs did was to buff halaster proportionally, so what is darkened doing to our dps? Surely, some people must have thought mod 14 offence as not capable of a ban, but they still got banned and some got banned who denied any involvement. If that happens again, this game is not going to survive , so it is a good advice to take. Fix game breaking things on time and give the playerbase a clear warning/s whilst you are trying to find a fix. Wow, that was hard to understand, right?
Darkened is more of a "super method" than exploit though. The only way to avoid the issues with it would be to simply not use it. The Barovia Hunt exploit was WAY more involved than that, and the players that got permabanned could not, in any way, state that they were unaware that they were doing something wrong. Those that maybe got caught up with friends who were abusing it, more than likely only got a temp ban.
That being said, the Terms of Service, whether you read them or not, is pretty much the only clear warning most game companies will give you regarding known exploits. Ignorance of the rules is not an adequate defense when you violate said rules.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
1
darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,259Arc User
Transparency is the key to avoid this kind of discussions.
"Darkened is bugged, enjoy it until we fix it" or "doing this or that in hunts is an exploit, we are aware of it, and will fix ASAP dont use this exploit or you could be banned"
would be enough for 99% of the players. I hope with the adition of @cwhitesidedev#9752 to the team this kind of situations will be handled much better. Transparency is allways better
Unless using darkened involves pushing up right right down up left left and kill me so I spawn under the floor it is not a exploit to equip and use an artifact they have given to us to use
All i know personally is that it is not an intended behavior and is a bug at the very least. I am fine with people using it as i am occasionally running with friends using it, but darkened was just an example. Even if it turns out to be an exploit, i personally do not think anyone should be punished because Cryptic knew about this long before. It was a good example to use to compare to OP's post. I do expect TOMM completion rate to drastically decrease as darkened gets nerfed and orcus/wiz/ranger nerf will further exacerbate this. If anything, Cryptic needs to be blamed for not fixing this on time, but they apparently got time to fix tamed velociraptor after how long (although still bugged) ? Yes Cryptic, i was definitely born yesterday.
I'm not sure why you keep banging on about this. it's not an exploit. if it's a bug fine. bugs are in all the things. and if they banned the playerbase for it they'd be wrong (unless there is something I am unaware of to this like they are having to do something in particular to get an unfair advantage, but then it would not simply be from "using darkened") but it has zero in common with the hunt problem. exploits are something you have to do a series of things to access for an unexpected result. bugs are in things and you're playing the game as intended and it's no bodies fault but the devs and after awhile of having a bug open it becomes a feature of the game. with some of the things you've been saying I get the impression you want us to view you as educated and intelligent. as such, I'd pause and wait a day and re read what you post before you post it because that's not the impression that I think most of us are coming away with.
So if a act involves just one step instead of a series of steps, it is automatically not an exploit? Exploit can be defined in various ways. Since you're getting personal, you must be enjoying darkened but alas, my point was that if something is not fixed on time, it can portray to the player base as not being a serious matter or even intentional at times, like i have been thinking with tamed. That is also why my guild is strongly against it even to this day and some of my guildies may use it secretly (their choice) but others won't even run with players using them. That also reflects my opinion about how some players may judge different circumstances differently. If you need to use it as a wizard or ranger, then you definitely need to learn your class better. I mean, when classes were buffed, the first thing the devs did was to buff halaster proportionally, so what is darkened doing to our dps? Surely, some people must have thought mod 14 offence as not capable of a ban, but they still got banned and some got banned who denied any involvement. If that happens again, this game is not going to survive , so it is a good advice to take. Fix game breaking things on time and give the playerbase a clear warning/s whilst you are trying to find a fix. Wow, that was hard to understand, right?
getting personal is the same thing as telling you the truth? a bug is not the same as an exploit. it just isn't. if that one step is equip item that devs have given you as a shiney prize for completing content honestly then absolutely no. it's never an exploit. no one will ever be banned for using an artifact gotten cleanly. however if they took the artifact out of the game saying it's just too busted sorry, here is a blood ruby in compensation for it. and someone figured out how to get it back by going to a certain spot on the map and then logging out and logging back in again and then killing themselves and magically teleporting into the treasure room where all the dead artifacts were held and equipped it and went back into the game to use it some more. THAT would be an exploit. yes sometimes are not working as intended. but are in the realms of normal use. that's just gonna be patched. they're gonna say don't get used to that. but no one is going to be punished.
Comments
Our opinions on Huntgate are noted in the many threads about it both here on the forums and on both reddits.
I am surprised that so many of you are triggered by the way this topic was presented. People are allowed to have their own viewpoint and the OPs experience with the game and its scandals are just as valid as any of ours.
But yeah lets keep bickering over this LONG DEAD issue and derailing the original point behind this thread because that is what we all do best.
- the chat lock to fight AD sellers spam in PE, sure it works most of the time, but it also leaves new players standing in the rain, and going by their feedback (if they find their way into this or any other forum...) it would have been better to include the way to unlock chat/auction house somehow in the "new player experience" thingy too.
- botting, hell at this point i'm not even sure if anything is done actively from the Devs side against bots, and let's be honest, reporting a single bot isn't going to stop someone that has god knows how many up and running.
- scamming around Winter Festival, not everyone has a big guild/alliance or even friends list, so it would have been nice to come up with something more then just a visual gimmick that shows that another player has gifts.
- active companions were working too good for a short while, with some even being exceptional, a swing of the nerf hammer later, nearly all of them were and still are pretty much useless now, but i guess that's just fine, as long as augments are working properly, right?
- the Doohickey, similar story to companions, it would have been nice to keep their damage output within the "helpfull item" range.
- or what about all those changes to armor and weapon enchantments? i've given up on refining those things, since what's the point? what might work now, might get destroyed in a future module...
- ZEN charge promotions were having issues with delivering what they promised again and again, so they simply removed the additional rewards from them. same with those yearly christmas gifts, removed as well instead of improving them.
the real issue here is communication; Not the bans, not the earlier gates.. but communication.
it really all comes down to we need better communication to the community. just everywhere. in the huntgate instance, a large warning when you log in, recently there has been some exploits in barovia hunts, we're watching you will be banned. boom. can't say you weren't warned.
the devs were coming from a place of we don't want to acknowledge this because.. ppl might find out.. but the horse was WAY past the gate at that point.
communication is the basis of trust.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
communication with the player base has been one of this companies failings for many years. almost all of the things players have been outraged about boils down to a failure to communicate with the players in a timely fashion.
coal gate has been a few years now so the details are faint but iirc the outrage was because the communication was such that people sold off their enchants for some reason thinking coals would remain in the store but then they were taken away. there had been some kind of sale where ppl spent real money. if they had told people before the mod was released and before the sale that coals would be removed.. then far less outrage.
hunt gate from the first hint that it was being abused an official notification that bans would happen.. then ppl have no reason to be sour.
there were others.. but it was always the same. let ppl know of things before they get burnt instead of miscommunication or none at all.
and outside of huge community outrage.. for minor community outrage.. communicate with us. it really all comes down to talking to us BEFORE things have a chance to come to a head. are you going to do something that's going to massively affect the economy. tell us so we have a chance to react. are you going to do something that's massively going to change things tell us. are you going to take action against us for doing something naughty. tell us right away. Are we up in arms about something en masse. talk to us right away. will some outrage remain. of course, but it's almost guaranteed to be a fraction of what it would have been without the communication.
And in a more general sense ( not referring to being notified of bannable situations)
when I say talk to us, btw, I don't mean say, "but it's in a good place", iotw "we don't care that you're upset". I mean listen to the player base and work with the player base to make it better received. in our house we have a saying, you have to work with the kitteh: kittehs are stubborn. strong arming a kitteh won't make things work. figuring out what the kitteh wants and then compromising with a solution that works for both of you is the only way to keep him from peeing all over your shoes.
strong arming unpopular decisions thru because reasons, (sorry angry player base).. is going to make the kitteh seek a house where they give him tuna regularly instead of a house where they feed them solely on cardboard and mossy water. and luckily for kitteh there are a lot of houses that could use an extra kitteh. the mouse problem is overwhelming in this neighborhood..
Nah, that's asking a bit much. I've well and truly given up on that one...
Co-Guild Leader
Ghost Templars L20
Alliance: Tyrs Paladium
Main: Cleric (Heals|DPS)
Alt: Warlock
Something being moral does not, and should not, make it an obligation. The company has no responsibility towards deciding if player A is 60 or 16. I mean, it's only in the....terms of service.... that a minor must have parental permission to register and use the product and doing so means they accept all terms. So covered.
People want to absolve others behaviors by hypothesizing that they're minors or lack the mental faculties to recognize something as an exploit.
Jumping through legal loopholes now.
However I do think Cryptics reaction to the exploiting was perhaps too drastic. I know they made the rule but I know there were some "innocent" players who were pressured or through guild reputation, exploited the hunts and said nothing and some even were unaware of what they were actually doing.
The reason I think the bans were a bit harsh is because racking up millions of rough AD does nothing to harm the in game economy. All it does, is give those players the ability to log in, click the refine button and log out. Every player was still limited to 100k rough ad refinement per day. Which even to this day, you can easily build up a backlog of rough AD. So if you do things in a certain way you can still build up to this point where you can skip days of playing where you just log in to hit the refinement button and log out. So players who managed to exploit millions of AD did nothing to really cause harm. Plus Cryptic removed the rough AD those players had made from the exploit anyways which I think should have been enough. The bans were a bit harsh but a rule is a rule regardless of how I feel about it.
The problem with the ban is, many players quit along side their friends who got banned. So the bans were far more damaging to the game then they solved.
Maybe that's because i'm an "old" MMO player and usually quite able to tell apart what is more a trick what is a pure exploit and between exploits, estimate what are the ban risks of each.
I don't understand how someone could not see the hunt "trick" as an exploit with a fairly high ban risk... even if it was "only" rAD which were limited to a 100k ratio conversion/day (though honnestly i can't remember if this change came right away with the release of mod14 or a bit later), it still affecting the economy.
Things like unintended shortcuts to avoid mobs or uninteded methods to kill some of them (pre-mod16 eToS shortcuts and eToS spiders phase-fall in precipices), unintended ways to avoid objects you would normally need to trigger (going through portcullis in pre-mod16 Malabog), were harmless little funny tricks.
Dragging the boss out of his supposedly closed room to let him kill himself in a pit (old eCC last boss), or wipe on a boss in a way his health bar remains so you can, after some parkour in the landscape, kill him safely at range while he is stuck on his platform (old mSP 2nd boss) were clear exploits (though probably both not critical enough to be at risk to be perma-ban for that, but maybe a 3-day ban warning if you did it repeatedly).
Around mod 11-12 if i remember well (before the random queues, when private allowed to earn the "queue" rAD too), there was a not well known exploit that allowed players to earn 2 to 5 "queue" rAD for the timecost of a bit more than 1 (at this era of the game a disconnected toon was not kicked out if you had switched to another one and the instance was still kept alive 4-5 minutes) : friends doing private parallel solo runs, inviting each other rerolls at the last campfire.
How does it sound ? Like an exploit with high or low ban risks ?
Let's face it though, a game the size of Neverwinter is bound to have "bugs" that allow players to do something that wasn't exactly intended in design but more of an oversight in redundant coding. However I do think there were some things that cryptic has missed that the game seriously needs. One example is the overhang inside the 2nd boss room in Lomm. Perhaps from Cryptic's point of view the overhang is considered an exploit. However from a dnd perspective the overhand is actually clever problem solving and it's not like the overhang was a perfect solution, it just made the problem a little easier to handle. But I think this sort of thing is what Neverwinter is missing, which is minor subtle solutions to problems if players can figure them out. If they did that it would be in keeping with the spirit of what DnD is. So I personally think they shoulda left the overhang in, sure it might have made the second boss fight easier, but they should have acknowledged the players clever discovery and realized this is what players do and perhaps their future designs should have hidden mechanics.
also important is activity. what motivation do they have to play now anyway. daily ques isn't necessary for ad.
But is one thousand players meeting their refinement cap each day an unrealistic number? Is it smaller than that? Is it greater than that? What is the actual number? Because if it's greater than one thousand then the problem is even worse and we are talking about players who aren't even cheating or exploiting. They are playing their dailies and running a few other dungeons every day.
I also do not see major warning signs of darkened being an exploit because much of the community is unaware it is an exploit and simply consider it as a bug. If you think about it, it can be classified as an exploit because you are effectively making use of a bug to increase your dps and get the rewards from TOMM. It's basically making use of a bug to make the loot easy to get, which is scaled to the difficulty of TOMM. You just have to look at AH prices of rings to be able to tell that darkened has had an impact. Even now, the community had to constantly remind the dev's to fix the artifact. This lazy attitude and then passing on the blame to customers is why this game is at the stage it is. It is at the door step of being shut down and people like you are probably the worst case scenario for this game, if the dev's ever heed your advice. I do not see how banning people will effect me, do it at your leisure cryptic.
How you can respond by saying you don't understand the inclusion of parents and ToS when you brought minors into the discussion boggles me. Minors lead to parents lead to the ToS since it's covered in there.
I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your drivel and excuse making.
I don't absolve the devs for their part in the handling of exploits. But unlike you, I also don't absolve people abusing clear exploits and try to make excuse after excuse for it.
Eventhough, i never really touched upon the legality of the issue as you keep on taking this out of context, i do believe that if this was indeed a legal issue, Cryptic would have to compensate some of the players that it banned, if it weren't for the terms of services that all games now have. You cannot treat every player the same, it's complete and utter ignorance of how one views exploit as. Be it that, let us assume that Darkened really is an exploit, I can tell you for a fact that only a handful of players will understand this and refrain from using it. Your approach puts everyone on the same boat for using Darkened, which i am completely against and that was the purpose of my comment that you took out of context each time. To Cryptic, kindly please stop blind banning everyone who uses an exploit that you took months to fix, and admonish select few players to set an example but first, stop lazing out on bugs that are game breaking.
I'm not sure why you keep banging on about this. it's not an exploit. if it's a bug fine. bugs are in all the things. and if they banned the playerbase for it they'd be wrong (unless there is something I am unaware of to this like they are having to do something in particular to get an unfair advantage, but then it would not simply be from "using darkened") but it has zero in common with the hunt problem. exploits are something you have to do a series of things to access for an unexpected result. bugs are in things and you're playing the game as intended and it's no bodies fault but the devs and after awhile of having a bug open it becomes a feature of the game.
with some of the things you've been saying I get the impression you want us to view you as educated and intelligent. as such, I'd pause and wait a day and re read what you post before you post it because that's not the impression that I think most of us are coming away with.
That being said, the Terms of Service, whether you read them or not, is pretty much the only clear warning most game companies will give you regarding known exploits. Ignorance of the rules is not an adequate defense when you violate said rules.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
"Darkened is bugged, enjoy it until we fix it"
or
"doing this or that in hunts is an exploit, we are aware of it, and will fix ASAP dont use this exploit or you could be banned"
would be enough for 99% of the players. I hope with the adition of @cwhitesidedev#9752 to the team this kind of situations will be handled much better. Transparency is allways better
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
getting personal is the same thing as telling you the truth? a bug is not the same as an exploit. it just isn't. if that one step is equip item that devs have given you as a shiney prize for completing content honestly then absolutely no. it's never an exploit. no one will ever be banned for using an artifact gotten cleanly. however if they took the artifact out of the game saying it's just too busted sorry, here is a blood ruby in compensation for it. and someone figured out how to get it back by going to a certain spot on the map and then logging out and logging back in again and then killing themselves and magically teleporting into the treasure room where all the dead artifacts were held and equipped it and went back into the game to use it some more. THAT would be an exploit.
yes sometimes are not working as intended. but are in the realms of normal use. that's just gonna be patched. they're gonna say don't get used to that. but no one is going to be punished.