GGG wants us to exploit this game

The issue with misusing game mechanics is that most players don't know if something is an "EXPLOIT" or intended. As an example, today I rolled a Shadow, fully intending to go Sword & Board or Duel Weld, depending on what drops & what plays better for me. So I'm now lvl 8 & get ---- from a mob on The Ledge

DEMON TORMENT - LONG SWORD
Physical Damage 21-50
Elemental Damage 1-8
Crit Strike 5%
Attacks per Second 1.20
Required LVL 8 - 20 Str, 21 Dex
+ 18 increased accuracy rating
+ 65 physical damage
+ 1-8 lightning damage
+ 9% attack speed
+ 7% cold resists

Now did I get LUCKY or is this a MISTAKE by the Dev's & therefore a EXPLOIT. And if it's an EXPLOIT, will I get banned for using it.
Should I report this or just use it & have fun? I don't know whats correct now that I'm reading this thread.
Should I report ANY exceptional drop I get in the future or use it & enjoy the game.

In my opinion, I should just use it & go on having fun 1 shotting everything I come across for the next 20 lvl's.

On the other hand, getting this Sword presents me with some interesting decisions, Do I now take a 2 handed path or wait to see what else comes in the future, interesting to say the least & is what makes this game so exceptional.

As a casual player I can say that I want to play & enjoy my game time & not worry about being banned due to game mechanics that I cant control or even understand.

If it's in the uniques list or you get a rare with mods that are within the published ranges, then it's not an exploit.

If you happen to get a sword drop that is level 20 and has 500% increased physical damage... then you should report it.

The main problem as I see it is one of intent and foreknowledge. "Exploits" typically mean gameplay that confers an unintended advantage to a player, be it through a bug, glitch, poor design or whatever. The key part of that is UNINTENDED (at least, by the developers of the game.) The only way for the players to truly know if something is an exploit is to know if the devs intended for us to be able to perform certain actions or not. This isn't really viable for all aspects of games, even if that game was a single player one and not something monstrously more complex as an MMO or something similar. So we, the players, being faced with lifetime bans for exploiting, are left wondering when we find a unique new gameplay advantage whether or not this is an exploit. Certainly, some due diligence has to be placed on the player, but at the same time the devs must understand that not every player is as tech (or MMO, or gaming in general) savvy as they or some of us players are. So they should realize that not everyone who exploits is doing so with the intention of cheating. Surely, everyone who exploits does so for an advantage. It's what we all do in games. Try to get better, stronger, faster, meaner, bigger, richer, prettier etc. But was the advantage an unfair one? Was it unintended? If so, was the person who had the advantage aware of it? Did they make vast use of it, or only the one time? All these questions are important, both for the moderators/game masters in determining punishment, and the developers in how to deal with the exploit in question.

Anyway, I wrote up that long rambling wall of text to simply say this: developers need to be upfront and clear about gameplay expectations and NOT so harsh in punishment when people go against those expectations when they weren't communicated clearly, or at all. Being banned for exploiting is bad enough (though, admittedly fair,) but banned for doing something you weren't even aware was an exploit? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.....

Edit: Oh, and I wanted to add, that the devs idea of a player feeling like they are exploiting because they are kicking so much ass but not really cheating, well, that's just friggin awesome developing right there.

Is it me or does Jonathan say "umm" a lot.

I'd say an exploit is something that goes out of its way to use a gameplay system in a way that wasn't intended.

Exploit: Unequip an item mid-upgrade so that you don't receive any potential negative consequences.

Exploit: Specific, arbitrary locations make it so monsters can't fight back so you make it a point to train every monster there to kill it. It's not something like a bridge or bunker where it might have been the developer's intention but instead it's like the corner in a cave.

Exploit: You've found a way to craft without consuming materials.

Exploit: You walk toward an item on the ground to pick it up, quickly pick an item up off of your belt/inventory, and it results in a duplicated item. Picking up items isn't supposed to create items.

Not Exploit: If you cast a skill directly under a monster it does not move or attack for the skill's duration. Whether intended or not, you are literally casting a spell. It is on the developer to change it if it doesn't align with their vision of the game.

Not Exploit: A piece of gear negatively effects skill cast time but makes you invulnerable while using the skill. You begin your cast with a different piece of gear on and switch to the invulnerable piece of gear to receive the invulnerable benefit without the drawback. Gear switching in combat is legal, and you are switching gear as intended even if the end result wasn't planned.

Not exploit: Buy a bunch of stuff at an npc and do things with it. You are using the npc system as intended: your currency is being consumed and you are obtaining an item.

Not exploit: Craft things and sell them to the npc. Your materials are being consumed, you are making the item as intended, and you are selling that item to the npc.

Those last two are fairly topical because a company recently punished players for their own incompetence. You can not label something an exploit if the player is using the system as intended and you are the one who messed up the numbers. It'd be like banning people for equipping an item, leveling through questing or grinding monsters, or using skills.


In closed beta GGG wants us to find actual exploits so they can fix them. GGG doesn't want us to use exploits to break the economy or ruin the game for other players. It appears that GGG takes a reasonable stance on what an exploit is and what an exploit isn't. If they see something they don't like that isn't clearly abusive they'll patch it. I'm sure if you started duping currency items or pulling 6ls out of thin air they'd swoop in.

Finding an exploit and using, "exploiting", an exploit are two different things.

Just take your example here :

"

Not Exploit: If you cast a skill directly under a monster it does not move or attack for the skill's duration. Whether intended or not, you are literally casting a spell. It is on the developer to change it if it doesn't align with their vision of the game.

Use that to solo every boss in that game without any effort. The act of casting itself might not be an exploit, but the way you use it sure as hell is.

And the GW2 thing...it was bloody fucking obvious that it wasen't intended, doing it a few times might (and does, down to a 72h ban) get you off easy, but doing it literally thousands of times and/or even advertising it ? That's asking for it. The bans are well deserved.

I don't think it was obvious at all. There are two in-game currencies. You can sell things to acquire currency. Kripp heard of a good method of converting currency.

If you refuse to accept my argument, that's fine, the argument is correct at its core whether you choose to accept it or not: an exploit is an attempt to do something extremely well. Is attacking a monster to get experience an exploit or a game mechanic? Without developer explanation on intention, it is both. What separates an "exploit" from a "game mechanic" is its legitimacy.

ArenaNet needs to be more explicit and temperate about its game. You cannot ban people for any length of time for using game mechanics to acquire things. If they don't want people converting currency, it shouldn't be a game mechanic at all. If they don't want people converting currency, they should do a rollback.

Banning people as they did is reckless and disrespectful. They obviously don't respect the support their customers gave their company, by terminating their access to their game for something as arbitrary as using a game mechanic well. It was only an exploit when they claimed that it was; not before then. If this were a court of law, we'd call it Ex Post Facto.

The truth is that ArenaNet was not prepared. They did not have guidelines in place for their support team to handle bots, exploits, etc It is very clear that despite a successful GW1 run, ArenaNet has little experience in handling MMOs. It is also ridiculous that Kripp got permanently banned while botters were given slaps on the back. Who will have greater long term impact on the economy? A brief conversion "exploit" or a bunch of botters shoving things into the economy?

SWTOR in part died because it was a North Korea simulator. ArenaNet needs to realize that to have a successful game, you need to have good representation in the community and communicate well with them. You can't do that if you're banning people for trivial things that should just be hotfixed and forgotten.

As you know more than anyone, we already have a thread, rightfully in Off-Topic, about Kripparrian and 'exploiting' other games. Please keep this discussion to the concept of 'exploiting' within the context of Path of Exile.

@Cardslinger: to add to what zeto said, that item is clearly within the parameters of the 'item data' possibilities of affix combinations. Rares are generally supposed to be stronger than uniques in raw numbers as a potential, and that level 8 rare sword you've named doesn't come close in power to the level 7 unique sword. So in this case, it seems obvious to me that it's far from a bugged item.

The variance between rares at any given itemlevel can be misleading though, and definitely contributes to some frustrating alchemy/chaos rolls, followed, if you're lucky, by a stupendously amazing one. I am not totally sure of the mechanics, but my experience is that rares can have much lower itemlevel req affixes than the actual item's level, which can result in some pretty crappy rares. But if they always rolled only within their current band, rares would be far too powerful consistently, I suppose.

Either way, as long as an item is according to the level requirements of the various affixes listed here, then all is well. Something to be particularly conscious of is the fact that rares can 'break' the damage barrier of magical items by way of the two damage-adding prefixes, one with adds a raw percentage bonus to physical damage, the other adding both that (at a lower scale) and accuracy rating.

Anubite, if there is no other way to convert karma to gold or gold to karma, and this was the only way, and/or the ratio obtained from doing this particular sale was significantly higher than alternatives, to a reasonable adult, that is an exploit that should be reported.

I'm not saying that the company had a proper response, but that does not take away from the validity of it being clearly an unintended feature, ie. an exploit.

amazing video, with this they probe the compromising with the game, learning from others games mistakes... nice