How Do You Define Exploit?

I feel a bit concerned after hearing the news of the exploit ban wave this season. In a game whose primary objective for many players is to push the limits of creative optimization, it's not clear how to discern between "creative efficient strategy the developers didn't think of but would approve of" and "creative efficient strategy the developers didn't think of but will ban you for doing", a.k.a., "exploit".

How do you define "exploit" without involving mind-reading?

The common pragmatic answers that I've come across seem to do with utilizing some game mechanic to earn wayyyy more of something (profit/experience/etc) than you do in normal gameplay. The problem here is twofold:

1) Players whose "normal" baseline is low may suddenly stumble across a 10x efficiency increase. To them, it would seem like they found an exploit, but to efficient players, these newfound profits are actually completely normal, or perhaps even a still considered low.

2) Every league there are new mechanics, and there's always something that allows for outrageously large amounts of profit or experience, which was clearly unintended by the developers (because they get patched out later), but they usually have not led to bans or been deemed exploits. For example, last league there was an interaction between Auspicious Valdo's Rest Watchstones and Diplomatic Escort that allowed players to literally farm multiple raw mirrors in a day, in addition to tons of Exalts and Ancient Orbs plus all the normal profits from mapping. Farming raw mirrors is not something we are "supposed" to be able to do in Path of Exile, and this was reflected in the immediate patching of this mechanic. However, this was not deemed as an exploit, even though it fit the criterion of insanely high profit generated from unintended game mechanic.

Let's say theoretically next league I were to come across some way to earn a billion exp/hour on a level 95 character from some Atlas passive mechanic, or start dropping 100 raw exalts per day by some clever use of the new league mechanic. How do I know if what I'm doing is exploiting, acceptably taking advantage of an unintended game mechanic, or actually playing the game in a way the developers intended?

From what I understand they could do endless ultimatums while normal ones go up to 12 wave or so. Sounds like an exploit to me. Or do you want it to be written specifically *you are not allowed to chain endless ultimatums*?

I would say if it's something that somebody could theoretically stumble upon just from playing the game normally then even if it's considered exploiting a mechanic, it's probably something GGG will just nerf instead of ban people over.

I could be wrong and I never researched what that one group actually did so I'm not entirely sure of the circumstances there.

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Johny_Snow wrote:

From what I understand they could do endless ultimatums while normal ones go up to 12 wave or so.

I don't believe they increased the number of waves, they simply didn't complete the objective, thereby extending the duration of the wave. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone.[/quote]

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Sounds like an exploit to me.

That's about as far from a definition as it gets.

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do you want it to be written specifically *you are not allowed to chain endless ultimatums*?

Exactly.

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VolcanoElixir wrote:

I would say if it's something that somebody could theoretically stumble upon just from playing the game normally then even if it's considered exploiting a mechanic, it's probably something GGG will just nerf instead of ban people over.

That's precisely what bothers me. Again, I don't know the exact details of the exploit that was banned, but to me, if monsters spawn infinitely, then infinitely killing these infinitely spawning monsters is something I would (and did, in fact) stumble across in "normal gameplay". The only reason I stopped doing it because it was giving poor experience, and my priority was level 100 over wealth.

Thing is, most exploits are not known even by the developers. It is impossible for them to find every bug, especially on a 3-month schedule. Other games get exploited all the time, especially by speedrunners finding shortcuts. It is not possible for GGG to had known about the exploit beforehand therefore it was impossible for them to announce that.

I guess you are not aware what an exploit is? That would explain a lot

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Exactly.

If GGG had known about the exploit to write a message not to do it, then they would just make sure it doesn't work to begin with.

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That's precisely what bothers me. Again, I don't know the exact details of the exploit that was banned, but to me, if monsters spawn infinitely, then infinitely killing these infinitely spawning monsters is something I would (and did, in fact) stumble across in "normal gameplay". The only reason I stopped doing it because it was giving poor experience, and my priority was level 100 over wealth.

GGG usually prevents infinite monster spawning mechanics from being good EXP farms. I think Heist is the only one that still gives endless EXP at the moment? At least I can't find if it was ever nerfed.

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Johny_Snow wrote:

I guess you are not aware what an exploit is?

Exactly, that is why I made this thread.

But I have embraced my ignorance while you continue to condescend me, nevertheless you have given no definition of the term either.

I define it as letting players think kinetic bolt is worth playing but removing the thing that actually made it possible to do so.

More of a scam I think but still ^^

as to OP's question its just a question of design and usually about how you are circumventing it, in the example you specify the fact it only works if your in a party already suggests its circumventing the intended design.

Valdos was extremely broken last league but that was a poor design choice, it isn't the same kinda "exploit".

I'm not sure i've ever seen a ban in any mmo, arpg or online game that wasn't blatantly obvious it was an exploit so i tend to think its fairly easy to tell *shrugs*

You can search for the word exploit on google. It is actually not that hard to find ingame too. Suppose you played some ultimatums before but suddenly you notice that this one doesn't end. Wouldn't this strike you as strange or would you instead believe it is an intended mechanic? Come on, its easy. Even the guys who used it explicitly stated its an exploit before getting axed. Its not like they were innocently clueless

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Draegnarrr wrote:

the fact it only works if your in a party already suggests its circumventing the intended design.

So are Pure Chayula rotations exploits? Niko mission rotations?

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Valdos was extremely broken last league but that was a poor design choice, it isn't the same kinda "exploit".

And making infinite monsters spawn that give lots of rewards is also poor design choice.

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i tend to think its fairly easy to tell *shrugs*

That gets us no closer to a definition...