GGG wants us to exploit this game

Kripp wasn't banned for using the exploit, but for advertising it.

Still, I don't know how he was supposed to know he couldn't show that trick on his stream, since it really doesn't look like an exploit.

I know I'm going to start sounding like a broken record here, but people always seem to think about things backwards. Forget the word "exploit" for a second. Why do people play different characters? Why doesn't everyone play the exact same character that is the best? Why wouldn't people enjoy a skill tree that has only one single line of skills that you get one after another? It's because the fun of these games isn't entirely derived from how powerful you can make your character, there are other factors in play. People use skills whose mechanics are fun and people use characters that they like the style of. It's fun when you can take your own creation to victory, not just that you achieved victory itself. However, if the skills/character style you like is vastly less powerful than other characters, this can hamper your ability to have fun for several reasons. First, in the most extreme case you can't win with them. Second, if you are aware that your build is vastly less powerful than it could be. I've mostly played archer characters; my first archer tried quite hard to use rain of arrows, but the fact that it didn't hold a candle to even regular, non-multi projectile lightning arrow always made me aware that I should just be using lightning arrow, nagging at me until I gave up on rain of arrows. Third, if your choice of skills is way less powerful than others, playing with other people becomes pointless. I remember trying to play Diablo 2 with my brother once where I tried to make a rabies werewolf, which I thought was an unusual and fun skill, and he made a boilerplate zeal/fanaticism paladin. Guess how much I contributed to the party? Nothing, absolutely nothing, which was about the least fun time I ever had playing Diablo II.

So what does all this boil down to? If skills and skill combos don't have some semblance of parity, it undermines the fun people get out of using skills they find fun or builds that they like the style of. The hatred of "exploits" comes from the fact that they generally become so much more powerful than every other build that playing with anything other than that "exploit" becomes a pale imitation of how fun it could be, without even ever bringing pvp into the picture. People generally get sore about game companies hunting "exploits" because they usually take the most facile solution of just disposing of combos and making each skill converge towards being like every other skill, which also defeats the purpose of having players choose their own style. Or apparently they ban people nowadays.

"Exploits", combos, or whatever players come up with that vastly outstrip any other character build can be toxic in games like this and probably need to be curtailed not because of any grand philosophy of what constitutes an exploit, but because they ruin one of the major sources of fun. I don't know what the ideal solution to these problems is, but since Path of Exile has so many combo opportunities in the form of support gems hopefully they will find a way to handle things without making everything the same, like a lot of game balancing does. Maybe the best solution is just for them to make the game way harder but have enough wacky support gems that everyone can find a combo that makes their power explode with any skill.

Oh, and on a mostly unrelated note, I hate diamond flasks. Not only is it entirely possible to use them perpetually (or even easy, for a chaos inoculation witch with clarity), they don't really even function as combo pieces since they outright obviate the need for any skill that increases critical hit chance. It's not very fun to make a critical hit character that has any critical hit chance skills wasted, or to make a critical hit character that doesn't use diamond flasks only to have other characters vastly outstrip your main ability by using a couple items.

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zriL wrote:

Kripp wasn't banned for using the exploit, but for advertising it.

Still, I don't know how he was supposed to know he couldn't show that trick on his stream, since it really doesn't look like an exploit.

The way I see it, he was demonstrating an effective way to make gold in GW2. The fact the developers decided to make the action unsanctioned after the fact is irrelevant. There was no big flashing rule in the game, "Don't you dare sell food for gold!" They banned him unjustly, at least according to my analysis of how games should be designed and run.

A game like GW2 probably shouldn't even have vendors buying items, at least from my estimation. Social trade and the AH will cover everything a player wants to sell. Vendors will always pose a threat of being "exploited" because they're dumb. Selling/buy items for a fixed price is dumb. Dumb in the sense that it cannot react to economic strategies that exploit their static nature. Anyone with an economic background would agree that anyone directly involved in an economy should be allowed to follow the rules of economy - supply/demand and other things.

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Qarl wrote:

Just one thing I'd like to note, if someone does find a way to keep their Diamond Flask ever full, that number is going to be pushed higher than 80.

I have no problem nerfing short term fun for the greater good.

but

that would require killing so many dudes

and going so fast

and stuff

man

i dont think so

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faerwin2 wrote:

Also, I just saw over what kripparrian got banned and it totally fall in the first category (broken game mechanic but something that's 100% within the rules).

such is the cost of gaining a reputation of using exploits, particularly exploits found by someone else, and thus exploiting exploits for exploitation.

I would call totem+skeletons an exploit in this game.

It exploits AI that cannot deal with it in a proper manner. Oversoul, Merveil, Brutus and many others become no challenge when faced with totem+skeletons.

In Super Mario Brothers I used to jump the wall and run to the furthest level's pipe..

BANMEH!!!

lol

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faerwin2 wrote:

There's a difference between exploiting and making unorthodox builds.

If you can find a way to make something broken while playing under the rules, it's not an exploit, it's simply pushing the system to it's limit (hello facebreaker!). In other words, unexpected and unwanted results while playing by the rules.

To me, an exploit is abusing something that is simply either limited by AI or a flaw in the code.

A good example of limited AI flaw is when an archer become "stuck" shooting at you despite him being unable to ever hit you. Doing anything harmful to that archer would be an exploit as you are exploiting a flaw in the AI/code.

Another exploit is ground slam through ice wall. Ice wall is supposed to prevent attacks from going through it, yet, it doesn't apply to ground slam due to a coding issue.

Then there's simply cheating, which is usually done by using third party programs and/or injecting code in the application. Bots, maphack, drop hack and so on fall in that category.

Why would Ground Slam and Ice Wall be an exploit?
Ground Slam is going under the wall, as it is breaking the ground, it is not going through it.

And to add to everything added in this discussion, this game is still in closed beta. I'm pretty sure the devs want us to find any and all exploits, that are tolerable or not, before it is released to the public.

Assuming there are enough monsters to kill, I can get my diamond flask up within 6 secs. I tried this on a +59% pack size map and two rooms were enough to fill her up. I also used warlord's, so I guess I cheated.