Not Even GW2 Is Safe
Likely just false positives. Lots of other games have had these sorts of things happen... I think generally they end up reversing the bans and adjusting their system. Hopefully they'll do that in this case.
Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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From what I've seen the GW mods are kind of hardasses. They just flip out bans and suspensions rather than bothering with warnings.
Fantasy MMOS!!! YAY!
Edit: seriously, it seems to come with the category. Mods are extremely aggressive in those games. "WHat? you found pathing bug on this critter and killed it once to confirm before reporting it?! BANED!"
No, that's a person SAYING they were banned for nothing.
On Reddit, people were invited to submit their account names to had a CS person delve into what they'd done wrong. Several were hacked and had no idea their accounts had been spamming goldselling. Others had been totally vile in chat - like calling people n*****rs and f****ts and things of that nature. Others were botting, which is what you're seeing those people banned for.
Anet (rightly) does not want you weighting down a button so you just attack whatever comes in the line of fire and going AFK while you gather xp.
It's entirely possible that once these folks' tickets are actually processed, the ban will be lifted, as it has done in other cases. However, it's been made very clear to the playerbase that Anet wants to run a clean game as much as they can.
The permissive behavior of other MMOs to this sort of thing has led folks to assume they can exploit whatever they want (monkey farm LFG) and the devs will eventually hotfix it, but they won't actually punish anyone. Anet actually punishes people, and those of us who play fair are pretty happy about it.
The worst thing about it (IMO) is that the "you've been banned" ticket contains no real information or specifics. It's something they're working on, but right now it just says "You've been banned for violating the user agreement, appeal through X channels" basically, which really isn't good enough.
The permissive behavior of other MMOs to this sort of thing has led folks to assume they can exploit whatever they want (monkey farm LFG) and the devs will eventually hotfix it, but they won't actually punish anyone. Anet actually punishes people, and those of us who play fair are pretty happy about it. |
The rigt approach is to hotfix it, ASAP, not to ban people for developer's mistakes.
Nonesense? You just said youreslf that ArenaNet punishes people for bumping into their bugs!
AND added that you are happy about it. The rigt approach is to hotfix it, ASAP, not to ban people for developer's mistakes. |
Of course, if i managed to swipe all the stuff from other peoples's bank slots with an "exploit" i shouldn't get banned should i... because it is, after all, a developer mistake.
Course, everything that goes wrong in a game, no matter what, is a coding mistake of some form or another...
Nonesense? You just said youreslf that ArenaNet punishes people for bumping into their bugs!
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I said that they ban people for EXPLOITING the bugs.
People know damn well when a bug turns into an exploit. People knew the AE monkey farming (To name just one) was an exploit. They kept doing it, and in fact were advertising in channels that we should all quick do it before the devs squashed it. It was giving out insane amounts of xp on an extremely weak foe.
When people decide to deliberately take advantage of an obvious bug, then yes, they're exploiting. They're not "bumping into" the bug. They're roping it and riding it and milking everything they can out of it.
So if I leave my door unlocked, then robbing me should not a crime?
So if I leave my door unlocked, then robbing me should not a crime? |
A punishment should only be as severe as the harm caused by it. If the player went around hacking into accounts and stripping characters of everything, ban the hell out of him. But if all he is doing is standing AFK to get some reward from a badly designed "reward everyone" system, then you patch the frigging undesired behavior, not go banning everyone involved.
And the AE farms may be a great example. Despite the public warning, I don't recall there ever being any mass banning due to it.
And the AE farms may be a great example. Despite the public warning, I don't recall there ever being any mass banning due to it.
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Most of the bans are of the 72 hour variety, not perma-bans. The only way people get perma-banned is by exploiting something in a huge way (the karma weapons exploit is an example) or by goldspamming/hacking.
Again, you only know this poster's version of what happened, which the Reddit posts show is not very reliable, and you don't know what CS will say when they investigate his ticket. It's very possible he's been locked out because he's been hacked, and that's why he thinks he was "banned for nothing."
Unlike CoH, they don't have XP eating police drones. They have NPC guards that are fairly competent. Additionally, in GW2 you only have to tag an enemy to get full credit for the kill, even if an NPC does 99% of the damage in defeating it.
Thus, the only reason to go AFK with caltrops on auto is if you want to sit in a place that enemies like to attack regularly, like a base, that's also full of NPCs that will fight for you while you're AFK.
Which is exactly what people have been doing en mass, and what those knuckleheads got caught doing. In fact there are several well travelled spots already notorious for that purpose, so it's incredibly easy to catch them in the act.
You'll find them all huddled in a group, with AoE attacks on auto, "all having their lunch" they claim, for hours upon hours at a time. You can also tell if they are in fact running bots/additional key macro software because the key to loot an enemy is the same as to talk to an NPC, so you just have to look for the NPCs standing next to them saying "How's it going?" over and over.
There's no script or automated function needed to catch these people. They leave their characters in this state for hours at a time in populated areas (for extra protection). They're about as smart as the criminals who break into people's houses and fall asleep on the couch. And since they've been caught red handed and banned already, they've got nothing left to lose by going online and pleading innocence. That's when we get to point and laugh.
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Exploits will never stop. Some players will always look for the fastest easiest safest way to do something. Look no further than the AE in CoH, specifically fire farms.
The only exploits that deserve bans are things like duping, account hacking / stripping / etc. Finding something that provides a better risk/reward ratio just needs to be brought in line with the arbitrary standard set by the game designers / people who run it.
AFK farming is nothing new to a lot of games, banning people for it (perma) rather than fixing the exploit is just lazy. It also hints that the game thinks it has a very expendable playerbase.
I still disagree with outright banning, even if it's "only the 72 hour variety". As many actual cases that warranted it, it seems just as often the mods are shooting from the hip and then sorting it out later and that's pretty crap. Someone shouldn't have to sit out 3 days because a mod was wrong.
Exploits will never stop. Some players will always look for the fastest easiest safest way to do something. Look no further than the AE in CoH, specifically fire farms.
The only exploits that deserve bans are things like duping, account hacking / stripping / etc. Finding something that provides a better risk/reward ratio just needs to be brought in line with the arbitrary standard set by the game designers / people who run it. AFK farming is nothing new to a lot of games, banning people for it (perma) rather than fixing the exploit is just lazy. It also hints that the game thinks it has a very expendable playerbase. |
It's not ok to do it in GW2, and if you get caught, they actually enforce their user agreement.
Personally, I think it's fantastic.
Plus, it's not an either/or situation. They're banning/suspending people for it AND fixing the exploits. It's win/win.
BTW, most of the people who were permabanned for the karma exploit? Bought another copy of the game. And many of them posted saying "wow, I had no idea you guys would enforce the rules, but good on you, my bad."
And that's exactly the attitude they're looking to change.
It's not ok to do it in GW2, and if you get caught, they actually enforce their user agreement. Personally, I think it's fantastic. Plus, it's not an either/or situation. They're banning/suspending people for it AND fixing the exploits. It's win/win. BTW, most of the people who were permabanned for the karma exploit? Bought another copy of the game. And many of them posted saying "wow, I had no idea you guys would enforce the rules, but good on you, my bad." |
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Edit: seriously, it seems to come with the category. Mods are extremely aggressive in those games. "WHat? you found pathing bug on this critter and killed it once to confirm before reporting it?! BANED!" |
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Banning people for going AFT with an auto-attack going doesn't strike me as a drive to adhere to the rules strictly so much as a newbie trap to burn people who don't know any better. For what it's worth, I don't like that kind of rule enforcement.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Maybe it's because they expect scifi & super hero mmos to be way more chaotic and active, but I don't recall hearing such complaints about exploits leading to plenty of banning in games like CoH, Champions or DCUO. Outside of hacking incidents nor have I heard anything about Eve Online but then again, the game is designed in a way where you can progress even logged off.
Caltrops in GW2 function similarly to those in CoH in that they're an AoE with minimal damage.
Unlike CoH, they don't have XP eating police drones. They have NPC guards that are fairly competent. Additionally, in GW2 you only have to tag an enemy to get full credit for the kill, even if an NPC does 99% of the damage in defeating it. Thus, the only reason to go AFK with caltrops on auto is if you want to sit in a place that enemies like to attack regularly, like a base, that's also full of NPCs that will fight for you while you're AFK. Which is exactly what people have been doing en mass, and what those knuckleheads got caught doing. In fact there are several well travelled spots already notorious for that purpose, so it's incredibly easy to catch them in the act. You'll find them all huddled in a group, with AoE attacks on auto, "all having their lunch" they claim, for hours upon hours at a time. You can also tell if they are in fact running bots/additional key macro software because the key to loot an enemy is the same as to talk to an NPC, so you just have to look for the NPCs standing next to them saying "How's it going?" over and over. There's no script or automated function needed to catch these people. They leave their characters in this state for hours at a time in populated areas (for extra protection). They're about as smart as the criminals who break into people's houses and fall asleep on the couch. And since they've been caught red handed and banned already, they've got nothing left to lose by going online and pleading innocence. That's when we get to point and laugh. |
Controlling exploits via terrorizing the user base, in my experience, just leads to players being more discrete about the exploits.
The hyperbole case I mentioned at first about "pathing issues" is an actual case from my early EQ days. Not something that happened to me, but something that did happen. There were some [not-so]rare places in the world where critters would not walk to, and players would use them to safely kill for essentially free xp. Anyone seen using these tactics would be banned. This resulted in players finding them in desolate areas and exploiting them without anyone ever finding out about them.
Got to say, the 99% NPC damage still rewarding a player that inflicted 1 point of damage thing... that does not sound like leaving the door unlocked and letting a thief go in. It sounds like the home owner moving his entire property, computers, and furniture into the middle of the street for anyone to grab then being upset because some one dare pick something. I'm shocked that made it out of beta.
They were right to punish them, but not to perma-ban them.
They should receive a warning and a short suspension, the warning clearly explaining what they did wrong.
And then they should make it to where Caltrops cannot be auto'd.
Problem solved.
Banning people for going AFT with an auto-attack going doesn't strike me as a drive to adhere to the rules strictly so much as a newbie trap to burn people who don't know any better. For what it's worth, I don't like that kind of rule enforcement.
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Darkfall Online (a skill based sandbox MMO, where you had to repeat actions to increase your skill in doing X (so running improved your run skill, swimming improved your swim, getting hit by weapons improved your toughness etc etc)
Players would make their own towns, and then have "blood walls" where you just stood there for hours on end for players to hit you, or you to hit them, all whilst running into a wall.
How to improve your skill fast and easy.
Unfortunately, Aventurin (the developers) didn't do anything about it... and as this was the *fastest* way to improve your skills, it meant that those players were far far overpowered compared to the players who played "normally".
Infact, it could well be called a challenge to play the game normally, and not try to afk exploit stuff (including gathering etc etc). Sure, the game never grabbed me by the nuts to make me play it, but if you *do not* punish people for cheating or exploiting, then players will take the piss.
And they do.
Again, there's zero proof these people were
1. permabanned
2. for afking with autoattack on
Seriously, just because someone posts that, doesn't make it true. MANY people have been outed as saying that and having done something much more obviously bad, or for having simply been hacked and locked.
The problem really is the "You've been banned" email, more than anything else. Because it gives you zero information, and then you have to chase CS to find out if there's anything you can do about it.
And again, they're working on it. I'm not giving them any slack on how much that email frankly sucks, but they have been fixing things in a very timely and responsive manner so far. I'm pretty sure that'll continue.
And that's exactly the attitude they're looking to change.
It's not ok to do it in GW2, and if you get caught, they actually enforce their user agreement. Personally, I think it's fantastic. Plus, it's not an either/or situation. They're banning/suspending people for it AND fixing the exploits. It's win/win. BTW, most of the people who were permabanned for the karma exploit? Bought another copy of the game. And many of them posted saying "wow, I had no idea you guys would enforce the rules, but good on you, my bad." |
The AFK xp farming getting banned is hilarious to me. Its nothing new, its something that is obviously exploitable. Rather than enforce balance and risk vs. reward they are pretty much saying "If you don't play our way? We'll ban you." And as a foot note decide to add : Our way isn't exactly defined, in fact there are ways we put in our game that don't adhere to "our way" but don't use them. Or else. I mean okay they are there, but just yeah, don't use them.
The ironic part of your last post echoes in diablo 3's recent history. There would be waves of bans for botters and they would simply go buy another account because in the time it would take them to issue another ban? They'd make back many times over what it cost them for the additional account. The exploiter still gets to make his money, and GW2 just gets an extra cut. Win/Win right?
What always cracks me up about XP exploits is people are "Caught" doing them. When the reality of the situation is, the "exploit" made it through their own internal and open beta testing.
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Not everyone is an angel and reports everything that they see that is wrong in the game. There are people out there who will keep the "advantage exploit" for themselves, to use and abuse (or even sell) for their own gain later on.
Sure, the internal testing should catch most of the large scale stuff, however, when it gets down to the nitty gritty, then you have to rely on the masses.
*shrugs* Hell, Eve Online had an exploit giving materials away for free for almost 5 years before it was fixed (iwhat caused it, how it slipped through the gaps, how much of an impact it had here)
They can't really be banning for this can they?
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...ed-for-nothing
Auto-attack caltrops or the turret killing stuff on it's own a permanently bannable offence???
When did Dr Evil take over NCSoft?
Frankie says it best.