Signet of Might - Ridiculous Annihilation

Not talking about Signet of Midnight here.

Yes, the fact that the skill was not working correctly was Anet's mistake. The fact that they allowed open guild latter during a preview event was also short sighted on their part, especially given the fact that this has happened before. Finding out the skill is glitched when using it for the first time is okay. How else would they have known it was glitched? But once they realized the glitch, they exploited it. The only reason they got to the rank that they did was because they were exploiting something they knew wasn't supposed to be that way. Anet didn't make them do that, they chose to do that.

Was it cheating? No, I wouldn't exactly call it that. That doesn't mean that the way they behaved wasn't wrong. Do they deserve to have their guilds banned? No, I don't think so. They aren't entirely blameless though, people need to stop acting like they are.

They definetely DON'T deserve punishment. The shame is enough. Because they can't win with fairplay, they use exploits. And I hope they are happy with their "accomplishment"... Using it once is okay, just to see how it works and have some fun. Abusing it for personal matters is kinda lame. So the only thing they've done wrong is showing us that HA players can't play GvG.

There is a big difference in discovering a glitch and reporting it and abusing it. If you used it one time to try it, because that's the purpose of beta testing - to try out everything and report it, it'd be ok. Abusing it for your own good is another thing.

this bug was like throwing money out the window and then calling everyone who picks up your money a thief, this is the reason why not every guild deserves a punishment

The ones that used it in gvg and ended up in top 10 do deserve public humiliation tho.

You know I felt that way when you did it because a bug managed to screw up the PVE meta (economy)...

A-Net's attitude towards it's ladder is getting ridiculous. From the inconsistant application of punishment to letting the ladder be open to all abuse during preview weekends, it's just crazy.

I'm glad we had the preview, it was interesting but the ladder should have been locked during it. I don't even blame the guilds for using the bug, quite frankly it's a play to win game and A-Net is so inconsistant in their attitudes towards fair play (you can give some -25 on a smurf, that's not an issue at all but resigning, oh that's evil, but only if you're the team that resigned, not that benefited) that there was a fair chance no action would have been taken. In a 50/50 situation, with a huge ammount to win if the roll goes your way some people wer eallways going to try it.

It's time to get serious about running this ladder A-Net, get someone to police it because at the moment as an impartial referee you're doing a shocking job.

I'd like to discuss this with you. I'm in the middle of pressing "send" on an email meeting invitation to several key team members involved in various aspects of the game. As I see it, there are a few possible outcomes. I am not commenting in any way on whether they are possible, moral, or reasonable. But here are your assorted suggestions, and I'd like to know how the community feels about them:

1. Do nothing. This isn't a world championship, the hours of the exploit were short, and those who used it know they did, and the community as a whole basically knows they did, too.
2. Spend time to try to identify who used the exploit and take away their wins or disqualify them from a prize. Keep in mind this may not even be possible, and could be very time consuming. Keep in mind that with a game 5 weeks from release, if this requires a lot of team time, there could be sacrifices in taking this step that would affect all players.
3. Roll back all ladder games to a place before the exploit became widely used. Again, this may not be possible, but if it were possible, it would most likely not be as time consuming as Number 2.
4. Roll back the servers to yesterday. I feel very sure that this is not going to happen, but I had to add this since some have suggested it.

Again, I repeat: I am not saying that any of these (except the first) are technologically possible. I am simply asking you to weigh the various factors, step back, and consider how you would handle this, were you in our position. And it's pointless to talk about "freezing the ladder before events." We can talk about the future in the future. Let's talk about the here and now, now.

One more thing: This is not a vote. It goes without saying that for issues of this magnitude, we will be making the decision about what happens. If 100% chose Z, we may well need to go with A. So this is informal and informational only. Thanks for your thoughts.

Vote 3

I'm glad we got an answer. Well, my own opinion is that a rollback is not a good option. Not at all. I did a lot of pve today ^^. But if the people who abused this thing manage to get #1 place I'd really be disappointed, and not only me :/... My guild doesn't play HA at all because of all the FOTM build abusing. Now the abusers started ruining GvG... I don't like this -_-

IMO (3) is your best option. It doesn't impact the PVE world which is good as PVE did nothing in this and fixes the options.

If you're interested here is my critique of the other options.

(1) - See my above post - basically, you're going to reinforce allready existing opinions that you are inconsistant and arbitrary about the ladder and justice relating to it, something which will be destructive to you (sorry for the use of you, I mean A-Net, not you personally Gaile) in terms of PVP credibility. Your PVP attraction is very strongly based aroudn having a credible tournament and if that is destroyed then it's GG to Guild Wars PVP in my eyes.

(2) - I just don't think this is feasible on a number of levels. First off you can take away wins but then you're going to have echoes. Abuse Guild A beat Legit Guild A, dropping their rating. Legit Guild A then beat Legit Guild B, impacting B's rating and so it echoes through. Secondly if you do this you can bet next time the chapter 4 preview comes bugs are going to slip through because nobody is willing to try out things that could be broken - again it comes to credibility. If you think that's the right action to take say so and comment that in future it will be the punishment and follow that line but don't arbitrarily enforce it now.

(4) - Unecessarily impacts the PVE world and I suspect that it's going to be a lot of work.


In that meeting however I really think you need a lessons learnt session. Ladder locks during beta events are necessary (and probably the first week of Nightfall), this was shown after the first event with the D/Mo swarm and definately this time. The rules need a re-write as well, on a general level and then they need to be followed. If you say abuse of a bug is punishable by banning, then it gets banned no matter how little the impact is. If ladder manipulation is the same, then I don't want to see smurfs, or explicitly allow smurfs on the grounds that you can't reasonably deal with them. At the moment any guild trying to play within the rules is easy fodder for the horde of guilds that are prefectly happy to work within the grey areas around the side. Yes they are allways going to exist, but at the moment there is a lot of grey that could easily be cut out.

[QUOTE=Gaile Gray]

1. Do nothing. This isn't a world championship, the hours of the exploit were short, and those who used it know they did, and the community as a whole basically knows they did, too.

According to several posters the bug is already fixed. So would it not separate the men from the boys quickly?

I "vote" (since it's not a vote ) do nothing. The bug has been fixed, the team's efforts are probably better spent with all the end-of-development tasks left for nightfall, than to a rollback and deal with all the grief you'll catch from people who lose out on non-cheat wins. The guilds that abused this will soon be back to where they really belong, for such is the way of the ladder. As far as I see, the only downside to this is that some people have more fame, and some more unlocks that they don't "deserve". I wouldn't cry over it.

So, Gaile, I personally would be fine and dandy with the whole team moving forward instead of spending a lot of time taking corrective action on something that no one's going to remember or care all that much about in a month.

I'd like to comment on something: Locking the ladder during the Beta Test sounds like a poor idea to me. During the events, we're able to have tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people try out the skills, reveal the exploits, and generally help us make a better game. They get the fun of an early look, and the interest of seeing how things are and, upon release, what they become.

To lock the ladder during an event sounds counterproductive to me. We want and need people playing PvP, and locking the ladder will discourage that.

Hmmm... maybe the answer is some sort of "event ladder" that has no impact on the overal system. So if you find an exploit, good job, but it's not going to give you a leg up on a championship or a fast run for a trophy.

I just don't see where locking the ladder is the best idea, for it seems that the number of people playing will drop dramatically, which means we'll have less testing and less feedback.

QFT. Having clearly stated rules, that are actually followed 100% of the time would be amazing. So would locking the ladder durring Beta events.

Option 3 is your best choice.

Well Gaile, you have a point. It is all about testing and observing the gameplay behaviour. But we are talking about the GW and GWF ladder here. I personally noticed lots of imbalanced skills and I am sure they are going to be nerfed when Nightfall is released. But right now this event is affecting the ladder directly and that doesn't seem right. Having an event ladder is a pretty nice thing to have. But when you TEST thing they are not supposed to affect the actual game. Right? What if there was a skill that could kill anyone in the danger zone? Imagine that there was a greater exploit and all the hard work some guilds had to do to get their ratings are worth nothing after the exploit took place... The situation right now is pretty much the same. Although the damage taken is not so much.

GG I get nothing against you, and I am grateful for all that you did.
However wouldnt it be better for you to find out what the dev can do and let us choose, then having us choose then risck the chance that you might need to tell us "sorry I know you all want this to happen but we cant do it"??

anyway, if it possible I will ask for 2, its sound hard, but there are Guilds that play a fair game during that time, and I find it unfair to those guild. Yes, I know sometime sacrifices are needed, but its always better to do things right and with out sacrifices

Well, I understand what you're asking, but I'd rather have the information today than wait until tomorrow and ask you your opinions. You see, I'm not asking for a vote, or for a judge and jury system. I'm just thinking, "In an ideal world, with the ideas I've shared, what are your thoughts."

It is known I believe, that identifying all the guilds that used the exploit is pretty much impossible -_- It is going to take tons of time. The best way out of this is the hardest one. I mean would be the hardest one.

I don't agree with any form of roll back as once the event is over, guilds that took advantage of the bug will find themselves falling off the ladder quite rapidly due to not having any actual skill.

That said however, the guilds that did take advantage of the bug, and really, there are only a few, directly violated a rule that they agreed to abide by when they created their account. Rule 18 from the GW rules of conduct

Because of this violation, not only have these guilds been able to farm a huge amount of guild rank and HoH rank in a fairly short period of time, they have also been able to farm a rather large amount of faction and thus probably have managed to unlock every new skill in the game in just a few short hours. This is just as serious as the Ascension / Doppleganger bug that was fixed on June 17, 2005. It's my opinion that similar punishments should be given out.

I fail to see how this was an "exploit" the teams used skills that were there to be used.

Lets have a look at the evidence..

Did these "offending" guilds make the skills? No
Did they use a certain build to their advantage? Yup
Could the build be countered? Of course, anything can be countered IF you use that thing called a brain.
Should they be punished? Hell no, they used a viable build at the time
Is life fair? No

Wish I dealt with softies like you in the real world, I'd be even richer.

Dont like my opinion? Tough, some of you will get a big shock when you hit the real world away from mummy and daddy.