Not at all. THey just applied the change qhen it was available, they had already a code to prevent creatures giving Exp, but not Lightbringer points.
When the code was ready, they added it.
Thoughts? LB AFK Exploit and the after effects...
MithranArkanere
Cyan The Archer
Mithran, how do you know that? And you're completely wrong about "When the code was ready, they added it."... Do you honestly believe that the code was ready the exactly same time as a major update?
You have absolutely no back up of what you're saying.
You have absolutely no back up of what you're saying.
konohamaru heaven
In my Personal opinion the only thing I don't like about it is how they get extra damage and DR vs Abbadon's demons is that they were able to get it with no really effort while the rest of us will have to do some actual work work for it (which I don't mind at all myself).
Voltar
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Originally Posted by Avarre
I completed the game using henchmen and heroes - which do not gain the benefits of LB rank. The gameplay advantage in most areas is negligible; the zones are balanced towards the player having an LB rank of 0. Any ranks you have obtained are just a bonus.
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JoeKnowMo
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Originally Posted by GranDeWun
Just to beat a dead horse:
As a programmer, I would say an 'exploit' involves code that does unexpected things, versus a design that does unexpected things. |
You could say that the code did the unexpected thing of continually giving LB pts - in which case that would make the AFK farming an 'exploit.'
It's all in the semantics.
Furthermore, you could define an 'exploit' as someone taking advantage of or exploiting a flaw in the code/design in a way that wasn't intended by the programmers. The programmers then rush to fix this exploited flaw when they find out about it.
I don't fault players for exploiting a flaw. The programmers didn't intend for the torments to continually give LB pts which is why they removed it. It's not like they said, "Hey, let come up with a way for ppl to farm LB pts while AFK for a limited time and then remove it from the game."
Twonaiver
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Originally Posted by reetkever
This will never happen, cause there are people who grinded their rank 9 together. What, you wanna screw them as well?
Same goes for farming btw, people who farmed are rich now, and people who were too late can't afford anything now. So, you wanna reset the whole economy? This is what's eliteness in the game. Even if it's obtained by exploits, it doesn't matter, in the end, it's all about the results. That's how it is, if A-net resets the ranks, they'll screw even more people who earned it. Just like the screwed farmers and lots of people's builds. I don't think they'll do it right after the big update, and 3 months later, lots of people already have a high rank, so... |
Esprit
If you play well, I do not care if you are Rank 1 or Rank 8 in your Lightbringer title. In the end it's about your skill. Even if you did AFK farm, you had to get to the Realm of Torment.
Why is the Lightbringer 'exploit' getting so much scrutiny? What about the Sunspear power farming from Rank 7 to Rank 9 by using the resurrecting mobs? From what I recall Gaile lauded those who figured out how to do that. People did the same for the Lightbringer title, except this one took less effort... so does that mean the difference in when an 'exploit' gets bashed is the amount of effort that is required?
Why is the Lightbringer 'exploit' getting so much scrutiny? What about the Sunspear power farming from Rank 7 to Rank 9 by using the resurrecting mobs? From what I recall Gaile lauded those who figured out how to do that. People did the same for the Lightbringer title, except this one took less effort... so does that mean the difference in when an 'exploit' gets bashed is the amount of effort that is required?
Cyan The Archer
Esprit, me niether, but how do you know how good the player is before you invite them?
Antheus
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Originally Posted by Cyan The Archer
Esprit, me niether, but how do you know how good the player is before you invite them?
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2) PM: "Hi, I run a warder build, but can play the usual SF/MS variation, I can use vent, but don't have TS, also have a necro/anything character in DoA"
3) mallyx group LFM
4) N/Mo LFG mallyx
5) W/E LFG mallyx NO F%^$&@ FROST NOOBS
Who would you take? Which group would you join?
There are no guarantees, but plenty of hints.
EternalTempest
My thoughts.. it happened.
They closed the loop hole. To me Lightbringer Rank high means grinding or AFK exploit, neither of which = skill in my mind.
They closed the loop hole. To me Lightbringer Rank high means grinding or AFK exploit, neither of which = skill in my mind.
Riotgear
Maybe I'm blind and just skimmed past it... Maybe I shouldn't be asking, but it's gone, so...
What was this "exploit" anyway?
What was this "exploit" anyway?
MelechRic
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Originally Posted by JoeKnowMo
What's the difference between 'code' and 'design'? Isn't there a code behind the design? And you're simply choosing to say it's the design that's flawed, not the code. But if they changed the 'design', wouldn't they have to change the code behind it?
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Design --> blueprints/schematics --> manufacturing plant --> thing (eg car or Nintendo Wii)
Design --> code --> compiler --> binary executable (ie GW.exe)
In programming code is simply a representation of the design in a form that a compiler can use to produce an executable.
If the design is flawed then the code most certainly will be too. The converse is not true. If code is flawed that doesn't guarantee the design was flawed. It just means that either the design was wrong or it was incorrectly translated into code.
So there's the conundrum... was the design flawed/incomplete or did the code just not correctly capture the design? Doesn't matter much at this point. What's important is whether or not anything can be done about it.
My feeling is that it's not possible to turn back the clock and remove LB ranks from people that AFK farmed. What would be fair is to provide some quests for people of low LB rank to get higher LB rank easily. I'm talking about some serious payout here... thousands of points per quests. Of course you can't repeat the quests and you can only take them if you're under rank 7.
This sort of makes LB ranks moot, but it also removes the discrimination in certain areas.
Lastly, I'd like to say I've never felt this discrimination... I'm LB 3 on my one and only character that's done with NF. I've not had anyone tell me I couldn't join a party because I was too low. I don't use the gaze skill because my char is a backline char. Besides the difference between 3 pts of damage reduction versus 8 pts doesn't really matter when you're getting hit for 250-400 damage by one spell.
Antheus
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Originally Posted by MelechRic
Lastly, I'd like to say I've never felt this discrimination... I'm LB 3 on my one and only character that's done with NF. I've not had anyone tell me I couldn't join a party because I was too low. I don't use the gaze skill because my char is a backline char. Besides the difference between 3 pts of damage reduction versus 8 pts doesn't really matter when you're getting hit for 250-400 damage by one spell.
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But here the irony kicks in. The same day I joined other groups, and completed city and stygian. Yesterday, when I was looking for gloom group, the same person was still trying to form a group. For the city. I joined just for fun, and had a lengthy rant about how hard the city is, and they just want to complete it, and how everything sucks there, and how it's too hard.
Other than that, most groups I've had success with, didn't even ask for gaze, although many brought it, it never was a requirement.
Ninna
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Originally Posted by Antheus
Before I could type anything, I found myself kicked.
But here the irony kicks in. The same day I joined other groups, and completed city and stygian. Yesterday, when I was looking for gloom group, the same person was still trying to form a group. |
My Sweet Revenga
Sigh not another one of these threads. I'm sure people would stop complaining if ANET would just introduce a better way of getting LB points. The current method of gaining 2 points per kill is just plain stupid. Especially for those who are just aiming to get the title.
Rera
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Originally Posted by JoeKnowMo
What's the difference between 'code' and 'design'? Isn't there a code behind the design? And you're simply choosing to say it's the design that's flawed, not the code. But if they changed the 'design', wouldn't they have to change the code behind it?
You could say that the code did the unexpected thing of continually giving LB pts - in which case that would make the AFK farming an 'exploit.' It's all in the semantics. |
- Sand Shards originally worked whenever any attack failed to hit, as opposed to only scythe attacks failing to hit. Therefore, people combined Sand Shards with Assassin dual attacks, which not only hit twice but were also guaranteed to miss if not preceeded by an offhand, and instantly recharged whenever this was the case. Combined with Way of the Empty Palm as energy management, Sand Shards allowed the player to deal insane amounts of AoE damage by running at their enemies and mashing one button.
- Signet of Ghostly Might was originally bugged to work on allies and enemies within range of a spirit. This was exploited extensively in GvG by running to the enemy base and using it on the Guild Lord, who would then automatically die after 10 seconds.
So where is the difference? The Sand Shards fiasco was a result of design oversight, whereas the Signet of Instant Win was a result of coding error. The abuse of Sand Shards did not exploit any bugs - all components of the build worked as intended individually, but the designers obviously did not account for that particularly devastating skill combination. Signet of Ghostly Might, on the other hand, was actually bugged, and did not work as written. There was nothing incorrect in the design - it just didn't work as designed, hence coding error.
Ruby Lightheart
you wanna talk about fairness...here is one that still burns my buttons. If you bring a character over from Propheses or Factions..all your heros except the one you gain when you take the misson to come to Elona...start at the level a newly created character gets them. On top of that you have zero sunspear points and have to grind massively to level your characters and to catch up sunspear point wise with the Elona created characters. We should have at least gotten our heros at level 15 and gotten some amount of sunspear promotion points for coming across chapters into Elona. The heros and ranks are needed to do certain missions and well...at least to me the vet players from previous chapters shoulda gotten something.
shardfenix
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Originally Posted by Knightsaber Sith
Frankly there's no way to take back the ranks some people unfairly gained; and it wouldn't make much sense either to put the exploit back in the game. Just grin and bear it til they're ready to put the "easy" way of gaining the ranks in the game.
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Batou of Nine
IMHO, it was not an exploit. It was part of the game design. There was no "bug" involved in AFK LB farming, nor was their any constant glitch that was being taken advantage of...
That being said it can be compared to ANY game design, skill or feature that was being use in a way possibly not intended. The fact that it COULD be used in this "unintended" way, means it was a game feature the designers failed to test fully/correctly. Again it remained a game FEATURE, until certain individuals caught on and changed it to a way they saw fit.
BUGS and GLITCHES that give players the ability to consistantly cheat the "system" and make great personal gains ARE exploits. THIS is why Anet will not revert anything or "nerf" the results of people who used the AFK LB farming method.
Need more proof? When the market crashed a couple months ago, where all merchent prices were reset and bugged so that their prices would not change with market demands, people bought HUNDREDS upon hundreds of ectos and shards in hopes that when the market was fixed they could resale them for MASSIVE profits. Anet got wise, and rolled back all servers before this could occur. THIS was an exploit... because it involved an actual GLITCH or BUG in the game.
In summation, a roll back on LB points specifically targeting people that used the AFK LB farm method will never and quite possible CAN'T ever happen. If a rollback were to occur, this would affect ALL players, and would obviously be incredibly unfair to the vast majority. Just some more points tah think about.
cheers!
That being said it can be compared to ANY game design, skill or feature that was being use in a way possibly not intended. The fact that it COULD be used in this "unintended" way, means it was a game feature the designers failed to test fully/correctly. Again it remained a game FEATURE, until certain individuals caught on and changed it to a way they saw fit.
BUGS and GLITCHES that give players the ability to consistantly cheat the "system" and make great personal gains ARE exploits. THIS is why Anet will not revert anything or "nerf" the results of people who used the AFK LB farming method.
Need more proof? When the market crashed a couple months ago, where all merchent prices were reset and bugged so that their prices would not change with market demands, people bought HUNDREDS upon hundreds of ectos and shards in hopes that when the market was fixed they could resale them for MASSIVE profits. Anet got wise, and rolled back all servers before this could occur. THIS was an exploit... because it involved an actual GLITCH or BUG in the game.
In summation, a roll back on LB points specifically targeting people that used the AFK LB farm method will never and quite possible CAN'T ever happen. If a rollback were to occur, this would affect ALL players, and would obviously be incredibly unfair to the vast majority. Just some more points tah think about.
cheers!
Former Ruling
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Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale
Another devils advocate question. Was it even a bug. A bug has unintended results, maybe getting LB points from spawned mobs was intended as you did'nt get XP or drops from spawned mobs.
Maybe AFK and rank 9 sunspear farming caused AN to review the intentions behind those titles and change them. Thats not a bug, just a change to how something works. I suspect this is what happend. Cf prot bond, other 'nerfs' etc etc. |
People are quick to say "If it wasn't a EXPLOIT (thus shoulde be bannable) why did Anet change it HUH HUH??@?#@"
Anet is a company full of humans, they can't foresee everything.
Quote:
| you wanna talk about fairness...here is one that still burns my buttons. If you bring a character over from Propheses or Factions..all your heros except the one you gain when you take the misson to come to Elona...start at the level a newly created character gets them. On top of that you have zero sunspear points and have to grind massively to level your characters and to catch up sunspear point wise with the Elona created characters. We should have at least gotten our heros at level 15 and gotten some amount of sunspear promotion points for coming across chapters into Elona. The heros and ranks are needed to do certain missions and well...at least to me the vet players from previous chapters shoulda gotten something. |
They removed all need for Sunspear points from Foreigners (didnt need a rank for The Time is Nigh, and recently removed the Rank requirement in A Hero Shall Lead Them for foriegners) - so it isn't too farfetched to ask to receive the heros at a level that is comparable to the average lvl of Elonians at that point in the story (~15)
Vahn Roi
Realistically, Anet wouldn't be able to find everyone who AFK farmed their titles.
I agree on the negative after effects of said exploit. I just got to rank 4 myself and it will be a long while until I hit 5, but I'm in now rush.
I agree on the negative after effects of said exploit. I just got to rank 4 myself and it will be a long while until I hit 5, but I'm in now rush.
Throttle
I think it's lame that people have done this to achieve a high rank. It's not a direct exploit in the sense that what you do is allowed by the game, but it's very close to the line and definitely not what I'd call appropriate. What I find even worse is when people boast and brag about it and try to justify that they've done it as if it's some achievement. Should their ranks be taken away? No, Anet probably has no way of finding out who did and didn't use this dubious feature. Should precautions and new rules be made to avoid something like it to happen again? I think so.
Vahn Roi
We have to ask ourselves; would Anet be able to enforce these new "precautions"?
Hyper Cutter
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Originally Posted by Former Ruling
I also was surprised by the fact that we start the story at the Consulate Docks, but only receive Dunkoro (a required hero for that mission) at level6 at the same time. Forcing us to do stupid grind in our own continent if we want to do the mission with our own Dunkoro.
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CrystalM
Whether or not GW calls this an exploit remains to be seen.
But whoever afk'd their way to Lightbringer ranks didn't work for them. Yes maybe they worked to set up the heroes, but for 8 hours while afk they did not work for it.
If people really wanted to they would make DoA groups excluding rank6+ and let the afkers fend for themselves trying to find a group of rank6+, but I doubt that will happen. Same thing like pvp, farm some questionable way to rank using builds that can no longer be made or afk (Lightbringers - Spelled out for Tom) their way to high rank then promote elitism and only make r6+ groups and exclude everyone else while telling everyone how elite they are. Same story different day. But Guild Wars won't do anything about it. Same story different day.
But whoever afk'd their way to Lightbringer ranks didn't work for them. Yes maybe they worked to set up the heroes, but for 8 hours while afk they did not work for it.
If people really wanted to they would make DoA groups excluding rank6+ and let the afkers fend for themselves trying to find a group of rank6+, but I doubt that will happen. Same thing like pvp, farm some questionable way to rank using builds that can no longer be made or afk (Lightbringers - Spelled out for Tom) their way to high rank then promote elitism and only make r6+ groups and exclude everyone else while telling everyone how elite they are. Same story different day. But Guild Wars won't do anything about it. Same story different day.
Senator Tom
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Originally Posted by CrystalM
Whether or not GW calls this an exploit remains to be seen.
But whoever afk'd their way to Lightbringer ranks didn't work for them. Yes maybe they worked to set up the heroes, but for 8 hours while afk they did not work for it. If people really wanted to they would make DoA groups excluding rank6+ and let the afkers fend for themselves trying to find a group of rank6+, but I doubt that will happen. Same thing like pvp, farm some questionable way to rank using builds that can no longer be made or afk their way to high rank then promote elitism and only make r6+ groups and exclude everyone else while telling everyone how elite they are. Same story different day. But Guild Wars won't do anything about it. Same story different day. |
Thallandor
I knew about the afk exploit and cant be borthered with it. Dont really care either.
Dont let others set limits on how you should enjoy the game. Whatever LF LBP Rank XX BS.
And when you found others that share your views on having fun, then you know you found friends to play with.
Dont let others set limits on how you should enjoy the game. Whatever LF LBP Rank XX BS.
And when you found others that share your views on having fun, then you know you found friends to play with.
Priest Of Sin
R3 is all ya need, because I see AFK R8 LBs getting creamed just as fast as the rest of us. Hee hee, a R8 warrior got smashed, then took the bonder with him from all the excess damage xD
Riotgear
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Originally Posted by Ruby Lightheart
On top of that you have zero sunspear points and have to grind massively to level your characters and to catch up sunspear point wise with the Elona created characters. We should have at least gotten our heros at level 15 and gotten some amount of sunspear promotion points for coming across chapters into Elona.
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Didn't get an answer so I guess I'll ask again... What was this "AFK exploit" anyway?
Devina Fava
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Originally Posted by Rera
So where is the difference? The Sand Shards fiasco was a result of design oversight, whereas the Signet of Instant Win was a result of coding error. The abuse of Sand Shards did not exploit any bugs - all components of the build worked as intended individually, but the designers obviously did not account for that particularly devastating skill combination.
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Somewhere along the way someone forgot to code in a requirement that the subject must be wielding a scythe (or drinking a glass of water), for the condition to be satisfied...
Devina Fava
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Originally Posted by Riotgear
Didn't get an answer so I guess I'll ask again... What was this "AFK exploit" anyway?
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Through use of an appropriate skill set, like a bonder + mender, you could set up as many as six separate groups to kill as quickly as possible, yielding returns of anywhere from 300 to 2000 or more points an hour.
CrystalM
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Originally Posted by Senator Tom
afk their way to high rank? don't talk about pvp unless you know what you're talking about. Instead of sitting here typing and complaining that you can't get into r6 groups, go do something about it.
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You misunderstood the afk part, I guess I needed to spell it out for you.
And it was not complaining just stating how it is about r6.
Rera
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Originally Posted by Devina Fava
Actually, I think the problem with Sand Shards was a coding error too rather than design error. If you read the text as is/was written, then you wouldn't expect the resultant flaw (and chaos) to have resulted. If someone says, each time you fail to drink a specific glass of water, drinking a bowl of soup does not fail the previous specific. If it did, doing nothing would also fail that specific.
Somewhere along the way someone forgot to code in a requirement that the subject must be wielding a scythe (or drinking a glass of water), for the condition to be satisfied... |
Your "fail to drink" analogy isn't applicable because it doesn't require an action. The Sand Shards condition triggered when your attacks failed to hit - this requires that you actually attack in order for them to fail to hit. If you don't attack, they can't fail to hit, so the condition is not met.
A modified working analogy would be, "whenever you drink, if you fail to drink water, then X". Drinking soup (ie. using daggers) meets the condition, whereas doing nothing (ie. not attacking) des not meet the condition.
Devina Fava
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Originally Posted by Rera
A modified working analogy would be, "whenever you drink, if you fail to drink water, then X". Drinking soup (ie. using daggers) meets the condition, whereas doing nothing (ie. not attacking) des not meet the condition.
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Eclair
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Originally Posted by Devina Fava
Yup, that is a better analogy. But the text was whenever you "fail to hit" (condition A) with a "scythe attack" (condition B), the parameter must be that both must be fulfilled. Reading that in its normal form, it is a given that the attack has to be a scythe attack in the first place. But clearly that didn't make it through to the programming. Hence it's a coding error. Anyway, whether it is or not, we're getting off topic ^.^
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Rera
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Devina Fava
Yup, that is a better analogy. But the text was whenever you "fail to hit" (condition A) with a "scythe attack" (condition B), the parameter must be that both must be fulfilled. Reading that in its normal form, it is a given that the attack has to be a scythe attack in the first place. But clearly that didn't make it through to the programming. Hence it's a coding error. Anyway, whether it is or not, we're getting off topic ^.^
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Zinger314
Today's update (12/6/06) is slightly ironic.
The update caused Heroes to be affected by Enviromental effects in the Realm of Torment.
Previously, the best place to farm Lighrbringer Points was the Margonite Citadel in the Domain of Secrets, since the Margonites died easily, and the massively-annoying Enviromental effect (+40% Energy Cost) did not affect heroes. Now, it'll be too difficult to farm.
What does ArenaNet want?
The update caused Heroes to be affected by Enviromental effects in the Realm of Torment.
Previously, the best place to farm Lighrbringer Points was the Margonite Citadel in the Domain of Secrets, since the Margonites died easily, and the massively-annoying Enviromental effect (+40% Energy Cost) did not affect heroes. Now, it'll be too difficult to farm.
What does ArenaNet want?
Avarre
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Originally Posted by Zinger314
What does ArenaNet want? |
Matsumi
Didn't they say something about new ways of obtaining lightbringer and sunspear ranks somewhere? Maybe they don't want people to feel like they need to farm for points or something.
Riotgear
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Originally Posted by Zinger314
What does ArenaNet want?
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