Thoughts? LB AFK Exploit and the after effects...

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.

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.

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).

i think it was intended to mean the social benefit of being able to get into a group for doa (GLF R6+LB). i definitely agree the practical application of the 'gaze' skill or whatever is pretty nil (never even went back to get it on like 3 of the 5 characters i finished nf with)

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.

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."

i think this is what happend with most millionaires when material was reseted and they stocked on ectos til hands fall, a game that is proud of damn balance should be shamed on this, and all the explits on it, nerf the exploit is nto an answer ether, cuz its unfair, so how should they proceed, remove whats gain from exploit sometimes cant be done, lb points, yes, gold won and spent no, the fact is the balance bullshit is no more than merchandise, there were never balance at all and there will never be, people are continuin to search for exploits and the dev team is impotent aggainst it, bots and farmers even, so this whine is wortless, they dont even read this forums that often, unless there is a majos bug that anoys people to the bone, besides that, they already got yor money bob, deal with it and cry that you dont find the exploit in time.

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?

Esprit, me niether, but how do you know how good the player is before you invite them?

1) W/N LFG Frost group, have R8 gaze

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.

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.

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?

Just because I enjoy being pedantic here's an analogy for programming...

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.

I did. Was R3 when I joined group. When we had everything together, leader demanded R4 minimum (guess what rank the leader was). 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. 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.

love it

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.

It actually isn't a matter of semantics; there is a significant and perceivable technical difference. Let's take two different skill errors: Sand Shards and Signet of Ghostly Might. For those who don't know the story behind each of these skills, a brief overview:
- 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.

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.

Arenanet has turned back time before. The only two times they did it were when something went completely wrong and made the bug game-breaking. Merchants selling each item for 250 gold (whatever it was) is game breaking, so they turned it back. I have no clue why they don't turn back things like this that simply ruin the game for the hard working players. It makes no sense that cheaters make out better than good players, but that has been the tradition in GW, PvE and PvP

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!

Glad someone else said that.

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.

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.

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)