Should Arenanet ban for doing Beetletun over and over again?

There's an easy beetletun quest where you can quickly gain XP and some loot since it has a high density of mobs when you're being run through to ascension. You just have to make sure you don't kill the last mob so the quest doesn't end. Would not turning the quest in in order to do the quest over and over be considered a bannable offense by Arena.net? We must have answers to questions like this since what is and is not an exploit is so ambiguous. When vengeance was bugged, it was clearly an exploit but no one was banned for that. Where is the line drawn honestly?

All you have to do for this "exploit" is to simply obey the mechanics of the game. It does not require any third party programs or alteration of the normal execution of the game. You simply use mechanics within the game to achieve your result.

I'm asking this because Arena.net has deemed certain exploits banworthy and others not banworthy. So far, the types of exploits Arena.net has banned are those that alter the normal execution of the game or those that use third party hooks/programs. Arena.net has yet to draw a clear distinction on what is bannable and what is not.

I think they only ban for really major exploits. When that exploit where you fight your Doppelganger over and over came about, they only banned a couple dozen accounts who took major advantage of it.

If it is against the EULA, it is a bannable offence. If it's a minor bug not stated in the EULA, then you probably do not deserve a ban. Furthermore, not everyone knew Vengence was bugged. Banning everyone who used Vengence just because it was bugged is a bit silly, and unfair to those who were unaware of this bug.

Well, the EULA merely says exploit or bug with unintended effects and is not more specific than that. The question becomes what exactly is an exploit or a bug? Is not turning in a quest to do it over and over again considered an exploit or not? It seems at this point that it is a valid game mechanic if Arena.net remains silent.

How about if a clan exploited extinction & raising 50 bone minions before the prematch ends through suicide? Arena.net might consider that an exploit if you win HoH a lot with it but you might consider it a valid game mechanic. How about if they intended prematch only to be for planning out strategies and putting on enchantments and not being able to have a 40 second corpse factory? My point is is that Arena.net should not be ambiguous about what is and is not exactly an exploit. They should either have to warn you beforehand publically on their website or clearly have it laid out in the EULA what an exploit exactly is.

I do not think Arena.net should be able to ban exploits that rely purely on the game's mechanics. They should only ban exploits that have been publically condemned on their website/login screen, exploits that involve disrupting the normal execution of the program (i.e. alt-f4 in Augury), and exploits involving third party programs and hacks.

Edit: Another exploit: Loot in Arid Sea for several hours to unlock perfect weapon mods before they fixed it. No one was banned for it, but it was clearly an exploit and they tangibly benefited from it. It was merely using the game mechanics to rezone and reset the loot. How can Arena.net ban for certain exploits and not ban for other exploits? It was clearly not intended and deemed an exploit by the devs since they fixed it, and under the EULA, they could've perma-banned people for it yet they didn't.

I think it was the fact that, reportedly, some peopled did the ascension bug 100 times or more. That much XP goes beyond the scope of anything you or I have attained, and they probably deemed it too unbalancing.

The majority of air-breathing people on this planet KNOW what's right and wrong. Some even live by some type of moral code. If you think it's wrong, or have to ask if it's wrong, then chances are, it's wrong.

Anytime you have to question yourself as to rather something is or is not acceptable, error on the side of caution and consider it not acceptable.

That is a pretty bad stance to take considering vengeance was clearly exploited during its tenure of being bugged. If you didn't exploit it or many other questionable things in PvP such as bodyblocking for over a minute w/o a hero, you'd be reamed by the competition.

I pose this dilemna to you. They didn't ban people for the arid sea loot exploit that allowed everyone to unlock all weapon mods in a matter of hours. How about if there was some other game mechanic that was completely within the ruleset of the game (no alt-f4 or external program) and allowed you to unlock all perfect weapon mods in a matter of hours? Should they ban for that without any warning although they hadn't banned for the exact same thing earlier?

Agreed on "moral code". Still, my moral code might be very different from yours - I might think that being this a fun-game I should be playing by the adventures and never repeat them, and let everyone play its game, while you might think that since it's heavily competitive, you ought to find every nudge and bend and dark corner of the "rules" (mechanics), since that is basically what makes a strategy better than another: unexpected deadly combos (my guildmaster claims he can kill anyone in 3 blows with a combo. Is that true? false? right? wrong?).

The definition of "exploit" is terribly fuzzy and the ban is a very harsh penance. If I were Arena.net (and I'm not, but if I were ;p), I'd do this:

a) Progression of Penance:
- you exploit one thing once, I warn you. You do it twice, character deleted and storage emptied. You do it thrice, ban (except when the exploit is obviously malicious).

b) State clearly what is what. If people KNOW, they can't complain. I consider myself a pretty decent player (as in honesty not skill), but I could've been abusing bugs I know nothing of. Should I be banned? If you think my character has taken an unwanted advantage, destroy it. But banning me basically prevents me from gaming GW ever again (unless I buy another box, which I will never do, considering the risk to be banned again). Considering I'm very competitive too, I might as well have used exploits or bugs I know nothing of, just because they worked: if the "rules" (game client) tells me I can, I assume it's legal and right too (except for little things).

Example? You get 2 bunches of Althea's ashes after the mission. I had a friend that needed to do that mission with his second character, I gave him the ashes. I think it didn't work - but for what I know, it could have, and it would be an exploit, and 2000 free xps. Should I be banned? Probably, considering the EULA, since I ATTEMPTED an exploit to gain unfair advantage. Is my "transgression" worth losing a player? I don't think so. Did I make the game worse, or would the game be made worse if everyone did what I did? Only till the next patch, by all likelyness.

A 'bot or cheat is one thing - you are trying to gain an edge over the others not through skill or tactics or careful planning and examination of the game mechanics, but through a sabotage. I think this is were the distinction should be made - but of course this just is my opinion. I'd be very interested in hearing Arena.net's.

Calimar
-- who can't stop being amazed at how much this game is EXACTLY how he would've made it.

Sorry but this is a joke. there is no such thing right or wrong in the first place. Some moral woldviews have more guns than other moral worldviews though...

But honestly, in a game based on competition, there must be RAW (rules as wirtten). If you go by your abstract moral values of right and wrong, noone besides you need to play the game.
Sorry but even "murder" is not universally accepted as being wrong (abortion, self-defense, death penalty). [I do not claim that anything listed IS murder, but there are some people who believe some or all of them to BE murder. There is no absolute right or wrong here, unless "ThePowerfullGuywiththelightthing" shows up and tells us].

Claiming that you can tell wether something is wrong or right in a game is a joke. Sorry, but most evergrinders would consider it an exploit to change your secondary profession at will. Yes there are people who consider wa/mos to be exploiters, because 1 person never was "supposed to" tank 4 newbs in the arena...

Either AN makes it 100% clear what an exploit is, or the bannings are arbitrary. Sure the EULA allows it. If you let it happen, the EULA will claim your firstborn too...

I always considered "exploits" to be defined as taking advantage of a bug. Something that was not programmed as intended. If enemies spawn repeatedly due to a bug, then its an exploit to take advantage of it. If they spawn because of normal reasons, then you are using game mechanics to advance. It's not right or wrong, its a personal "do I want to stand here and do this for hours" kind of thing. I would not consider it an exploit in any way, and if they did, its a defendable one.


A free web-based wargame you can play from anywhere.

to original poster.

it just seems like your farming xp/items, thats all. and it really isnt an exploit.

you can do the same thing in every area. just like ppl who do the missions over and over.

-Victory is Mine!

And so what? Your level caps at 20. By just going through the storyline, you are going to be pretty close to 20 anyhow.

I'm on my 2nd character now, I don't do every side quest, I don't bother... I know that I'll wrack up enuff xp as I get to each stage just fine. I do the quests that Ihaven't done before, that is for sure.

It's not a matter of what I'm doing, Starsky. It's a matter of what Arena.net considers a bannable offense. The only consistency in Arena.net's banning so far seems to be that they don't ban exploits that are abused purely through ingame mechanics. With the way they worded the EULA and their news post about the Augury Rock banning, they could've banned people for something as tame as exploiting vengeance in guild v guild.

I have a question about those Beetletun mobs. I've noticed they're around every time I leave the city, and I haven't completed the quest yet. Once I complete the quest, do they stop spawning there?

I have farmed them, once. But, it wasn't purposeful. I was trying to finish up all my old quests, and left the city solo. I killed the first 4 groups, but then my dp got high enough that I just gave up. But, I can see how they would be a very good farming spot, if I just put a little more thought into my skillbar.

You can kill all of the mobs in Undead Hordes and still keep doing the quest. Just abandon it and reacquire it. They changed the quest with the last patch to make it a little harder to solo what with the addition of the clerics but it is still very doable.

As to whether this is an offense worthy of banning, well that's not really the point of this thread. Let's be honest here, this thread was started so as to re-address and condemn ANet's actions in their last batch of bannings. Other threads that addressed this were closed so this is the latest attempt at bringing the issue back.

Personally, I'm in favor of threads like this and anything that calls ANet out on such a horrible decision. Such drastic actions based on vague and ambiguous rules should not be tolerated. It was wrong in so many ways:

1. Inconsistency: Whether someone did it 1 time or 100 times, the infraction was still the same and thus the punishment should be the same. ANet doesn't have a window into anyone's soul so intentional abuse cannot be established.

2. Ill-defined Rules: None of us have a window into ANet's soul and thus are unable to play the game exactly how it was intended to be played. By allowing such a rule to exist, you could call any bug in the game a bannable offense. Some monster gets stuck between a wall, you kill it, you just exploited an instance that ANet did not intend to happen. Everyone can essentially be banned.

3. Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Let the punishment fit the crime. If you were given 1,000,000 experience tomorrow, would that automatically make your character unbeatable? Would you stop playing the game because it instantly became too easy? Yeah, me neither. Why didn't they just take away the skill points that were ill-gotten? This could have been done to everyone that took advantage of the exploit so it would have been fair across the board.

4. It was ANet's error: It was a flaw in their coding that allowed all of these exploits. I failed to read in the EULA that said we have all been hired to the Quality Assurance staff. It is not our job to test their software for them and if it is, I'm still waiting on my check.

Correction: it's not only what Anet considers a bannable offense, but also whether you can be caught. How do you catch someone using vengeance in pvp before patch? It's very easy to see who used mirror self exploit or other types of add-ons, but come on, there is no way Anet can catch and punish someone exploiting through farming or over a broken skill. If you think this world is full of nice law-abiding citizens you'll be disappointed. In everyday life, people violate laws all the time, from the president up to ordinary citizen like you and me, but as long as you don't think you're doing something very very wrong, you'll be ok. And btw, no one can memorize every legal sentence to abide to it word to word anyway.

Have you ever heard of logging, Hell Marauder? How do you think they caught people doing the mirror-self run and were able to (according to them) actually count the amount of times they exploited the bug before the patch was even implemented to fix it? Considering the game is hosted on their servers and logging is a trivial implementation, a.net can easily police their own game if they deemed it necessary.

If A.net wanted to, I'm very sure they could've made a list of all the people who had used vengeance repeatedly with no other res spell on their team in a guild vs guild.

oh, now i see what the major exploit was. I couldnt recall it before. now i remember at augury rock how some players were going on about how they could beat their Doppelganger over and over again. besides, who wants to play the Beetletun mob quest over and over again? not me. im glad that im over with that quest.

Lets face it, anybody who has played the game for more than 5 minutes knows roughly how much gold/xp their lvl x character can hope to earn in a typical period. If they suddenly find a way, through a very specific set of actions, that allows them to significantly increase that, then they should be surprised if they are punished for doing so. Seriously, if somebody can honestly turn round and say "OMG I didn't realise that getting 1k xp for killing my Doppelganger every 30 seconds was an exploit!" or whatever, then they're too stupid to be allowed to play the game anyway.

And please, no more of the ridiculous idea that people should only be punished for published exploits. If Anet know enough to tell people it's an exploit, then they probably know enough to fix it don't they ? /smacks head.

Is a straight ban too harsh ? Arguably yes, but Anet have made it very clear so far that is what they're going to do, so I don't think anybody can object to it if they willingly break the rules knowing that a ban is a distinct possibility.

If they banned for that, I would NEVER EVER buy another Anet product. What's the difference between doing that, and continuously doing a mission? You can fight about 30 Charr within 10 seconds of starting Nolani, which is a great way to get Charr hides. Would that be illegal too?

Seriously, Anet needs to be VERY careful with their banning stick. (and preferably also shelve their Nerf Bat)

Creston

Myodato, the problem is that in the past people were not banned for abusing exploits, and Arena.net has created ambiguity by not defining what isn't and what is a bannable exploit. For example, the Arid Sea loot rezoning exploit that they fixed is a very good example. There was a loot drop that could drop weapon mods and you could rezone over and over to get it. They didn't ban anyone abusing that over and over to unlock many weapon mods when they easily could have.

Once again, I will repeat that the only thing one can draw as a precedent from A.net's bannings is that everything is fair game except for exploits involving interrupting the normal flow of execution in the game or third party hacks/hooks. Banning for another loot drop exploit or xp farm exploit working within the game mechanics itself would seem whimsical and almost hypocritical now.

It's hard to draw a definite line, so somebody has to make a judgement call. The important thing is that people know that they can be punished. If one person 'gets away with it', because Anet didn't feel a ban was appropriate, then that doesn't mean that everybody can do what they please.

I can't comment on the Arid Sea thing, because I don't know the details. Honestly though, I don't care whether Anet got it right or not, because the important thing is that they maintain the right to act if and when people use game ruining exploits in future.

The only thing that you can draw from Anets bannings is that they can and they will.

I have no sympathy for those who either willingly use exploits or are too stupid to recognise them. If that's too harsh, then just string me up next to Anet when you send out the lynch mob.

Oh for crying out loud, it's not that complicated, people.

Monsters in an area dropping a lot of loot is not a bug. It may be poor balancing, but it's not a bug.

Being able to receive the quest reward for a quest you've already done is clearly a bug. Once you've done a quest, you can't do it again.

If monsters leading to a boss drop good loot, so you go kill them a lot, that's not exploiting a bug. There's no bug here. Might be a balance issue, but it ain't a bug.

If you kill that boss, return to Firstwatch Sergio or whoever and get your quest reward, then notice he's still got an exclamation point over his head and see you can get the quest reward again and again and again, that is clearly a bug.

It's not that complicated. Why people want to pretend it is, and post examples most of which it's plainly obvious whether it's a "bannable offense" or not, but for some reason the author likes to pretend otherwise, I know not.

Kill monsters and get loot all you want. The same group defending the same boss each time you fail to complete a mission is clearly not a bug. That the original author even thought that might be a bannable offense would prove he was a moron, if it weren't for the fact that I'm sure he knows damn well it's not, he's just trying to rehash an old issue.

The people who exploited the Augury Rock bug was not confused as to whether this was a real bug or just a great farming spot. They violated the EULA and were banned for it.

There's no huge ambiguous gray area that's been created here, either. Their past actions with regards to what they did or didn't ban for do not create a gray area. Knowingly exploiting what is clearly a bug is a bannable offense, period. The fact that there are bugs that were exploited in the past and no one was banned doesn't make this a gray area. It means they've been merciful in the past, it means that sometimes they don't ban, even when it was a bannable offense, but it in no way creates any ambiguity at all over what is a bannable offense. That is perfectly clear.

Should you care?

Does it affect your gameplay?

Does your fun meter go down when you hear about people who farm it?

Do you not have anything better to do than make a thread bitching?


I bet you were also that kid in grade school who, on Friday afternoon, 10 minutes before class let out, you asked the teacher if we could get any homework. Just leave shit alone, k?

Baloney. You can't establish for sure that someone who only did it once or twice wasn't simply testing, but you know damn well that someone who did it a hundred times was intentionally abusing it. It's perfectly consistent to punish in cases where intentional abuse is clear, and not in cases where it is not.

Oh come on, that's just ridiculous. You don't need a "window into ArenaNet's soul" to know getting the same huge quest reward after having already done the quest is a bug.

That's not punishment at all. That's simply undoing the action. That's like saying a thief that steals a car should have to return the car, but nothing else should be done. Again, ridiculous. There needs to actually be some punishment for the crime, or there is absolutely no deterrent at all. If you merely end up exactly where you would have been if you hadn't taken advantage of the bug, there's no reason not to do it -- you don't lose anything for being caught at all, and you gain if you aren't caught. If we want bugs reported and fixed rather than exploited, there needs to be actual punishment for exploiting them, not merely a rollback to pre-exploit status.

Irrelevant. That someone else makes a mistake does not excuse your own actions. "Because that person did something wrong, I should be allowed to as well." Even more ridiculous. That someone else makes an error does not excuse your crime. The people who were banned were not punished for ArenaNet's error, they were punished for their own actions.

Also irrelevant is whether you want to provide free QA or not. No one was banned for not reporting the bug. They were banned for exploiting it.

I largely agree with Dreamsmith on this one. I think most of the people who have cheated the system did so with the knowledge that they were cheating.

Quite obviously, you can't ban people just for using skills (i.e. Vengeance), because many people probably don't really understand what's going on anyway, or people who get great loot somewhere.

Here's the short answer: Any time you are doing something that you even slightly suspect might be an issue, ask Arena Net directly, and stop doing it until they answer.

If you find an exploit, test it once or twice, and then bring it to ArenaNet's attention, I'd bet a large amount that they are not going to ban you. Go to http://support.guildwars.com and let them know what's up.

I see where you are coming from, and, ironically, I actually saw this the same way that you did, until I read your statements. Weird huh?

The quests in fissure/UW can be done repeatedly. You can go in, complete the first mission, jump back to the temple, and repeat. XP is unlimited, or, uh, only limited by your time. Is that an exploit?

Fissure/UW is obviously not an exploit, but I don't know how I would prove that. I can easily see how some people may think that Augury Rock was working as intended, based on the way FoW/UW work. Well, they may have some doubts about it, since it seems a little too good to be true, but I'm sure that those who did it probably justified the situation as a "balancing issue".

In these situations, you look around you, and notice that everyone else is doing this repeatedly. They're questioning whether it's legal, but no one can get ahold of A-Net. Finally, you just decide that since everyone else seems to be doing it, you're going to be left in the dust if you don't.

I still think that people who abused the doppleganger exploit should be punished, but I don't think that it's quite as black and white as you state. That's probably why ANet only banned the biggest abusers.

Personally, I think that they should have just given the exploiters a "correction factor". If they earned 75 skill points this way, and used to buy skills, then 75 random skills should be removed from that account. It's harsh, but a lot more friendly then banning.

I did that little trick about 5 times with a group. Items drops were bland and spaced widely apart. EXP wasn't very good. Seemed like a waste of time to me.

Not an exploit. I can do every single co-op mission again and again, and get all the xp for killing the mobs, get all the drops...

So what is the threshold for intentional vs non-intentional. Better yet, where is this threshold posted? If someone killed the mirror 19 times, he's ok but the 20th, BAN? Seems rather inconsistent, subjective and all-around bad policy to me.

Just like abandoning the Undead Hordes quest and redoing it is a bug. Just like the Vengeance bug. Just like the Arid Sea bug. Just like any bug......there's so many bugs that it's impossible not to exploit them. I doubt many people think what they're doing is wrong, rather just making the most of an opportunity. The only way to know what is "wrong" and what isn't is that unattainable window I mentioned.......or find out after the fact.

Well they probably didn't do anything they considered wrong. Yes, they exploited a situation like everyone else did and numerous instances of exploited bugs happen every day. The only punishment needed is to have your time and effort wasted when the skill points get rolled back. Again, how is the crime so offensive as to warrant a banning? Massive skill point acquisition is so mild an offense it's laughable. Let the punishment fit the crime!

Well the current message is exploit all you want, but do so in moderation. They didn't deter anyone with that banning. They made a lot of people mad and encouraged people to be more sneaky about their exploits.

That wasn't my argument at all. Those quotes definitely don't pertain to anything I said. Nevertheless, that's basically what ANet did by only punishing some people. Some people were allowed to get off free without any consequences and some were not. Exploit, but do so in moderation!

The situation is that ANet encourages people (intentionally or not) to get as much xp as possible as quickly as possible. Through a flaw in their game they allowed a situation to occur where people could do just that. It's a bit hypocritical to then punish people for doing exactly what they've been encouraged to do especially when ANet created the situation to do it.

Yamat, this isn't a co-op mission. This is a quest that isn't intended to be repeated over and over.

Here's a better example. Arid Sea example. You could rezone over and over and loot chests in easily obtained spots to gain weapon mods and loot. You could unlock perfect weapon mods for PvP in a short amount of time. No one was banned for that. If there was another rezone exploit like this in the future, should people be banned for it? That is the question. Where is arena.net drawing the line for a bannable offense and not? Is it valid to use the gameplay mechanics to rezone or not finish a quest to obtain a large amount of loot/exp and not be banned for it?

Hell no you shouldn't ban for doing the beetletun quest over and over killing the mobs in it.

I mean hell, isn't that what you do when you farm? Just kill things over and over again?

If this is a bannable offense...then why isn't killing the entire charr army a bannable offense? It's just entering a quest/mission over and over and killing the big group of mobs over and over again.

No harm, no foul.

when they banned a bunch of accounts for the Augury Rock bug, they probably had banned only about 5%, maybe less, of the users who were exploiting the bug. They gave a statement that said they had only banned the most extreme users, the ones who had done it so repetitively that they had to have obviously known they were exploiting a bug.

I really don't think that anyone who doesn't consciously break the rules has anything to worry about. If I find a loophole that allows me to gain gold fast, I'll use it. But I won't behave like a bot and exploit it for hours on end... that would be boring... I play the game cuz it's fun...

When it comes to exploits, here's a good maxim: If you're not sure if you're exploiting or not, you probably aren't.

what about the poor sob that can't kill the last boss? if it takes him 12 times to finish the quest successfully is he cheating? No he just sucks, and needs to level up before being strong enough to stumble their way through the quest. In other words. I don't give a flying fig what anyone does when its them playing with themselves, and neither should anyone else.

I don't think it should be illegal because it's not really exploiting a bug or anything. The guy still has to actually kill those monsters for reasonable exp/loot. While farming may be lame, I don't think it should ever be illegal (unless it includes bots, etc) as it doesn't exploit a bug or anything unexpected.

I agree, but the problem is that while that player may not do the mission or whatever with others, the moment he participates in the economy by buying or selling something to a trader or other player, he is no longer really playing with himself, as it affects everyone.

Its funny how some people claim that there are no problems with bannings because there are "easy to see", obvious moral values and guidlines in the game that EVERYONE (who is WORTHY) can see and understand while they fail to mention that these are only THEIR moral values and guidelines. Sorry, but for someone coming from a singleplayer game, redoing missions you just finished is a bug. Period. Same with changing secondary professions if your used to the 1000h grind of other MMORPGS. Its not about bugs being obvious either: Lets say team A abuses an exploit that is so obvious you will want to cry. How can you be sure that AN bans them? maybe they let it slide like they did in the past, and you fall behind in the competitive game... There needs to be NO doubt of wether you should do something or not. If it does not work as intended, fix it. But until the fix, it MUST be considered working as intended.

You try to either intentionally or unintentionally, force your way to play and interpret the game on others, creating an uneasy atmosphere of uncertainity. If you have to ask yourself wether your allowed to do it ingame or not, then its the GAMES fault. Laws are there for a reason. The reason is that such "smart" people dont bend the rules when they see fit, twisting abstract moral guidelines that were not clear in the first place, according to their needs.

Stop this stupid mind police. Make rules that cannot be broken. Your GOD, Arenanet. You create the laws of the world. You can choose to go the way of dictatorships, and make everyone guilty, then punish those you dont like. Fine with me.