[MERGED] Strategy vs Exploitation

What's the difference between a strategy and exploitation? Anet is so quick to remove things from the game that work in people's favor, so what's the difference?

It's up to them... they made the game. It's important that they try to keep things balanced.

Strategy: Using the tools available to you to make an effective build.

Exploitation: Using the tools available to you to make an effective build with no counter.

strategy: requires brain
exploitation: requires fotm wtfpwnage team builds

I was just gonna say stop whining about your protective bond invinci monk like the rest of us...But the guys above me just explained it better.

Oh, I'm not complaining about that, I'm just saying in general about nerfs such as spirit spammers, chest farming, etc.

they made changes for pvp btw...which means...make a new pvp character. it starts at level 20, so nothing lost, right?

It's a valid question that Anet should answer. Obviously they won't as they don't seem to be a tenth as interested in the philosophy behind their game as players.

To me exploitation means insta-gankish stuff that is based on getting huge reward instantly for finding a way to push the numbers to make it work. So stuff like farming and even some builds that end up near invincible... that's exploiting. But there's a huge problem with calling people exploiters and it's that the base game usually doesn't offer decent alternatives. Where are farmers supposed to go? There's still no end game loot acquirement that works, months after the release. They started farming usually because of necessity, such as how it used to be about runes. And pvp gankers/fotm are just doing what's necessary. Skill acquirement is so bad that people all have to do the same thing because getting unified counter builds out is extremely time consuming, nigh impossible right away. So it seems all the worst problems came from Anet screwing people badly on acquirement rates. How long before that gets through to them we can only wonder.

Consider the risk versus the reward involved in the method used to achieve the desired effect. Then consider if the method is straightforward with the mechanics in place or more dilluted means of working around the mechanics in place. The answer should be obvious in every instance, but if you think about if you are exploiting something, then chances are that you are in fact exploiting something.

Exploitation = 8 man Mo/R Healing seed, heal area, healing spring, fertile season, symbiosis time sink builds.

Exploitation = W/Mo smite hex, condition removal, charge, sprint runner builds... while beatable with enough snares, still quite annoying to see.

Simply using a build such as the "smite" build, which is now the new "flavor of the month" is not exploiting, it is beatable... If it was super godlike and "stance/shout" based damage, then yes... but it is easily stopped.

It's easier to be a part of the crowd when you don't have a guild to use actual builds with... Can't sit there for eight hours shouting for every character you need. So, it's easier to simply change with the flow.

Anet is doing a great job at keeping up with the game.

Basically, if something seems to good to be true, it probably is.

But people love things that are too good to be true, and tend to exploit it for all its worth. ArenaNet puts in a chest that rewards players for finding it, and let it drop gold items at a decent frequency. First reaction? Milk it for all its worth, keep making runs to that chest alone until ArenaNet is forced to nerf it! Never mind the casual players, who after the consequences of this milking, the nerf, can count on the chest to drop maybe a blue item if they're lucky after the nerf, and have even more problems trying to come up with the money that apparently everyone but them has. Not your problem really - you went straight to the next best thing when the nerf hit.

Could consider that a strategy, but I'd call it a strategy based on exploitation.

The parent leaves the cookie jar on the table, the child sees it and takes a cookie when the parent isn't looking.
Who is to blame? The child doesn't know any better so it's the parents fault.

1) The parent left the jar there.
2) The child wasn't taught any better.

Same principles here folks except in this instance, we were told to play with the cookie jar.

Sorry Anet if we took a cookie but you gave the jar to us.

Anet doesnt have to leave it there for you to keep getting at it though, so dont cry when its gone/fixed...

Exploitation[1]: The act of employing to the greatest possible advantage: exploitation of copper deposits.
Utilization of another person or group for selfish purposes: exploitation of unwary consumers.
An advertising or a publicity program.

So technically, the invincimonk and spirit spammers are exploiting if you take that definition.
But for the other definition for this game; Exploitation[2]: The act of using a glich to your advantage.

Doesnt apply to anything in this game yet. Making a build without a counter is not exploiting [definition 2], it is merely exploiting [definition 1].


So to answer the first post, most people look at definition 2 and think thats what exploitation is, arena.net looks at definition 1. "If a build is good, remove it" is seemingly their policy.

Is it a glitch if there are no mechanics in place to stop it?

no, a glitch is something that wasnt put in the game on purpose or you were not supposed to be able to do. The fact there were no mechanics to stop it is more of a mistake or choice from arena.net.

I think that the invinci monk build was a very good strategy by who ever thought it up. Whoever took that idea and used it for the soul purpose of doing UW... that's exploitation. I mean the invinci monk build was easily countered where you could just shatter enchantments. Another exploitation in this game I personally think is running in a fight. Running to escape is one thing, but having your soul strategy as running is exploitation in my oppinion.

I think that while skills that can deform the environment can be overused, but aren't always exploitive. But, that definately won't be answered by opening up a dictonary or throwing ill-fitting analogies at each other. This is something we need directly from the horse's mouth.

The real question is, is Anet changing skills because they think they are exploits or are they changing skills because they feel they are stagnanting and cheaping the environment? That'd be a Fansite Friday question I'd like to see answered without being obfuscated by customer relations double talk.

True, but then again invinci monk builds weren't really too useful, I personally like how they've fixed the spirits, and as for chest farming... well this game has almost no fun because of Anet trying to counter all the bots farming. The more they nerf, the more people are going to be buying gold off of ebay. It's like saying you eat because you're unhappy, and you're unhappy because you eat. We're literally having fun deprivation so we are needing to buy our gold from bots that do the tedious and annoying work for us.

Exploitation that Anet added that no one really notices that much: running.
Make a character, run to droks, pwn noobs. Sorry to bring this up, but it is exploitation and is available to anyone with the adequate connections or pocketbooks.
Oh well, probably not going to change, but I don't like it at all.

Bingo, that nails the whole exploitation topic imo.


Right now Anet is stuck in a Catch 22. Nerf this, and groups of people get pissed. Don't nerf this and the other player groups stay pissed. What do they do...?

Piss the people off who are buying gold off ebay and are using bots for their money.

Exploitation in this game is the use of strategy to develop methods of play that attain success that is not proportional to skill of the player. Or, to use those methods of play that others have used strategy to develop.

That's how I see it, and it makes sense to me, anyway.

I agree with Mario 64 Master that popular skills (and the No-Brainer Netbuilds that revolve around them) that provide far too much rewards despite lacking much in the way of skill can be considered explotive.

There's a difference between a skill being staple and a skill being blatantly superior.

then lets ban people with rank 9 and let the rank 1 people feel better because rank 9 people are superior at tombs with their skill-full strageties and experiance

edit:
that is like saying that using a gun is exploitation of life. you are not that skillful at taking someones life, but with a gun, it amplifys your ability to therefore it is exploitation?

Battousai, you are taking a very un-kenshin like attitude towards the whole thing. Unless you are the evil, psycho, pre-epiphany kenshin. Which actually makes more sense considering your nick. :P

Let's not let this degenerate into another stupid forum argument. It's all very well and good trying to debate things based on semantics, labels, definitions. But it's just, well, argument strategy. It's not really getting at the truth.

What's the truth?

Well, let's think of what a Games Designer's goals for a game might be:
(as opposed to a game developers, or publishing company, because their goal is simply to make money. I'm talking about the -designer-)

They could be any number of the following:

- Make the game as fun as possible for as large a group of people as possible.
- Allow people to enjoy as much of the content as possible. (why bother to make 450 skills if people will only use 100 of them? Why bother making a huge world if people only repeatedly farm 1/100th of it?)
- Abstract notions such as Risk vs. Reward, Skill vs. Probability of Success, etc.
- Other stuff I havent thought of.
- Sort sort of evil communist agenda.
- Allowing a select group of people to feel WTFBBQL33T

So, in an online game such as GW, where there is the possibility of changing the game (the same issues crop up in normal games when sequels are being designed) are to consider the goals that they are aiming for, and trying to tweak things to improve the performance based on those goals. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail.


Now, with the "OMG, my perfectly legitimate pwning strategy has been nerfed! Damn you!" crowd, well, there's no point in defining it as an "exploit" or not, simply speaking, someone has made a judgement on it, and they've decided to change it in an effort to reach whatever goals they have.


Now, if we wanted to argue, we can argue meaningfully on the nature of those goals, and whether they are suitable or not. For example, numerous people have cited various M:tG articles describing why we need good skills and crappy skills. Whereas personally I think every skill should be equivalently useful, in a broad sense. (eg. some skills can be generally useful in all situations, other skills can be incredibly useful in a very limited set of situations but useless most of the time. etc etc.)

So basically, it's rarely a matter of "broken" or "exploit" vs. "ok". It's more of a matter of, "will making this change improve the game, in our opinion?"


(oh, and regarding guns... certainly if you consider the warrior ethos - a person who has spent an hour learning to shoot a gun can easily kill someone who has spent a lifetime training with the sword - guns can be considered "cheap" and "exploitative" from that point of view. Let's all complain to God, "Nerf guns! Nerf guns!"

Well if you ever thought of it this way... Invinci Monk Build, Spirit Spammers, and many other builds have all been around since the ingredients to make them existed. There are probably many other superior combos out there that we haven't even discovered yet. Start looking now, and once you find it, don't tell anyone. Wisdom means having a lot to say, and also not saying it. Once people find out something, they'll abuse it and get it nerfed. I agree with mario, battousai has input some truth into it, but I don't think that's what mario was really saying.

For instance using the warriors running skills and spirit spamming was exploitation because you could constantly just throw the same thing out which isn't really skill. I'm not saying it can't save your life though.

From what I understand, this is your own personal definition?

A glich is a flaw in the programming. A bug, or something that shouldn't be there. In my oppinion, having an imbalance in the game is also a flaw, but rather than being a mistake, it was an error in balancing.

I think that using a build with no counter is indeed an exploit because an exploit by my definition is using a flaw in your favor.

By the first definition, 105 builds are an exploit. By mine, they are merely an extremely clever use of the skills provided. The problem arises when you use this for PvE. The monsters certainly aren't bitching about 105 builds being unfair when they don't have enchantment removal, but the players would if monsters were to be put on par with players.

In PvE, aren't all players exploiting? There must not be a counter to their build, or else they wouldn't win every single time.

Just think, there's probably some combination of 2 classes that will make a really good set up. The two echo spells on a mesmer is just begging to be nerfed for something some day.

Quoted for emphasis.





Difference between strategy and exploitation:
-Using a build in a way unforseen by the devs is an exploit.

What makes a strategy according to the philosophy of the powers that be?
-Works well in a team (you can't succeed solo)
-Has a weakness (isn't invincible)
-Makes use of late-game skills (no omgwtf sever artery+gash+some random early skill = pwnage)
-Incorporates things such as armour and weapons

Only if a popular build meets all the above criteria do the devs accept it.
You can't solo spirit spam (you can try valiantly to, but it's useless) (example)
You can't invincimonk with the entire team (example)
(Another example Invincimonks are useless against enchantment removal
(Another example Illusionary Weaponmasters use the elite skill Illusionary Weaponry.
(Another example Greater Conflagration + Drakescale armour + fiery axe + cyclone axe + 3-5 rangers incorporates weapons, armour, and skills (as well as team).

Think of it as the Kock's Postulates of Guild Wars Build Design... I'm going to make this into a nifty thread...

Lots of great builds have been made and nerfed by the Devs... so I've thought up a list of things that makes a build acceptable in the Devs' views. While I can't read their minds, it seems that the following things are critentials for a good non-exploit build:

-Works well in a team (you can't succeed solo)(example: spiking)
-Has a weakness (isn't invincible)(example: most spiritspammers)
-Makes use of late-game skills (no omgwtf sever artery+gash+some random early skill = pwnage)(example: Illusionary Weaponmaster Me/W builds)
-Incorporates things such as armour and weapons (example: Greater Conflagration + Drakescale armour + Fiery hilt + Conjure Flame = one hell of a firey team)

An invincimonk, while subject to enchantment removal, isn't a 'team-oriented build'. A spiritspammer team has few weaknesses, fewer can be taken advantage of. A spiker team uses only air spells to do the bulk of the damage, no weapons necessary if done properly.

If anyone has any to add, please do. These are observations, I say again. If you notice any acceptions... don't post them, please. It will merely put them where the dev's can swing the nerf bat at them without a blindfold.

No, Hitokiri Battousai didn't go onto a message board to complain when his hardcore Bakumatsu soloing build got nerfed. He rolled a Rurouni and became a carebear.

At least to me, exploitation is taking advantage of something in the game that isn't working as intended. Spirit Spam and smite builds aren't truly exploitation- though they take(or took) advantage of skills that weren't quite balanced correctly. Other things like the old ascention exploit where if you purposefully killed the game during the cinematic, you could re-ascend for another 50k experience was an exploit. This was taking advantage of something in the game(or rather tweaking circumstances) that wasn't intended. Exploitation can get you banned- but taking advantage of something in the game that's actually in the game won't. People get banned for using bots, or for using exploits like the old ascention bug(which was fixed in under a day iirc), but you don't see people getting banned for farming chests(without using a bot), or using a smite/spirit spam build.

However, if a skill or something isn't working as intended, ArenaNet has every right to change that. If a skill wasn't correctly balanced before release, it should be changed so that it is balanced with the other skills in the game. They don't ban you for using it, but they can and will balance the skills, regardless of if that broken skill is a part of your build. They've actually been very nice about skill balancing, and they waited until a preset time, announced that the changes would be implemented before doing it, etc. Most companies would just release a patch, make you download it, and your build would unexpectedly be useless.

If you find a build that can let a lesser-skilled group beat superior players due to some aspect of a skill, it's likely that that skill is not balanced. Things like Zealot's Fire which does more damage than other AoE's like Firestorm and is harder to avoid, or Ether Renewal which can give a character nearly infinite life and energy are likely in this category, and pre-change spirits definately fall into that category.

A common strategy is taking advantage of your opponents mistakes or weaknesses. Just ask Bobby Fischer

Strategy - Racing with toluene
Exploitation - Racing with a peroxide rocket

This is an interesting observation, and it has a certain amount of truth to it. When I play my Me/N in PvE... many of my skill choices are based solely on what I know about the mobs in the area I'm going into. I can almost always rely on Backfire slaughtering enemy casters. Why? Because they don't care about the hex and keep casting... killing themselves. I can almost always rely on Spiteful Spirit/Empathy mauling physical attackers. Why? Because they attack right through the hexes... killing themselves.

Am I exploiting because I use skills that the AI can't deal with in most situations? Or am I simply using what I have to the greatest advantage possible?

Regardless, the act of abusing that fact is exploiting its existance.

...what?

Am I talking about real life here? Do in game mechanics and definitions of in game exploits have something to do with killing people?

The purpose of the changes in balance to this game is to try to keep everyone winning at a level similar to their skill. Real life does not attempt to adjust your ability to kill people based on your skill in doing so. Actually, I can't even imagine why you brought this analogy here in the first place.

The whole point of this topic is to discuss what constitutes an exploit that is grounds for change in this game. That's a little different than what constitutes troublesome exploitation in real life.

When one was defeated by strategy... there are 2 different kind of opinion...

A. The opponent is really smart... I deserve the defeat, he deserve to win.
B. The oponent is not fighting fair, he would have lost if he would fight fair.

As for exploitation...

A. It is a flaw of the system, I do not wish to be one of those who does not fight fair.
B. All it matter is wining.

Often people who discover exploit don't tell people right away... some of them feel that it should remain a secret, as they know the problem when it get into the wrong hand... then one day, they get tired of holding it in and brag about it... matter of time? And, of course... there are people who would just brag all over the place for finding out the exploit...

Are nuclear weapons an exploit? By most of the definition state earlier... it match perfectly... It sure defeat Japan without any problem, and it sure stop the Korean War to go further. USA use exploit to defeat people? heh, some brain food.

If there is a God... Please nerf nuclear weapon... it is overpowered.