No Quarter Exposed: World First NA Regulos Kill an Exploit

[Tharkkun]

This thread and the many in it defending exploiters pretty much underscore the point that many (not all, but many) raiders don't *really* want difficult fights. They want exclusive gear just for themselves, and don't want others to have it, but, they'll happily exploit around/past the difficulty they all say they prize just to get there; i.e. they *don't* care about challenge, just shinies and who gets them.

Who cares about the gear. It's about the principle of the creative tactics used to defeat a boss. What players are defending is the ability to think outside the box with a documented function of a tank pet without being banned for doing so.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 08:50 AM ----------

Because MMO players are such responsible people, if we tell people EXACTLY WHAT THE BUG IS and ask them not to use it, they ALL will. Clearly most will, as other guilds knew about this and did not use it. However, some people will. Why make the exact nature of it public when you don't have too? You just don't do that.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 08:14 AM ----------



No, it was not intended, it was an unintended side effect of allowing DPS pets to stay alive during boss fights so a pet class could stay competitive on the DPS. Meanwhile, when making that change, they don't take away our tank pet so we can still level and solo out in the open world. When you make a change like letting pets take no damage, as a class lead or designer, you don't necessarily think to tell the encounter designer, hey, make sure that these bosses don't do this. Even if you do tell him, e-mail him, whatever, there is a ton of stuff going on at Trion all the time, it is easy for one little piece of information to get lost or forgotten. Noone is perfect.

Also, it obviously made the difficult fight, much much easier than intended. That was evident by the fact that they got it down with ease after weeks of failing. When something make something that is obviously supposed to be challenging a cake walk, you know it's an exploit.

No one said they have to be perfect. But as humans they also can admit their mistakes. Patch it and move on.

[Lathais]

then why did they make the pets near immune in the first place?

They only made pets near immune to AoE Damage, not all damage. This was so that pet classes would not lose a large portion of their DPS on fights with heavy AoE. On a fight where the boss does more than just AoE, a pet dies if a boss looks at it funny. It was something done for class balance. Something the encounter designer may not have known. Oversights happen, no matter what you do, it happens. It was obviously unintended because it made the fight a lot easier than it was supposed to be. So easy, that it went from nearly unbeatable to cakewalk. That screams exploit to me.

Also how can people continue to say that it was intended when Trion has come out and said it was not. Are you mind readers? You sleeping with the devs and they talk in their sleep? How can you know their intent?

And again to the people that say, "Well Blizzard allows it." Well, this isn't Blizzard, it's a different game, different set of rules.

[Whitepepper]

When something make something that is obviously supposed to be challenging a cake walk, you know it's an exploit.

If this is the definition that you use for "exploit" then there hasn't been a legitimate boss kill ever. The definition has to be more specific otherwise you include things like practice, equipping gear, and playing with your eyes open as exploits.

[Lathais]

Who cares about the gear. It's about the principle of the creative tactics used to defeat a boss. What players are defending is the ability to think outside the box with a documented function of a tank pet without being banned for doing so.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 08:50 AM ----------



No one said they have to be perfect. But as humans they also can admit their mistakes. Patch it and move on.

I am pretty sure they did come out and say that it was not intended, that is admitting your mistake, also, they probably will patch it, either next Hotfix or 2.2, patches don't happen overnight you know, not on something so trivial that every other guild there knows not to do.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 09:03 AM ----------

If this is the definition that you use for "exploit" then there hasn't been a legitimate boss kill ever. The definition has to be more specific otherwise you include things like practice, equipping gear, and playing with your eyes open as exploits.

No, my definition of exploit is on the first page. If the developers did not intend it, it is an exploit. Obviously the devs intended for you equip gear and play with your eyes open. It is a big red flag that should make you think about it though. This is really just getting beyond stupid at this point.

[Tarien]

It's a video game, not real life. Nobody is hurt except a bunch of nerd's epeens.

You're right, it's just a game, a little break while you're banned doesn't hurt.

If the developers hadn't intented this then why did they make the pets near immune in the first place?

Oh I dunno, maybe so that people with pet specs could actually use their pets in a raid environment? Definitely not so that pets could tank raid bosses for you, that's for sure. Use some common sense.

You don't ban people because they came up with an insightful tactic. You patch it and move on.

You do if it's clearly not intended and circumvents mechanics giving a guild a clear advantage which they then use to their own gain. There is a difference between coming up with a clever strategy and exploiting an unintended loophole.

A clever strategy would be something like Magmaw, first boss in Cataclysm (WoW), a bunch of maggots spawn that you're meant to AoE and stay away from or they infect you and spread to other players, dealing damage. Player found that a single Death Knight tank specced in a certain way could keep aggro on the maggots and solo them using the abilities DKs had. The maggots still had to be dealt with, it still required work on the raids behalf.

Allowing your pet to tank a boss for you while the pet is pretty much unkillable is definitely a whole different affair. You're circumventing mechanics.

Yes, but would you fire all your customers who were using your product and found the security hole? No. You'd patch it, apologize and move on. It's not like pet's taking low cleave damage was an idea that was only discovered by one guild!

Your analogy is stupid. Your customers aren't your employees so no, you don't fire them. But you DO prosecute them if they're using the loophole to commit crimes.

[Whitepepper]

No, my definition of exploit is on the first page. If the developers did not intend it, it is an exploit. Obviously the devs intended for you equip gear and play with your eyes open. It is a big red flag that should make you think about it though. This is really just getting beyond stupid at this point.

What exactly is it the devs don't intend in this case? They don't intend for pets to be able to tank or they don't intend for pets to be able to survive aoe damage? Pets are designed to tank or they're not. Pets are designed with a damage modifier for aoe or they're not. Obviously the devs intended for pets to have the ability to tank and survive aoe damage. If anything it's a design flaw.

[Tarien]

What exactly is it the devs don't intend in this case? They don't intend for pets to be able to tank or they don't intend for pets to be able to survive aoe damage? Pets are designed to tank or they're not. Pets are designed with a damage modifier for aoe or they're not. Obviously the devs intended for pets to have the ability to tank and survive aoe damage. If anything it's a design flaw.

Pets are designed to survive AOE in raid type environments, whether they be instanced or open world, so that players can use pet specs without penalty. They were not given these abilities to tank raid bosses for you.

Honestly this is so obvious that you're clearly just posting to provoke people if you think otherwise.

[Lathais]

What exactly is it the devs don't intend in this case? They don't intend for pets to be able to tank or they don't intend for pets to be able to survive aoe damage? Pets are designed to tank or they're not. Pets are designed with a damage modifier for aoe or they're not. Obviously the devs intended for pets to have the ability to tank and survive aoe damage. If anything it's a design flaw.

Pets are designed to tank in order to solo. Pets are designed to not take AoE damage so that pet classes stay competitive on fights with lots of AoE. Pets are not intended to tank raid bosses. Yes, it is a design flaw. An unintended design flaw. An unintended design flaw is defined as an exploit. What is difficult to understand about that. Pets tanking for solo purposes and pets not taking AoE damage are two unrelated things that when combined under certain boss conditions caused an unintended effect. That unintended effect happened to trivialize an encounter. It was not caught on this particular boss in testing. It happens, it is an oversight. These things happen. These things have been said over and over in this thread and it has devolved into people saying the same illogical arguments with the same reasonable counter-arguments going back and forth.

[ramennoodleking]

Because MMO players are such responsible people, if we tell people EXACTLY WHAT THE BUG IS and ask them not to use it, they ALL will. Clearly most will, as other guilds knew about this and did not use it. However, some people will. Why make the exact nature of it public when you don't have too? You just don't do that.

...and more spew from Lathais

If there was no official warning and no hotfix or change, then it was fair game because it was taken a mechanic with pets that has been in the game since whenever and it worked well with this particular boss. PERIOD. You can't wiggle your way around it. If you don't want people using their given abilities (and these aren't broken abilities, the pet was working as intended, tanking, holding aggro, ignoring AoE), then you need to either announce that this is a KNOWN problem and anyone caught using it will be punished, or fix the damn thing.

And guess what? If people get to regulos and still use a pet despite the warning, then Tirion should be tracking these kills if they desire to not fix their encounter.

[RoKPaNda]

I don't think that's an exploit. That looks more like poor testing/programming to me, I'm actually a little surprised one of their reps considers it an exploit, or alludes to it being an exploit. I'm more than a little surprised that they didn't do any testing on that .. When you design pets to be immune to things like that, you should make sure that it doesn't apply in any way that makes content trivial. Would have been better if NQ reported it as a possible issue before doing it, but the blame is really on the Rift team for not testing properly. Just strip NQ of everything they gained from the kill if it becomes an issue, but don't ban them. Hell, make sure those people beta test in the future, and things like that probably won't get through.

[ramennoodleking]

pet's weren't designed to ignore boss mechanics, some were designed to tank yes but not designed so a boss does absolutely nothing to it. It's a bug - should of been reported and the people exploiting it knew what they were getting at.

Dispersion avoiding damage is a clever use of game mechanics. Tank pet ignoring boss abilities? Yea no

I wonder what it's like to live in a world where reasoning exists only in circles.

Pets: designed to be able to tank, hold aggro, and built in also to avoid AoE damage. Single target damage still hurts.
"Exploit:" using a Pet to tank, hold aggro, and avoid AoE damage. Would still take single target.

Looks like its working to me. Tirion needs to fix it, it's simply using the abilities your class has to your advantage.

No different than when guardian spirit saved your life on Valiona and Theralion when it was intended that the target of the debuff automatically died. Instead of getting mad at the players for using the ability blizzard gave them to survive and labeling them as exploiters, they just fixed the problem.

Tirion =\= Blizzard, I get that, but god almighty this has turned into such a witchhunt. If its not intended, then get off their asses and fix it (which they might be doing).

[Tarien]

I wonder what it's like to live in a world where reasoning exists only in circles.

Pets: designed to be able to tank, hold aggro, and built in also to avoid AoE damage. Single target damage still hurts.
"Exploit:" using a Pet to tank, hold aggro, and avoid AoE damage. Would still take single target.

Looks like its working to me. Tirion needs to fix it, it's simply using the abilities your class has to your advantage.

Yes but why were pets given those abilities? Was it to make them viable in raids, or to tank raid bosses? If you like the above poster cannot use a little common sense and see that this use of pets was clearly unintended, then again I suspect you're just here to provoke people.

No different than when guardian spirit saved your life on Valiona and Theralion when it was intended that the target of the debuff automatically died.

Except that doing so gave no personal gain in your example. NQ on the other hand have used this loophole to beat a boss they otherwise couldn't have beaten, and earn loot/titles/whatever they otherwise would not have gotten. They've then gone on to use this loophole to take the server first achievements on a number of other servers, taking even more that again they are not entitled to and depriving others.

Time to accept that what NQ did was wrong, people.

[Lathais]

I wonder what it's like to live in a world where reasoning exists only in circles.

Pets: designed to be able to tank, hold aggro, and built in also to avoid AoE damage. Single target damage still hurts.
"Exploit:" using a Pet to tank, hold aggro, and avoid AoE damage. Would still take single target.

Looks like its working to me. Tirion needs to fix it, it's simply using the abilities your class has to your advantage.

No different than when guardian spirit saved your life on Valiona and Theralion when it was intended that the target of the debuff automatically died. Instead of getting mad at the players for using the ability blizzard gave them to survive and labeling them as exploiters, they just fixed the problem.

Tirion =\= Blizzard, I get that, but god almighty this has turned into such a witchhunt. If its not intended, then get off their asses and fix it (which they might be doing).

It is not reasoning in circles, it was two unrelated design issues that happened to have an unintended effect.

Design 1: Pets tank for ranged squishy guys when soloing. Useful for solo questing, tackling Elites and Rifts solo or perhaps a small group without a tank. Open worldy stuff where there is not more than the pets health in damage flying around. Part of original game design.

Design A: Hmm, pet classes cannot be competitive on DPS on boss fights with AoE. Let's fix that so that DPS STAYS COMPETITIVE ON BOSS FIGHTS.

Notice, in neither of those 2 separate in both time(one at release, one later once people started raiding) and place(open world/solo compared to raids) does is there a thought of pets tanking bosses. One applies to tank pets, one applies to DPS pets. However, in game, pets all fall under the same category, so when you make a global change to pets to not take AoE then it applies to tank pets as well. An unintended side effect when you combine those two designs is that a boss that deals exclusively AoE damage can be cheesed.

Is Trion at fault? Was is a design flaw? Yes. I do not think anyone here that is saying it is an exploit is arguing those two facts. It does not change the fact that it was unintended and trivialized the encounter to the point of removing all challenge. The fact that 2 unrelated designs, when combined, under certain circumstances, causes an unintended effect, remains true. Trion has come out and said it was unintended. They DID intend pets to tank. They DID intend them to take little to no damage from AoE. They DID NOT intend pets to tank bosses. Yes, it is in fact their fault and a design flaw. It is however an exploit and it is clear in the TOS that unintended things may happen and using them to your advantage is an exploit that is punishable up to and including a ban.


All that said, I still say don't ban them. I am actually in agreement with those saying that they do not deserve a ban. I don't even think a temporary suspension is in order. I DO think they should have the achievement stripped, the gear earned via this method taken away, and any player that was part of those kills should not be allowed to win world or server firsts this time around.

[Orange Joe]

I'm sorry but how is using a pet to tank an exploit? This is something they can do at any time. They didn't have to do anything dodgy to make it work.

I'm sorry but this is clever use of mechanics. Trion should have planed it a bit better so pets can't tank bosses if they don't want them tanking bosses.

[Lathais]

I'm sorry but how is using a pet to tank an exploit? This is something they can do at any time. They didn't have to do anything dodgy to make it work.

I'm sorry but this is clever use of mechanics. Trion should have planed it a bit better so pets can't tank bosses if they don't want them tanking bosses.

Did you even read half the thread? I would consider anything that removes tanks and tank healers from the fight entirely dodgy.

Noone s arguing that Trion made an oversight. Simply that the people that used this realized(or at least should have) that this was not intended and should not have been used.

Am I personally asking for a ban? No, some are, and I completely understand that as there IS in fact fault on both sides. They should have achieves and gear stripped and be removed from the race in some way. Possibly, not allowing those players a shot at world/server first until the next tier or raid rolls out.

[Orange Joe]

Did you even read half the thread? I would consider anything that removes tanks and tank healers from the fight entirely dodgy.

Noone s arguing that Trion made an oversight. Simply that the people that used this realized(or at least should have) that this was not intended and should not have been used.

Am I personally asking for a ban? No, some are, and I completely understand that as there IS in fact fault on both sides. They should have achieves and gear stripped and be removed from the race in some way. Possibly, not allowing those players a shot at world/server first until the next tier or raid rolls out.

That doesn't make it an exploit. It might trivialize the fight, but again that is on Trion for not planning ahead.



Can you explain how this IS an exploit? What did they do that isn't normally allowed by mechanics?

[Tarien]

Can you explain how this IS an exploit? What did they do that isn't normally allowed by mechanics?

Avoided all damage for a good chunk of a fight.

[Deleted]

when a few millions of damage just.. dont happen, yeah BOOM, exploit

Stacking powerstones was also an exploit, as was using flames back on RKM/Grugonim, or dueling to negate the hit requirements on akylios etc etc etc

[Lathais]

That doesn't make it an exploit. It might trivialize the fight, but again that is on Trion for not planning ahead.



Can you explain how this IS an exploit? What did they do that isn't normally allowed by mechanics?

It is an exploit because it was not intended by the developers. That is the definition of exploit after all. The use of game mechanics in a way not intended by the developers. Trion not planning ahead? It was a simple oversight. These things happen. The fight was intended to have tanks and tank healers, not extra DPS in their spot because a pet takes no damage.

I also just want to point out. Noone is sitting here saying Trion did not make a mistake. Clearly they did. They let this into the game, possibly knowing about, they at least knew about it on all the other bosses, so when that learned that they probably should have done a quick check on the untested bosses. That is not what is in question here AT ALL. The fact that they took advantage of the mistake on Trion's part IS what is in question. NQ clearly took advantage of something that was an oversight.

[Edge-]

It is an exploit because it was not intended by the developers. That is the definition of exploit after all. The use of game mechanics in a way not intended by the developers.

It's more "intentionally breaking game rules". You can totally come up with some creative strategies for bosses that developers didn't intend for, but still function well within the normal rules of the game. It's breaking the rules of the game (negating/bypassing an entire mechanic, bugging buffs from another fight to remain on you for a fight they weren't intended for ect.) that leads to issues. If the boss is supposed to use an ability that does big AoE damage, but you find a way to bypass it with no negative effects, that's "breaking" the encounter. If there's the negative effect of the boss soft enraging temporarily, that's not really breaking it.

I know of more than a few fights that probably weren't done the "intentional" way when I was raiding in BC on my prot pali, but we never bypassed any mechanics or abused any outside buffs that weren't meant for the fight.

It's in Trions court for not fixing the issue if it was reported during testing. They need to make sure to deal with these potential problems. But it's also in the guilds court to use their noggins to realize that, "Hey, this might be overstepping the 'creative use of in-game mechanics' line a bit too much, we should get clarification if we're going to try this to avoid any issuse".