No Quarter Exposed: World First NA Regulos Kill an Exploit

[Belloc]

Did you even read the thread before you posted or just the title then skipped to the last post? I've been talking about Matriarch, Matriarch is the fight they LoS'ed to circumvent nearly all of the mechanics. It's in the OP, it's been talked about at length, and I don't know how you missed it. As far as you can tell wasn't very far apparently.

If you had read any of my posts, you'd see that the only thing I was actively discussing was pet tanking which, at the time of my posts, appeared to be the primary topic under discussion.

[notorious98]

Weird, because I'm pretty sure there are guns and ammo available for sale the world over and the sole purpose of a gun is to kill but yet we have laws that say 'Don't kill people' and it really should be enough. Strangely when people cross that line there is a punishment...

That makes no sense. That actually makes less sense than the analogy I already responded to. Last I checked, guns (along with most weapons) are used as a means of protecting oneself, not just to kill. When they are used maliciously to end another's life or otherwise cause harm, THEN you get punished. When they are used correctly, as a means of self defense, you are not. How you even equate the two is beyond me.

---------- Post added 2013-01-31 at 08:39 PM ----------

Except they didn't know about it, they knew about it on other fights, not on this one.

So what you're saying is that Trion doesn't understand the game that they've created. This wasn't a bug. If they didn't realize that pets who are immune to cleaves could be used to tank a boss who seems to only cleave, they are stupid. Sorry, but it's true.

---------- Post added 2013-01-31 at 08:42 PM ----------

Now you are arguing for less content?

If it's to the detriment of the content that they are putting out, then yes. Sorry, but you don't get a pass for putting out massive amounts of content that you apparently don't have the time to fix.

[Lathais]

That makes no sense. That actually makes less sense than the analogy I already responded to. Last I checked, guns (along with most weapons) are used as a means of protecting oneself, not just to kill. When they are used maliciously to end another's life or otherwise cause harm, THEN you get punished. When they are used correctly, as a means of self defense, you are not. How you even equate the two is beyond me.

---------- Post added 2013-01-31 at 08:39 PM ----------



So what you're saying is that Trion doesn't understand the game that they've created. This wasn't a bug. If they didn't realize that pets who are immune to cleaves could be used to tank a boss who seems to only cleave, they are stupid. Sorry, but it's true.

If they are so stupid, let's see you do better, then come back and make these baseless accusations. Similar things have happened in near every MMO developed to date though, so perhaps all dame developers are stupid? Also, maybe they did know about it, but there were much more pressing issues that were breaking the game for more than just a few people on the final boss of the toughest raid. People who already know they should probably not do this. people who questioned a GM if they should do it and the answer was, if you have to ask, you probably shouldn't. Then perhaps the post-it note it was written on got lost or buried. You have no idea. Once you can create your own AAA MMO and be as successful as Rift is, then come talk about how stupid they are.

[AddictVioarr]

If you had read any of my posts, you'd see that the only thing I was actively discussing was pet tanking which, at the time of my posts, appeared to be the primary topic under discussion.

Which begs the question, why did you reply to me not talking about the pet tanking.

[notorious98]

If they are so stupid, let's see you do better, then come back and make these baseless accusations.

Because I don't design games suddenly I can't comment on how asinine it is for a developer to not know their own game well enough to know it's possible for people to use pets that tank, who would be immune to his damage, as tanks? Awesome defense. Trion set up the parameters of their game. They created an encounter that falls into those parameters. People creatively used said parameters to beat a boss. Good for them. Once again. It wasn't a bug. It's not even a glitch. It's creatively using what Trion set up for you to use.

Also, maybe they did know about it, but there were much more pressing issues that were breaking the game for more than just a few people on the final boss of the toughest raid.

This goes back to my response that if there's too much content that it's a detriment to the final product, maybe it's time to cut back on the content. A ton of content isn't great if much of it is broken.

People who already know they should probably not do this. people who questioned a GM if they should do it and the answer was, if you have to ask, you probably shouldn't.

Some people question everything. Others take it for granted one way or another. It's all a matter of opinion and how somebody views it.

Then perhaps the post-it note it was written on got lost or buried. You have no idea.

That's the worst excuse I've ever seen. A post-it note used by a computer gaming company and not sending e-mails.

Once you can create your own AAA MMO and be as successful as Rift is, then come talk about how stupid they are.

I don't have to create an MMO in order for me to comment on how stupid a company is for doing something that's so obviously stupid. What you're saying, essentially, is that not one single person in the meeting for this new raid put their hand up and said, "Hey, pets can tank and they're immune to cleave, maybe we should tweak these mechanics"? If not, then they don't know their own game and, yes, they're stupid.

[Lathais]

Because I don't design games suddenly I can't comment on how asinine it is for a developer to not know their own game well enough to know it's possible for people to use pets that tank, who would be immune to his damage, as tanks? Awesome defense. Trion set up the parameters of their game. They created an encounter that falls into those parameters. People creatively used said parameters to beat a boss. Good for them. Once again. It wasn't a bug. It's not even a glitch. It's creatively using what Trion set up for you to use.



This goes back to my response that if there's too much content that it's a detriment to the final product, maybe it's time to cut back on the content. A ton of content isn't great if much of it is broken.



Some people question everything. Others take it for granted one way or another. It's all a matter of opinion and how somebody views it.



That's the worst excuse I've ever seen. A post-it note used by a computer gaming company and not sending e-mails.



I don't have to create an MMO in order for me to comment on how stupid a company is for doing something that's so obviously stupid. What you're saying, essentially, is that not one single person in the meeting for this new raid put their hand up and said, "Hey, pets can tank and they're immune to cleave, maybe we should tweak these mechanics"? If not, then they don't know their own game and, yes, they're stupid.

You apparently have never worked in the type of job where you have so much going on that sometimes a couple little details slip through the cracks. I mean, it's not something you think about, having pets tanking bosses. Not while you have 100 other things going on. When the change was made to have pets not take AoE damage, they were thinking, "Hmm, pet classes pets die to AoE in boss fights. This causes their DPS to not be competitive. Seeing as the player cannot reasonably be expected to move both him/her self out of AoE and their pet, let's assume the pet is smart enough to know not to stand in fire. Instead of coding it to move as that would cost time, server and client resources during fights that already tax some systems, we'll just make the pets for those classes not take AoE damage." Done, let's move on to the next pressing issue. It is not something one thinks about, having pets tank bosses, because that's outside of normal play.

It is a small detail that does seem kinda stupid, but I have overlooked simpler things before, most people have. Ever had that moment where you are about to walk out the door and go, "oh shit, where are my keys?" Spend 5-10 minutes looking for them only to find they are in your hand? Shit happens, it doesn't mean they are stupid. If they are so stupid, they would not have been able to create this game.

[Jafahr]

Really? My guild says otherwise. We report exploits and bugs and then never use them. Learn facts before posting please.

^^ This. Bugs have been a part of boss encounters since the inception of MMOs. There's several competitive guilds out there that report possible exploits. as well as refusing to use known exploits

[Tankendog]

Being competitive means wanting to win no matter what the cost, play or watch any sport and see how many blatant fowls and what not per game. I feel no quarter wanted it more than anyone else and they proved it. Be mad if you want, but they did it first, regardless if it was an exploit. I mean really, they took time to figure out the exploit didn't they?

[smartazjb0y]

Because I don't design games suddenly I can't comment on how asinine it is for a developer to not know their own game well enough to know it's possible for people to use pets that tank, who would be immune to his damage, as tanks? Awesome defense. Trion set up the parameters of their game. They created an encounter that falls into those parameters. People creatively used said parameters to beat a boss. Good for them. Once again. It wasn't a bug. It's not even a glitch. It's creatively using what Trion set up for you to use.

This goes back to my response that if there's too much content that it's a detriment to the final product, maybe it's time to cut back on the content. A ton of content isn't great if much of it is broken.

I don't have to create an MMO in order for me to comment on how stupid a company is for doing something that's so obviously stupid. What you're saying, essentially, is that not one single person in the meeting for this new raid put their hand up and said, "Hey, pets can tank and they're immune to cleave, maybe we should tweak these mechanics"? If not, then they don't know their own game and, yes, they're stupid.

[/quote]

You don't know the inner workings of the company so to assume that ANYTHING about how they work is dumb. The FACTS are that Trion knew about the problem but it made it to live and they've told people it's an exploit. That's ALL you know. Do you know WHY it made it to live? No. To make ANY assumptions then condemn them for those assumptions is, again, dumb on your part. Go ahead and say they're stupid, but realize that's based on YOUR ASSUMPTION of how they work.

Maybe they had other, more pressing problems to deal with, like botting. Maybe it's a major technical fix that they're working on right now. Maybe you're right, maybe they're just lazy. Which interpretation is right? WE DON'T KNOW. You don't see me going around saying "I love Trion, they're correctly prioritizing widespread botting issues over a boss issue that affects a very small percentage of the population, they're the best company ever." You know why I'm not going around spouting that? BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW. To make a judgement on the company based on YOUR INTERPRETATION of the facts is asinine.

[Tarien]

That makes no sense. That actually makes less sense than the analogy I already responded to. Last I checked, guns (along with most weapons) are used as a means of protecting oneself, not just to kill. When they are used maliciously to end another's life or otherwise cause harm, THEN you get punished. When they are used correctly, as a means of self defense, you are not. How you even equate the two is beyond me.

So you're saying that using pets to tank the final boss of this tier was how they were intended to be used? Trion wants us to use pet tanks in raids do they? No. Stop trying to twist what people are saying to justify exploiters actions. The analogy is fine, even your twisted version of it still ends up painting NQ as they cheaters they are.

For all those people whinging that Trion should have fixed it, yeah they should, but I am sure that they've also got their hands full pushing all the class balances out the door, building patch 2.2, building the next tier of raids, the next conquest warfront, the next dungeon(s), new items (did you know that there are 90,000 items in the game?) and finding solutions to the botting issues and a hundred other issues that affect far more players.

As a raider I think they should have fixed it, as an intelligent human being I can understand why they haven't got around to it.

[Slipmat]

Eight pages of mostly useless whines and "first time" posters that magically appeared from nowhere, yeah right

Trion, or more specifically Daglar has replied, not sure what these actions are, maybe some of the "first time" posters can enlighten us?

Actions have been taken. I'm not going to go into any additional details tonight.

I'm sure some of you didn't like the mallard today, but the mallard has a valuable warning. If something feels like an exploit, you report it. If its a big exploit especially, send a developer a PM on the forums - then, don't continue to use it.

~Daglar

Source: http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-gene...trolls-11.html

[ramennoodleking]

It's bullshit. If I'm given an ability to apply a buff on a friendly player that negates 80% damage for a few seconds, and I encounter a raiding scenario where a particular debuff or situation is intended to normally kill you (debuff, dragons breath, void zone, etc) I am not exploring the fucking game but using my abilities. I have been using guardian spirit and dispersion in wow to avoid or completely ignore certain mechanics--is that exploiting if it helps me stay alive and win the fight?

If I had a pet who was DESIGNED to be able to tank, hold aggro, and be immune to AoE damage (and apparently cleaves) then ill be damned if I wouldn't suggest using that to tank so we could bring an additional dps.

In fact, if dps is the real issue here, it would be no different than dropping one healer for x number of OP healers to also meet te dps requirement.

It is NOT an exploit. If Tirion doesn't like it, then in the future then need to make bosses also have single target melee swings or change the way pets tank.

If a developer gives me an ability, I will use it. "Oh? Guardian spirit prevents a tank death by giving them a second chance at life? Gee that seems unfair, I think I'll take it off my action bars." Fuck that. If the developer wanted that boss mechanic to kill the tank, then they should have fixed all abilities that could prevent that. AND if it was an oversight, as it was no doubt here on Tirion's part, then they need to acknowledge that they didn't intend or anticipate that subsequently fix it. And don't spew the argument that they knew, so others shouldn't have used it. If it was that important to them then show me an official post before this guilds kill that says "hey we havnt had time to fix this non game breaking issue, but in the mean time do NOT use pets to tank as we dont intend it to be killed that way."

If they made such an OFFICIAL post prior to this guilds kill, then I'll agree the guild exploited. If not, then it's just a witch hunt.

[zito]

If I had a pet who was DESIGNED to be able to tank, hold aggro, and be immune to AoE damage (and apparently cleaves) then ill be damned if I wouldn't suggest using that to tank so we could bring an additional dps.

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

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 01:39 PM ----------

http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-gene...ml#post4141132

This friendly mallard has some advice for everyone.

[alturic]

Ok, so while I agree sometimes people take things TOO far, at the end of the day exploit can be thrown around and labeled as such by any developer. At the end of the day, bugs fall into the hands of developers. There should be a lot more leeway given in terms of bugs used on bleeding-edge content compared to say something that's been out for 3+ months.

I mean, even in the case of Blizzard, ESPECIALLY on something like a new boss (I mean, if no-one has killed said boss before it's not like the boss has been out for 1+ months, right?) do they not have all sorts of bells and whistles going off when someone enters the raid/engages the boss? I don't care if you had a month of PTR testing on that specific boss. Regardless if people killed it on the PTR or not, wouldn't you want some eyes on the first couple kills? Hell, it serves a few purposes with the primary being the potential to see "exploits" and stopping them before it causes bad PR, bans, etc.

People buying things from a vendor and re-selling them for a profit isn't something new. It used to be a staple of how to get a nest-egg started in UO, but no-one was ever banned for "exploiting" the way vendors worked.

I do find it amusing how (regardless of a developers intentions) using a pet, which can be used to tank, was used to tank and all of a sudden it's an exploit. If the developers didn't want a pet to tank the boss they should have prevented it from happening.

Did my guild exploit when (our tanks sucked apparently) we used a VW to tank Sarth every week? According to Blizzard we didn't, why (regardless of different games, it negated certain abilities) is this any different?

[Kelimbror]

If they made such an OFFICIAL post prior to this guilds kill, then I'll agree the guild exploited. If not, then it's just a witch hunt.

Pretty much, yep.

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

Let's translate into what these words really mean:
'Using an ability to avoid damage is clever. Using an ability to avoid damage? Yea no.'

Actually there's no difference in what you said.

But in any event, Trion have clearly moved to action against this, so using pets on bosses will be considered an exploit now and forever for them. Whether you agree or disagree, it is what it is.

[zito]

Let's translate into what these words really mean:
'Using an ability to avoid damage is clever. Using an ability to avoid damage? Yea no.'

No you just changed my words into a vague answer.

I don't think they mind using pets on bosses, it's when the bosses mechanics get ignored by the pet is the problem.

[Whitepepper]

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

It's not that black and white. Pets were designed to hold aggro and pets were also designed to not die to boss aoe. If the boss is designed to use only aoe abilities then you can absolutely say the pet and boss were designed so that the boss wouldn't be able to harm the pet. If someone has the idea to let the pet tank the boss it sounds like clever use of mechanics.

No you just changed my words into a vague answer.

I don't think they mind using pets on bosses, it's when the bosses mechanics get ignored by the pet is the problem.

They've designed pets to not take aoe damage. Pets have been designed to ignore boss aoe. It's intended.

[Lathais]

If they made such an OFFICIAL post prior to this guilds kill, then I'll agree the guild exploited. If not, then it's just a witch hunt.

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 ----------

It's not that black and white. Pets were designed to hold aggro and pets were also designed to not die to boss aoe. If the boss is designed to use only aoe abilities then you can absolutely say the pet and boss were designed so that the boss wouldn't be able to harm the pet. If someone has the idea to let the pet tank the boss it sounds like clever use of mechanics.



They've designed pets to not take aoe damage. Pets have been designed to ignore boss aoe. It's intended.

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.

[Puremallace]

If I were Trion I would take this chance to look at the structure of the fights and design around players who do this stuff. The biggest complaints about WoW/Rift end game it is repetitive and not changing. Say if they did this with the pet and Regulos was smart enough to turn towards the raid and ignore the pet or added an extra attack that forced the raid to compensate for using a pet as a tank.

Just making it so pets can't tank raid bosses is kind of dumbing down the fight and making every guild be forced to use the same strat/raid make-up and that is what is boring everyone with current themeparks.

[Tharkkun]

The difference is that Murdantix was the first boss and he had been killed by dozens, maybe hundreds of guilds before this 'tactic' came to light. Sure it made it easier, but it was already an easy, entry level fight that anyone who was half serious about raiding had killed without using the stairs.



Weird, because I'm pretty sure there are guns and ammo available for sale the world over and the sole purpose of a gun is to kill but yet we have laws that say 'Don't kill people' and it really should be enough. Strangely when people cross that line there is a punishment...



But in this rather amusing analogy, the people (NQ) abusing the security hole (pet tanking) are still criminals (exploiters) and should be punished (bans all round).

Yes, Trion should have fixed it, and their punishment is the bad PR their game gets.

But at the end of the day, NQ shouldn't have abused what was clearly not intended - just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. It's a lesson you teach to children. They have a history of finding and abusing loopholes to gain an unfair advantage, they have a history of anti-social behaviour, they bring nothing positive to the game and don't deserve to play. I'd permaban them all and delete their accounts if it were my decision, I detest cheaters.

It's a video game, not real life. Nobody is hurt except a bunch of nerd's epeens. If the developers hadn't intented this then why did they make the pets near immune in the first place? You don't ban people because they came up with an insightful tactic. You patch it and move on.

---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 08:35 AM ----------

Did you even read the thread before you posted or just the title then skipped to the last post? I've been talking about Matriarch, Matriarch is the fight they LoS'ed to circumvent nearly all of the mechanics. It's in the OP, it's been talked about at length, and I don't know how you missed it. As far as you can tell wasn't very far apparently.

---------- Post added 2013-01-31 at 08:02 PM ----------



Last I checked if I violated a security fault with Windows my employer would fire me, not Microsoft. You gave a perfect example of why it's silly to only blame the developer instead of the person violating the rules. I don't accept the premise that only one party can be at fault, both can be at fault to varying degrees and any argument otherwise is foolish. In this case NQ owns a lion's share of the the blame.

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!