The XP potion drama is a byproduct of Blizzard's inability to communicate properly

[Intropid]

It's easy to point fingers at players for abusing a system that they think may or may not be working as intended. It's absolutely insane that Blizzard didn't respond and hasn't responded. Days before the bans came in, people were bombarding Blizzard with tweets telling them of the bug, and if they were allowed to do it or not. They were met with complete silence as they watched streamers for hours, and hours use this exact same bug and Blizzard still chose to be silent on the matter. It seems as though the team is preferring inaction rather than action. I believe most of the bans could've been avoided if the team was more communicative.

Edit: I want to clarify my stance because a lot of people are misinterpreting my stance. The people deserved bans. In fact I think it's pretty fucking stupid that the characters aren't getting rolled back. The entire point of this thread wasn't to discuss whether or not exploiting is bad or not, but rather why I feel as though Blizzard failed to communicate on their end. Also people assume that because I made this thread or have this stance that I did the exploit, I did not.

[Frolk]

I bet they didt wanna do anything as its so close to when allied races were released they rather deal with it later.
Also, how the fuck is Lore still working as a CM??? Laziest CM i ever witnessed.

[Garymorilix]

Or you know, you can just not use an obvious 100% exploit at all, and not get banned then.

Who are you even defending? Do you think 400%+ exp bonus is a 'may or may not be intended' even when the method with which you apply it clearly reeks of exploit? Don't be upset cuz you blindly followed some stupid ass streamers like Preach, who also just tries to shift the blame, and learn to not exploit the game.

[Sae]

they think may or may not be working as intended.

Anyone who thinks that a bug that allowed potions to stack to upwards of 700% bonus exp "may be working as intended" is either lying or stupid.

"But they could have communicated better!" Maybe, but don't kid yourself into thinking that anyone seriously thought this bug/exploit was okay to use.

[Master Guns]

Sorry, but I can't find common ground here. You're insinuating that people actually thought they could stack potions and get absurd bonus to XP, getting levels in mere minutes, and that this was normal and okay?

On that same note, I have a island to sell you in the pacific.

Seriously, no one thought it was right. Everyone was aware it was a bug, and would get fixed. THEREFORE, how about you just don't do it? Problem solved.

[Ealyssa]

Or you can stop being a fucking lyin retard and not exploit the game ?

Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Exkrementor]

The potion has no bufftimer at all for like 3 months now. Not the players fault if you accidentally stack them.
Of course this was a known bug too and they did it on purpose but blizzard is partly to blame here.

[Intropid]

Anyone who thinks that a bug that allowed potions to stack to upwards of 700% bonus exp "may be working as intended" is either lying or stupid.

"But they could have communicated better!" Maybe, but don't kid yourself into thinking that anyone seriously thought this bug/exploit was okay to use.

I didn't participate in the bug and I just thought I'd mention that before I continue. I don't think really anyone is actually arguing what you're saying. The team was watching as hundreds and hundreds of people were messaging them about a massive bug, and then watched as the bug spread like wildfire. Shortly after big streamers started broadcasting the bug and essentially advertising it and Blizzard STILL chose to not say anything about it. I'm not defending the actions of the people, I'm saying that Blizzard could've stopped this by actually communicating.

[Garymorilix]

The potion has no bufftimer at all for like 3 months now. Not the players fault if you accidentally stack them.
Of course this was a known bug too and they did it on purpose but blizzard is partly to blame here.

Accidentally stack 40-50 of them after spending huge amounts of honor tokens? After you individually separated each and every one of them in your bags cuz that's how the exploit worked? Yea sure, accidents happen.

- - - Updated - - -

I didn't participate in the bug and I just thought I'd mention that before I continue. I don't think really anyone is actually arguing what you're saying. The team was watching as hundreds and hundreds of people were messaging them about a massive bug, and then watched as the bug spread like wildfire. Shortly after big streamers started broadcasting the bug and essentially advertising it and Blizzard STILL chose to not say anything about it. I'm not defending the actions of the people, I'm saying that Blizzard could've stopped this by actually communicating.

Blizzard did communicate: they banned everyone who exploited the game. This is the clearest message there is.

I really hope they roll back all of those characters too.

[callipygoustp]

The bans could have been avoided if people weren't idiots.

[dekal]

Or you can stop being a fucking lyin retard and not exploit the game ?

Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have to agree with this statement. Pretty much everyone knew or at least suspected that it wasn't working right. Hell, they even reported it to Blizzard, so there was a lot of tweets about it already. Yet, some people used the bug anyways and blamed Blizzard when they responded. If you even suspect that something isn't working as intented, why would you abuse it?

[Uko]

Most people who abused it figured blizzard didn't care because they weren't responding. Leveling a bunch of toons doesn't really affect anything but that player. That combined with that whole cauldron thing with the new tools that wrecked economies by letting people spam those cauldrons in the open world for loads of flasks pots and cauldrons having radio silence and no bans probably led people to believe blizzard didn't care.

[Jazzhands]

It's easy to point fingers at players for abusing a system that they think may or may not be working as intended. It's absolutely insane that Blizzard didn't respond and hasn't responded. Days before the bans came in, people were bombarding Blizzard with tweets telling them of the bug, and if they were allowed to do it or not. They were met with complete silence as they watched streamers for hours, and hours use this exact same bug and Blizzard still chose to be silent on the matter. It seems as though the team is preferring inaction rather than action. I believe most of the bans could've been avoided if the team was more communicative.

It was obviously an exploit, stop trying to make excuses, people broke the rules and got what they deserved.

[Nightstalker]

Don't you guys get tired of fingerpointing at some point?

[Sae]

I didn't participate in the bug and I just thought I'd mention that before I continue. I don't think really anyone is actually arguing what you're saying. The team was watching as hundreds and hundreds of people were messaging them about a massive bug, and then watched as the bug spread like wildfire. Shortly after big streamers started broadcasting the bug and essentially advertising it and Blizzard STILL chose to not say anything about it. I'm not defending the actions of the people, I'm saying that Blizzard could've stopped this by actually communicating.

The first sentence of the OP suggests that there are people who thought that this exploit might be okay (or at least working as intended), but if that's not what you meant, then I apologize.

The problem with Blizzard coming out and saying "Hey, this is an exploit, we're working on a fix but in the meantime don't use it or we'll ban you." is that it sets an awkward precedent - in the future, any bug or exploit that people find will be considered free game until Blizzard makes that same announcement. I'm not saying they shouldn't have said anything, but there's more to consider here than just "Blizz should have said something." Most players aren't stupid enough to seriously think that this wasn't an exploit, and frankly they shouldn't have needed Blizzard to tell them it was.

For context's sake, I also didn't use the exploit.

[Nights]

Tbh ammount of time you need to spend doing usless stuff in game to be able to buy 40 pots is prolly bigger then regular 110-120 leveling, i think u need like 200 of those marks to be able to buy 40 pots, there is no way to get lots of those marks in like 6-7 hours and thats how long it takes to level up normaly. Big problem over nothing special, those ppl ware online one way or another. Its kinda funny that ppl who does something coused by blizz themselves are getting bans, but multiboxers literally destroying servers economys are allright.

[niztheundead87]

exploits a bug
gets banned for it
pikachu face

[Depakote]

The bans could have been avoided if people weren't idiots.

Ya but that's just expecting too much out of people. The age of personal responsibility is dead sadly.

[Intropid]

Blizzard did communicate: they banned everyone who exploited the game. This is the clearest message there is.

I really hope they roll back all of those characters too.

I agree that the characters should be rolled back. I disagree that the ban was an effective means of communication. Whenever they started getting bombarded with tweets about the bug is whenever they should've said something. People are treating exploiters like they are just scum of the earth. If the team clearly made out a blue post or a tweet and said something like "We have reports of a bug involved stacking XP potions. This is an exploitative offense. We are looking into it", that would've deterred streamers and only the truly stupid would've continued using it.

[Tech614]

Blizzard has always taken action against people that deliberately use bugs to exploit the game to their advantage over and over. Expecting them not to is just a Darwin Check. One that a lot of people failed I guess.