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

[Jazzhands]

Of course it does. Take the respawn rates on the alchemy flasks from the tools of the trade item being really fast. There's still been no word on that, yet it was clearly busted. Was that an exploit? Will bans go out for that? We don't know.

Players have no way of influencing respawn rates typically. I don't know the exact thing you're talking about, but unless it involves players doing some weird thing they don't normally do to get things to respawn faster, this is just a "people got lucky" thing. People didn't simply get lucky with the potion exploit.

[klogaroth]

They released their statement the moment fix went through. Or what, you want them to officially advertise exploit before the fix is in? Really now? Common sense 101?

The statement should come as soon as it's identified. Especially when people are asking about it. If they find it before it's widely known, and can just fix it without it ever being used, yeah, you don't have to announce it. After it's public knowledge, making some sort of comment makes sense.

- - - Updated - - -

Players have no way of influencing respawn rates typically. I don't know the exact thing you're talking about, but unless it involves players doing some weird thing they don't normally do to get things to respawn faster, this is just a "people got lucky" thing. People didn't simply get lucky with the potion exploit.

Players can't always influence the respawn rate, but they can stand in front of an item all day that respawns every 10s that can drop any BFA pot, flask, or mythical cauldrons.

[Jazzhands]

The statement should come as soon as it's identified. Especially when people are asking about it. If they find it before it's widely known, and can just fix it without it ever being used, yeah, you don't have to announce it. After it's public knowledge, making some sort of comment makes sense.

- - - Updated - - -



Players can't always influence the respawn rate, but they can stand in front of an item all day that respawns every 10s that can drop any BFA pot, flask, or mythical cauldrons.

You'll have to give more details, that's incredibly vague. But, the difference is simply the method employed. Do you just normally loot and wait? Or is some strange method involved? If A, then you basically got lucky. If B, you're exploiting. That's the thing with the potion exploit. You had to very specifically do something that normally doesn't work in the game, and people playing ignorant that that's an exploit and complaining that Blizzard didn't tell them are just making excuses because they fucked up and are getting punished for it. The fact that big streamers even did it, on streams, is even more laughable, they know how this game works better than 99% of people because they practically live in it. They ALL knew it was an exploit, and probably expected their "status" to defend them. I think streamers should be held to significantly higher standards than normal players due to their "influence" on the community, people like Preach should be permabanned for exploiting and encouraging it on stream.

[Druitz]

"I didn't know that stacking 1500% experience buff is exploit"

pathetic

[klogaroth]

You'll have to give more details, that's incredibly vague. But, the difference is simply the method employed. Do you just normally loot right and wait? Or is some strange method involved? Is A, then you basically got lucky. If B, you're exploiting. That's the thing with the potion exploit. You had to very specifically do something that normally doesn't work in the game, and people playing ignorant that that's an exploit and complaining that Blizzard didn't tell them are just making excuses because they fucked up and are getting punished for it. The fact that big streamers even did it, on streams, is even more laughable, I think streamers should be held to significantly higher standards than normal players due to their "influence" on the community, people like Preach should be permabanned for exploiting and encouraging it on stream.

The Alchemy thing was pretty much exactly what I said. Sometimes the respawn rates on clickable items in the world were around every 10s. These items could drop any potion, flasks, or cauldron from FBA alchemy. If you found one it was entirely possible to obtain hundreds of potions, flasks, and cauldrons. It wasn't passive though. It wasn't like you clicked it once and received a bag full of stuff. You had to click the item each time. Actively clicking something that you knew the respawn rate was busted.

It's been fixed now, but we still don't know if it was considered ban worthy to camp one of these spots.

There are loads of examples, especially around class mechanics, where something is broken, used by people, and nothing happens.

That there's any debate at all around the alchemy thing is exactly what I'm talking about. It's not always so obvious as in the case of people that stacked up 2 rows of XP buffs on multiple characters.

[Gaidax]

The Alchemy thing was pretty much exactly what I said. Sometimes the respawn rates on clickable items in the world were around every 10s. These items could drop any potion, flasks, or cauldron from FBA alchemy. If you found one it was entirely possible to obtain hundreds of potions, flasks, and cauldrons. It wasn't passive though. It wasn't like you clicked it once and received a bag full of stuff. You had to click the item each time. Actively clicking something that you knew the respawn rate was busted.

It's been fixed now, but we still don't know if it was considered ban worthy to camp one of these spots.

There are loads of examples, especially around class mechanics, where something is broken, used by people, and nothing happens.

That there's any debate at all around the alchemy thing is exactly what I'm talking about. It's not always so obvious as in the case of people that stacked up 2 rows of XP buffs on multiple characters.

See there are obvious exploits and there is a grey area of "creative use of the game mechanics" and shit like that.

XP pots stacking the way they did was pretty damn obvious exploit. It was a total "come on, man..." thing. Like shit, you maaaaybe could push this crap with that Ivus not having lockout for loot, but this?

[m4xc4v413r4]

lol, are people really trying to justify abusing a CLEAR bug with "we didn't know it wasn't intended"?
Of course it wasn't intended, why would they put an item in game that gives you +10% xp and stacks up to whatever?!?!

Anyone that used the bug and stacked over like 3 stacks should definitely get a ban for it, getting 2 stacks and maybe even 3 can be an accident, no way someone with dozens of them didn't know exactly what they were doing.

[Jazzhands]

The Alchemy thing was pretty much exactly what I said. Sometimes the respawn rates on clickable items in the world were around every 10s. These items could drop any potion, flasks, or cauldron from FBA alchemy. If you found one it was entirely possible to obtain hundreds of potions, flasks, and cauldrons. It wasn't passive though. It wasn't like you clicked it once and received a bag full of stuff. You had to click the item each time. Actively clicking something that you knew the respawn rate was busted.

It's been fixed now, but we still don't know if it was considered ban worthy to camp one of these spots.

There are loads of examples, especially around class mechanics, where something is broken, used by people, and nothing happens.

Right, that's a slight shade of grey, buuuut the big thing is that player's don't need to do any roundabout method to accomplish this. That's what makes things an exploit typically. A messed up spawn timer likely isn't a bug, but a messed up value somewhere, and regardless of what players do, it will function this way. When players can utilize a weird method for unintended consequences, it's an exploit. This was a weird method to make potions stack, thus, exploit.

[styil]

Only Blizzard would ban people finding new ways to instantly boost their levels, ban them, then continue to sell instant levels in their store.

[RobertMugabe]

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.

Well you could level even faster pre-7.3.5 and that wasn't considered an exploit.

[Jazzhands]

Only Blizzard would ban people finding new ways to instantly boost their levels, ban them, then continue to sell instant levels in their store.

Most MMOs never issue harsh bans because they don't want to lose their already tiny and dwindling playerbases. WoW has no such issues, regardless of it being "low", it's still likely in the multiple millions, most MMOs were lucky to reach even one million in their prime.

- - - Updated - - -

Well you could level even faster pre-7.3.5 and that wasn't considered an exploit.

Did you need to employ a weird method that normally doesn't work, or did you just stack a bunch of different exp bonuses? Reallllly big difference.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I'd much rather they stay silent and lure out all the players who are actively looking for ways to cheat in the game for punishment. The entire thing could have just been a sting operation.

If thats what makes you feel better I suppose. The community at its best. The people that did it certainly deserve their punishment and most of them agree as well. An important fact to not let escape the conversation because I can tell you must be getting some pleasure from their suspensions. I just rather steps be taken to prevent things as much as possible and, no, I don't think they placed a bug in the game on purpose to catch people. Just a pretty silly and likely trolly comment that swung and missed.

[RobertMugabe]

Did you need to employ a weird method that normally doesn't work, or did you just stack a bunch of different exp bonuses? Reallllly big difference.

Well for both methods you were just stacking exp bonuses or am I missing something about that recent exploit?

[Jazzhands]

Well for both methods you were just stacking exp bonuses or am I missing something about that recent exploit?

For the potions to stack, you had to separate them from a regular stack and click each separately. This is a really specific thing to do, especially considering you've never had to do it to get potion buffs to stack in the past. If they're intended to stack, you should have been able to click a stack of 20 like you can with every other stackable potion.

It's such an obvious exploit that I simply can't help but laugh at people, especially those complaining. Plenty of people know they fucked up and are just taking their ban in silence, but all these people trying to justify themselves or put blame on Blizzard is just down right funny to me. Bugs happen especially in a game this old, if you aren't sure it's an exploit then simply don't do it, it's not Blizzard's job to make sure you follow the ToS, but it is their job to follow up when you break it.

[f4ncybear]

Well for both methods you were just stacking exp bonuses or am I missing something about that recent exploit?

Before 7.3.5 you were stacking different things from different sources (RAF+Elixir of Rapid Mind+Heirlooms), this one is the same thing over and over.

[Stockers]

Blatant bug/exploit, no need to blame Blizz for something which is so obvious. You're either naive, stupid or just trolling. There's plenty of bugs in the game, some go unnoticed and are fixed without word, look at the Titan Residium bug is going... our M+ team has been abusing this no end... but I dunno if it's fixed yet.

[Jazzhands]

Another thing to consider is that announcing things before it's fixed would cause more people to exploit. People know it takes a lot to get perma-banned, and tons of people have already said the short ban was worth it if they don't roll back. Blizzard knows people will do it regardless of the consequences sometimes, so by not spreading the word they minimize the work needed to ban people.

On top of that, when bugs are really well known, especially when streamers are broadcasting it, it's a good time to basically make an example of people. The more people who know, the more people who hear about the bans, the less people might exploit in the future.

I'm actually sad Preach and other streamers didn't get permabanned for it though, Streamers should be held to significantly higher standards due to their uhhh, influence on the community I guess. Every streamer who did this knew it was an exploit, they know how the game works, they should have actively encouraged people not to do it, not the exact opposite.

[Zequill]

If Blizzard would have respond to those silly ban question, it would have given it just more exposure and made more people use it before they could fix it. My only concern is how hard is it to code a potion if they failed so hard doing this one (still no duration buff, could be stacked if unstack... is the XP part so unique or did an intern did it?)

[f4ncybear]

If Blizzard would have respond to those silly ban question, it would have given it just more exposure and made more people use it before they could fix it. My only concern is how hard is it to code a potion if they failed so hard doing this one (still no duration buff, could be stacked if unstack... is the XP part so unique or did an intern did it?)

Must be some archaic chunk of consumable code interns keep pasting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wncXD8QOriE Also these exp potions wouldn't stack in your bags if you had a bunch from horde vendor and some from alliance vendor on one character.

[justandulas]

It was clearly a bug, but Blizz 100% should've been on top of it. They were made aware of it several times with people tweeting at their dev team for days asking "Is this intended or legal?" and being ignored.

Sure, some players obviously knew it was wrong but others just see a character in a dungeon gain 4-5 levels and asks "How'd you do that?"

I think the right thing to do would've been to disable the potions right away, but i don't think they've even been disabled by now?

- - - Updated - - -

If Blizzard would have respond to those silly ban question, it would have given it just more exposure and made more people use it before they could fix it. My only concern is how hard is it to code a potion if they failed so hard doing this one (still no duration buff, could be stacked if unstack... is the XP part so unique or did an intern did it?)

A simple "We disabled xp potion until we can solve the problem" would've been 100% better than just ignoring it as some innocent players get caught in the ban wave.

You can't just put your head in the sand as a game dev and pretend no one will notice. that's not how this works

- - - Updated - - -

Another thing to consider is that announcing things before it's fixed would cause more people to exploit. People know it takes a lot to get perma-banned, and tons of people have already said the short ban was worth it if they don't roll back. Blizzard knows people will do it regardless of the consequences sometimes, so by not spreading the word they minimize the work needed to ban people.

On top of that, when bugs are really well known, especially when streamers are broadcasting it, it's a good time to basically make an example of people. The more people who know, the more people who hear about the bans, the less people might exploit in the future.

I'm actually sad Preach and other streamers didn't get permabanned for it though, Streamers should be held to significantly higher standards due to their uhhh, influence on the community I guess. Every streamer who did this knew it was an exploit, they know how the game works, they should have actively encouraged people not to do it, not the exact opposite.

Disagree. Preach and the others, MULTIPLE times, reached out to blizz to say "hey this is broken, is this intended?" etc. It's blizzard's responsibility to fix broken items, or disable them.

I've seen them hotfix items out of the game for FAR LESS than this.

That said, it was clearly a blatant abuse but it's LEVELING who cares in 2019?! leveling has never meant less in WoW so who gives a hoot?!

PS - preach actually asked blizz to make an example of him and got 31 days banned. He owned up to it, so why the hate on the youtubers?