Defining an exploit vs. "clever use"; the Ensidia and Paragon debate

[Deathcold]

thing is people keep saying that ensidia realised they were exploiting the fight when the edge of platform was bugging. It was one rogue using saronite bombs in his rotation, which he had been doing for all the other bosses. Ensidia had no idea that this was causing the bug until they were banned after they got the achievment etc. if im not mistaken.

---------- Post added 2011-02-02 at 01:57 AM ----------

although this is read from kungens blog it could be a load of crap, but he says that the raid had no idea what was causing the bug, as somtimes it was happening, then other tries it wasnt.

The ss found of they bugging the floor before Anubrak in ToGC and the saronite bomb rotation going on exactly when needed to bug the encounter... yep, they did not know it.

[Gavenrod]

I am starting to get more than a little ticked off at the constant flame war between loyal fanboys of every progress guild there is - erupting in 'world n:th'-threads! What the heck, people, can't you leave the fighting out of the war room so to speak?

Andergard, you're just as bad as any other fan-boy. Be it from nationalist or cultural pride, you're no more objective about the situation than the next talking mouth with an opinion on the matter.

Fact is, Stars, Ensidia, Paragon.. they are all end game progression guilds. In the past they have done almost everything a player or a raid can possibly do to compete for world first kills.

Stars stacked warlocks, exploiting the strength of their potential to AE from a distance. Ensidia ignored obvious mechanics (exploiting) to get a first regular kill. Paragon stacked druids, exploiting the strength of their potential to elevate major damage on a boss.

When more than 1/5th of your raid composition consists of one spec, either you're extremely desperate to fill in a raid spot, or you're looking to "cleverly use in-game mechanics." You can be PC about the whole notion, or you can take the layman's approach and call it what it is. Exploiting/abusing in-game mechanics.

I don't doubt for five seconds that Paragon was capable of doing this without so many druids. Hermanni openly admits that Paragon took an easier route, to facilitate the speed of their progress.

I wasn't there to judge if Ensidia was aware of the platform bug, so I won't comment on it.

Stars and Paragon openly stacked their raids to achieve a kill, are they apologetic about it? No. Should they be? That's entirely up for debate. Could either of them have done the fight any other way? Absolutely. (I'm not saying that this is a valid premise for judging how content is killed.)

Only Ensidia has suffered a major punishment that quite possibly exceeded the crime. No reprimand was given to Stars or Paragon for their behavior. Is it a trend? Was it favoritism? Was it a bad judgment call in regards to Ensidia's removal of their achievement, title, loot, and the suspension that followed? Again this is all subjective.

I will reiterate, when more than 1/5th of your raid composition is purposefully classed and specc'd to kill an encounter, there's a strong possibility you're abusing in-game mechanics to get a kill.

You can try to counter this statement with ten thousand other possible metaphors, situations, or whatever other socialistic scenarios, or you can think for yourself (be objective) and come to the same conclusion.

[Deleted]

Is a world's first on ANYthing in wow this important? In a year, everyone will be pugging Nefarian just for the achievment and no one will care about who spanked him first.

"Hey baby....I saw you looking at me from across the room and I just wanted to let you know.....I killed Nefarian before anyone else. That's right."

Yes. I mean isent it important to win the soccer final in WM aswell ?
We all have different priorities. If yours is not being world first, dont diss the people whos priority is to be world first. We all strive to be good at what we like to do, either being life or games, sports or even whistling.
If people dont try to be the best they can be, whats left for the world really..

---------- Post added 2011-02-16 at 12:05 PM ----------

There is not such thing as exploit. It is actually called: bad/flawed design.

Im wondering how the Dark S from DK's were not spotted having such an influence on the boss and the dps. It makes me to believe that things arent tested properly before being released to PTR and live servers.
I know PTR is a testing environment aswell, but dont tell me noone used Dark S on PTR.

I know shit about coding so i really dont know how difficult it is to design such encounters, but we can also build jetplanes in this world, so im reckoning making an encounter wont be that hard as to not spot bugs.. what happens if u dont test a jet ? It falls down, aka.. test shit better, thus riding us of these whines, fanboys or whats not.. i really dont care if they were banned, not banned.. or w/e.

Blizzard simply has problems testing shit proper. Those are the problems really, not if Ensidia got banned and Paragon did not.

[Stevoman]

thing is people keep saying that ensidia realised they were exploiting the fight when the edge of platform was bugging. It was one rogue using saronite bombs in his rotation, which he had been doing for all the other bosses. Ensidia had no idea that this was causing the bug until they were banned after they got the achievment etc. if im not mistaken.

---------- Post added 2011-02-02 at 01:57 AM ----------

although this is read from kungens blog it could be a load of crap, but he says that the raid had no idea what was causing the bug, as somtimes it was happening, then other tries it wasnt.

Kungen had just completed the fight properly on 10m not even an hour before their 25m kill. And their log from 25m very clearly showed they knew exactly what they were doing (damage done to Valks was very low, siege damage done to platform was very high at exactly the right times).

You're trusting the fox claiming he was guarding the henhouse, when all the hens are dead and he's picking feathers from his teeth...

[DeanyKong]

I do not see how these two are the same in any way shape or form.

The Saronite Bombs were not part of the encounter.
The Next Damage buff was and still is part of the encounter, just slightly toned down.

You're not exploiting a bug because it wasn't a bug, it was just bad design.