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

[refire]

I don't think anybody except the couple of guilds who are onto H Nef (and blizz i guess) know how it is MEANT to work. You may be right and it was only meant to affect direct damage, or maybe it is meant to affect dots.

Regardless, the point of the OP is that it isn't exploiting either way.

That is the point of the OP and I disagree with that point. Which is fine there isn't anything wrong with differing opinions. Blizzard expects raiders pushing new content to imply and assume everything about the encounter correctly. The expect people pushing heroics to do the same and when they can't Blizzard releases Blue posts stating, go search it on the internet. Blizzard does nothing to help their subscribers understand the correct and incorrect way to do an encounter. Why is it bannable then for someone to assume the incorrect way and kill a boss?

A great example in current content is atramedes. Cuties Only is the only guild that has posted their Atramedes kill. Currently no guilds are posting parses for it. The only way to beat the encounter is to exploit it. Blizzard however has made no comment about the fight because they know if they actually followed their rules, they'd have to ban approximately 120 guilds.

[Deleted]

On Sinestra, they refrained from using an ability that caused a huge amount of damage. On Nefarian, they brought even more druids to increase the damage gain they had. In my opinion, they were the same thing.

[Itakas]

On Sinestra, they refrained from using an ability that caused a huge amount of damage. On Nefarian, they brought even more druids to increase the damage gain they had. In my opinion, they were the same thing.

On Sinestra one or more GMs were watching what they were doing, so they couldnt abuse a mechanic to kill the boss, while on Nef noone was prolly watching so it was possible to abuse a mechanic.

[Psilar]

I don't think it's very well written. Ensidia used a mechanic, which they found, to defeat a boss. Paragon used a mechanic which they found, to defeat a boss. If they hadn't stacked feral druids, knowing full well it was a broken mechanic, and thus exploiting that to ensure max dps I wouldn't consider it exploiting. However, they found this mechanic, knew it was broken for feral druids, and thus stacked feral druids. I think it only shows even more that it was an exploit when they haven't replicated a kill the next raid lockout.

If Paragon had realized rip was bugged, used their normal raid comp, and benefitted from the ferals then good for them. However they went out of their way, to stack feral druids, because they knew it was a bugged mechanic with rip. Blizzard hot fixing the mechanic only shows even more that it was a bug, Paragon stacking shows they knew it existed, and were trying to exploit it.

---------- Post added 2011-01-30 at 10:20 AM ----------



Blizzard doesn't state the mechanics of a fight anywhere. Using your logic, how was Ensidia to know that the purpose of the valks was to kill them and not just to take someone out of the fight (such as a disc priest) for 12 seconds?

You're an idiot. WoW is not balanced, and never will be. People do what they did there all the time...It's called building class composition. This is taken to the extreme. Do I need to start posting vids of 40 man druid or priest raids of classic Onyxia? People don't bring Ret paladins because they currently underperform. By that same logic, you take people who do perform.

Rip isn't bugged. Feral might be getting nerfed next patch but Rip isn't bugged..it's 100% working as intended.

What do you say after a near miss on a boss fight? How are the DPS meters looking? Who's doing good and who needs to improve?

As for Ensidia...All it takes is for 1 intelligent person to get picked up by a Valk and to say something. Anyone with half a brain (read anyone in their guild), knew what the Valks were supposed to do the first attempt.

Blizzard uses the good ol' common sense approach. "Evading" doesn't exist in real life, and there fore should not exist in game (a necessary evil). You Evade bug adds on Yogg-0 you get banned(we were taught since lvl 1 what evading was). You build fake platforms out of mid air with bombs(makes sense right?) and circumnavigate boss mechanics...you get banned. You play within the rules = profit.

[Ares42]

Blizzard however has made no comment about the fight because they know if they actually followed their rules, they'd have to ban approximately 120 guilds.

Not really.. There was no bugs in the fight to exploit. Everything in the fight worked exactly as intended, Blizzard just hadn't thought of the fact that you could circumvent them by tanking him in an unconventional spot. There was absolutely nothing broken about the fight, it was just poorly designed.

[Hanoumatoi]

That is the point of the OP and I disagree with that point. Which is fine there isn't anything wrong with differing opinions. Blizzard expects raiders pushing new content to imply and assume everything about the encounter correctly. The expect people pushing heroics to do the same and when they can't Blizzard releases Blue posts stating, go search it on the internet. Blizzard does nothing to help their subscribers understand the correct and incorrect way to do an encounter. Why is it bannable then for someone to assume the incorrect way and kill a boss?

A great example in current content is atramedes. Cuties Only is the only guild that has posted their Atramedes kill. Currently no guilds are posting parses for it. The only way to beat the encounter is to exploit it. Blizzard however has made no comment about the fight because they know if they actually followed their rules, they'd have to ban approximately 120 guilds.

Wasn't this bug hotfixed 3 weeks ago? Has no one killed it since then?

[Dlucks]

I think if the guilds are using the mechanics and/or the layout of a boss and its room it should be fine. I also, think that if some type of bug is found and they used it to beat the encounter that should also be reported and probably start planning on different way to defeat it. I have a really big issue on say the HLK kill and banning as an example. Blizzard screwed up and a guild got a kill out of it. Now i'm not sure if Ensidia did any type of report or used this multiple times. I could understand Blizzard warning them if that were the case. Its a real lack of accountability on Blizzards part.

[refire]

Not really.. There was no bugs in the fight to exploit. Everything in the fight worked exactly as intended, Blizzard just hadn't thought of the fact that you could circumvent them by tanking him in an unconventional spot. There was absolutely nothing broken about the fight, it was just poorly designed.

No bugs in the fight to exploit? The first 50 guilds used a bug with constantly respawning gongs and they needed no healers. The second exploit involves ignoring all fight mechanics dealing with sound other than the breath.

---------- Post added 2011-01-30 at 11:32 AM ----------

Wasn't this bug hotfixed 3 weeks ago? Has no one killed it since then?

The gong bug was hotfixed, the door strat still hasn't been hotfixed because the sound waves cannot come out of his room.

[Ares42]

No bugs in the fight to exploit? The first 50 guilds used a bug with constantly respawning gongs and they needed no healers.

Ok, my bad, the gongs were bugged.. the ability evasion however wasn't.

[refire]

I think if the guilds are using the mechanics and/or the layout of a boss and its room it should be fine. I also, think that if some type of bug is found and they used it to beat the encounter that should also be reported and probably start planning on different way to defeat it. I have a really big issue on say the HLK kill and banning as an example. Blizzard screwed up and a guild got a kill out of it. Now i'm not sure if Ensidia did any type of report or used this multiple times. I could understand Blizzard warning them if that were the case. Its a real lack of accountability on Blizzards part.

Blizzard was watching them play, not saying anything. They killed it and Blizzard insta banned them.

[Sneek]

"abuse of in-game mechanics or glitches with intent to exploit or cheat in World of Warcraft."

this was blizz statement when they banned Ensidia. Since the method Paragon used for the wf got fixed its means it was an abuse of in-game mechanics, not a bug, not a glitch, it was an in-game mechanic used (abused) to get the kill.

[Deleted]

Don't think paragon exploited,was just smart use of game mechanics

[Kepi]

i don't think anyone even remembers the exploit Ensidia did for hodir? They on purpose brought over trash from freya's room to get an advantage for dpsing hodir under the overly short 2 minute kill ... then went and reported it as an exploit and got it fixed well before any other guild was able to use it all because ONE guild killed hodir hm before them yet none of them got banned for it. Everyone and their mother defended it saying it wasn't an exploit it and was clearly a misjudgment on blizzards behalf for not thinking out of the box and thinking people would use these flows for their mages to spellsteal a buff.

[Dlucks]

There is a difference:

Exploit:
Ensidia did something special which resulted into something unexpected. Something was wrong, and that is what we call a bug.
Or do you think that throwing bombs on that ledge is expected behaviour? I don't.

Clever use of game-mechanics.
Paragon abused an ability, they didn't do anything extraordinary.. Everything was working fine! It didn't work as intended, but it did work nevertheless.
Do you think that stacking a class is expected behaviour? I do think it is.

Let's make it simple: Is the ability doing EXACTELY what it should be doing? If so, it's clever use.

Those two statements are just saying the same thing a different way.

[Rehea]

using that druid setup its not an exploit, but it certainly made the fight significantly easier by taking the mechanics of a given fight + a class who can take as much benefit from it and then class stack

it would be something similar if the first kill on lich king normal was made with half the players in the raid being warlocks and avoiding valkyrs with teleport.

oh and btw. ensidia didnt get banned from using bombs to defeaut lich king heroic, it was normal mode and afaik it was the day the fight was avaliable for the 1º time, so they could have not known what was causing the bug to made platform to respawn ( innocent untill proven guilty?, and there is no way you could prove they were guilty when using saronite bombs was on the normal dps rotation for some classes as engineers)

[Nest]

Don't think paragon exploited,was just smart use of game mechanics

This. Otherwise they would be banned. Got to love all the discussion tho, people can be so jealous.

[Sneek]

Don't think paragon exploited,was just smart use of game mechanics

i think we all agree on that.

The other question is how this use was treated now and before. Im pretty sure that if they use the same smart use of game mechanics will be used to kill Deathwing the guild will get banned.

[Hanoumatoi]

The gong bug was hotfixed, the door strat still hasn't been hotfixed because the sound waves cannot come out of his room.

* Atramedes will now reset if the players targeted by Sonic Breath or Obnoxious Fiends attempt to leave the room.
This doesn't happen?

[refire]

"abuse of in-game mechanics or glitches with intent to exploit or cheat in World of Warcraft."

this was blizz statement when they banned Ensidia. Since the method Paragon used for the wf got fixed its means it was an abuse of in-game mechanics, not a bug, not a glitch, it was an in-game mechanic used (abused) to get the kill.

Which is what I said in my original reply. Blizzard acknowledging it was broken, and Paragon stacking that broken class is the definition of abusing in-game mechanics. It's the exact same thing as Ensidia on lich king, its the exact same thing on any Atramedes kill, its the exact same thing on the flower power hodir kill. Why exactly Blizzard hasn't made their bans more regulated or dropped them is beyond me.

[pateuvasiliu]

can i have a tl;dr version?

ot:i agree with everything you said