Ahoy adventurers, popping in to let you know that we have just released a fix across all of our platforms.
It came to our attention that there was an Exploit in Explore that allowed players to get an unlimited number of Mythstones. Now you can only get as many as intended, and the Exploit no longer works.
We are looking into this issue further, and I will update you when we have more information to share.
Hopefully the people that took advantage will be made stand in the corner or at least have those I’ll gotten gains taken away. 
I guess I’m glad. Didn’t know anything about it. So I am not affected I hope.
I feel for Salty having to tell us.
But gosh these announcements feel like getting a hand slap cause someone is acting out.
Sheesh.
People work day and night to find stuff like this. They spend more time trying to get an advantage than they do actually playing lol. I guess someone probably has all their Troops upgraded to elite is how they found out. 
That’s 2 years of badge farming approx.
Players who abused the exploit will be perma banned (for 2 weeks)
OK, but hear me out… what if I intend to get infinity? I do believe I won’t get the correct amount. 
Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, as I am not exactly sure what this exploit is or was doing. You earn a certain number of mythstones after you do the 5 matches. When you get 100+, you can choose to fight the mythic battle or leave and go to another kingdom. But once you finish 5 matches there it will once again prompt for a mythic battle. Eventually you’d run out of kingdoms as they would all be pending a mythic fight…but you would have many many mythstones…and this is this an exploit?
What’s the purpose of this post (at current point of time), exactly?
We fixed some exploit but we’re not really telling what it was, how serious and widely abused it was, for how long it was in place, whether there will or will not be any repercussions and the like. Maybe you’d gossip and tin-foil-craft until your tongues run dry, would you, sugs? (Until we decide if to throw another bone.)
First time ever I hear there was something fishy with the explore.
Either you lay out the case or keep silent if - for reasons - it’s impossible to do so. Otherwise I, honestly, fail to see the value of the announcement above.
That is the issue with vague posts. All we can do is speculate. I’m guessing maybe this has more to do with someone finding a way to endlessly farm gnomes in explore like we used to do, rather than gaining infinite mythstones. This was just posted after a gnome event after all. And they clearly intended to nerf gnome weekends with the new explore system and the cumbersome set of menus, that slow down your goal of quick farming.
Edit - I find myself playing gnome events much less than I used to after the explore update. I used to look forward to them as I could get a lot of class XP and maybe get a few vault keys with a nice time investment. While the new explore system serves a purpose for farming medals, (which I enjoy when I want to farm medals) it is not smooth game play like the old explore we used to know. I now find myself annoyed after farming gnomes in explore for a bit, and give up. I wish that wasn’t the case.
@Saltypatra. Please can you recommend bonus mythstone migration among ALL kingdoms? Pans Vale is a constant 20% but nobody needs those stones due to them being part of the warrens payout (I’ve got over 300 that I don’t need). Variety is far better than monotony.
Basically the OP read like this:
“But don’t worry, we fixed the issue that you didn’t know was an issue.”
Ah this is the fabled unknown unknowns that I’ve heard so much about and was prophesied not too long ago.
What I am trying to figure out is was there a genuine exploit allowing one to get more than the the intended values for completing explore. Or was this a bug in the coding that allowed a player to get more mythstones than the system was supposed to allow?
A exploit and a bug are two completely different things.
I don’t understand the difference. Can you be more descriptive?
Yeah… like they took away the guardians people got from gold chests? Oh wait…
Will let Salty reply to the other posts when we have more information but regarding the difference between a bug and an exploit:
Bug:
“A bug is an error, flaw or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways.”
Exploit:
So, it happens when we accidentally release a flaw in the game which then someone sits and clicks a button 100 times to get free stuff used to get an unfair advantage over everyone who actually plays the system the way it was intended. So it’s on us that the game is flawed, but we don’t encourage, nor can we stop someone sitting there clicking the same button hundreds or thousands of times before we fix the issue - that’s not normal behaviour, and the people who do that know exactly what they’re doing, they’re purposely exploiting something at that point.
We die a little on the inside every time we come across any bug believe me, we keep track of why and how bugs came to be released and implement improvements to our work flows. While it’s normal for any kind of game or software to have bugs, especially in live service (Gems of War is live service), we never find it acceptable. We don’t disagree with your frustration and disappointment when bugs are discovered - that’s on us.
The difference between a bug and an exploit is whether the bug is used on purpose to gain an unfair advantage. Not like once or twice when you’re asking yourself “wait, did that just happen???” but when you’re sitting there going “har har har har look at me now suckers click click click click click click click + infinity clicks”
We’re not trying to be mean or nasty, we’re just trying to make the game fair and keep the game healthy so that it is around for a long time to come.
And here I thought you all wanted us to let you know when we changed things and communicate more!
I didn’t see any point getting into the weeds, as the exploit/bug has now been fixed. The unfortunate reality is this, if we give out detailed instructions on how to do exploits, it can often encourage players to trace down more, or give them ideas on how they may find new exploits in Gems of War and other games in the future. The exploit took advantage of a bug that let players access unlimited mythstones in a way that is not organic to any playstyle.
Those that didn’t notice we fixed it, good! Just means you weren’t using it. When we got wind of this we fixed it ASAP, and as I have mentioned on stream before, I’m doing my best to let you know when we make fixes and released changes, even if they are small, in the interest of transparency.
I didn’t use it, I swear
And will there be any repremanding for those that knowingly exploited it?
If not there should be, can only let them get away with these exploits so many times before it’s time for some type of punishment.