I like that the devs a drew a line in an attempt to rehabilitate and provide a warning to those who didnât abuse it as much and where resources werenât spent. Iâd like to think those misguided souls wonât be doing it again in the future knowing what befell those on the other side of the line. Iâm sure the same mercy wonât be shown them next time they show up on an exploit list.
Personally Iâd have gone with the negative gem balance like others suggested instead of banning. It would have affected each person to the extent they exploited it. While coming back from a 1k gem deficit wouldnât be that tough, coming back from 20k+ would mean a lot of missed event weapons & troops. I suspect a good number of those banned would have quit on their own rather than be at that terrible disadvantage for months. Hard to say for sure the benefit of the upfront loot from spending the gems would be offset by this though. Iâll bet the code prevents a negative gem balance however as a precaution against other possible issues.
As for the appeal process I imagine it was set up to create a safety net in case somehow they managed to ban someone erroneously. They had no intention of reversing 99% of the bans in the first place but they can probably review each account quickly for signs they may not have deserved the ban. If that cursory review didnât show signs of an incorrect banning, appeal denied, period.
Oh player X cheated someone out of a Power Gem or 1500 gems that would just go to a different player instead? Goes to get wooden spoon to slap them on the hand
Now donât do it again!
Now remember boys and girls⊠hacking the game and then getting banned from it. Could result in second, third or fourth new chances with that same account. (Or other accounts)
But if you Exploit an Exploit (perfect description of the atrocitie) and then make it so that Exploit canât be reversed⊠Youâll be banned from the game⊠permanently?
More fun facts:
During the February Guild Wars at least 1 guild in bracket 1 used exploits to score more points thus resulting in more gems for those players. (Practically stealing it from their competition.)
At least one guild that was cheated out of gems was compensated with 100 gems.
The top 8 finishers in Bracket 1 in February, remained in Bracket 1 for the March Guild Wars.
Not a SINGLE player has been banned that used the Exploit to do better in guild wars than they usually would.
I have been told that the Exploit has now been fixed.
The top 3 in Februaryâs Guild Wars and Marchâs are exactly the same. (Despite the âfixâ)
I bet you my left ⊠If it was Guild Wars mail that was exploited⊠theyâd all been banned. But since the economy wasnât changed due to the Exploit⊠No punishment was given out to anyone in Bracket 1.
I am a bit confused by the people upset that exploiters were banned. Itâs not like it was âOops, we sent some people 10,000 gems instead of 10 gems. So, we banned them.â it was âthese people went OUT OF THEIR WAY to exploit a bug to get a competitive advantage over other playersâ.
Sure, itâs inconvenient that your guild may have lost a player, but that player was a cheater. Letting them compete in the guild war with free max sentinel upgrades would be unfair to all the players who DIDNâT cheat.
Yes. But they didnât get banned for doing that. They got banned for spending their gems. While those who âcheatedâ got away with it so long as the devs could take the gems back.
If I rob a bank and the police catch me. I canât simply just give the money back and expect them to say itâs all good then.
There used to be an Arena Exploit⊠guilds/players did a record breaking amount of trophies during it.
Should those players be banned during guild wars?
No? Because their isnât a competitive advantage?
Top players arenât more likely to go to the top guilds rather than lower ranked ones?
What if a player had all the troops already, maxed their sentinels already⊠Whatâs the edge then?
I canât overstate how these bans didnât effect me at all. Out of 150 members, not a single member was banned.
I just donât understand the amount of shade thrown at those who got banned when we have no clue if one our guild mates did the Exploit but wasnât punished for it.
They didnât use software, they didnât hack a code. If you (or anyone else) wants to call them a cheater then so be it. If someone cheats on their spouse, it doesnât mean they cheat in games. I see the same difference in using an Exploit and just straight up cheating.
If there isnât a difference. Then anyone who has broken the speed limit before is therefore a criminal. Anyone who has lied once is a liar. Ran cause you were scared? Coward. Gotten a skin infection? Skally Wag. Accidentally (or purposefully) took the life of an animal? Killer.
My point is⊠labels are stupid⊠judging is stupid⊠And me trying to convince others of their convictions is stupid as well.
This whole thread is a huge call out⊠But I guess itâs okay since the Players were banned?
The policy has always been âwe donât discuss bansâ I guess unless itâs a mass amount?
This canât even be justified as a warning. Whomever deleted bug Reports about it, shouldâve also made a post warning players that exploits can lead to bans.
Iâm not changing my mind about how this thread should nât be locked. Iâm questioning why it even existed in the first place.
âNo but you donât understand, it wasnât because they cheated to get gems, they cheated to get gems AND THEN SPENT THEMâ
This makes them more sympathetic⊠How? All that means is that the people who were banned were people who not only used the exploit, but then ALSO actually benefited from the exploitation of the game by spending those cheat gems.
If anything, them not banning people who had not spent the cheat gems is them being lenient. Itâs worthy of praise, not scorn.
I should praise the people who Exploited the game but werenât punished for it? Or the devs, who donât punish all exploits. Just the ones that affect their economy directly.
Scorn the people who canât play anymore, praise the ones who âcheatedâ she still can play. Got it.
I feel like weâre arguing in circles. The claim above is that the devs deserve a bit of credit for not going crazy with the banhammer. They certainly would have been within their rights to boot everyone who abused the glitch. But they decided to roll back what they could, and only ban players who took the extra effort to make their exploitation hard/impossible to roll back. One imagines that this was an attempt to âscare straightâ the people who might have tried to use such exploits next time.
Further, leniency shown by the devs meant less disruption to guilds in the middle of guild wars: fewer players were banned midweek. This absolutely should have earned some praise from people concerned about the effects on guilds.
It would of actually made it more fair.
Everyone who Exploited the game gets banned.
Instead, those who Exploited got off on the technicality of not spending the gems.
Yet, those who used Exploits in guild wars to get gems that they surely spentâŠremain unpunished.
Itâs the greater overall issue of inconsistency when it comes to player bans thatâs mind boggling. And itâs turning more folks off to the game than luring them in. People want to play under the same rules as everyone else. Itâs human nature.
ALSO, I refuse to praise a company who originally made the mistake. Took ZERO responsibility for the bug. Just punished some of the folks who Exploited it. Then came here to brag about it.
If they used the exploit, but didnât spend any of the gems, then itâs possible that they did not know what they were doing. The gems could be removed, and no harm was done to the gameâs economy, and no advantage was had by the player in question over any other player. Rolling back the gems was a lenient and reasonable measure for these people. In the end it was no harm no foul.
For the players who exploited the bug, and then spent all their gems though? They definitely knew what they were doing, and they had gained benefits from those gems. Malicious intend is confirmed and a ban is appropriate. These people certainly knew what they were doing and have no one to blame but themselves.
Also, awryan, I can tell that youâve clearly never touched a piece of code in your life if you think that itâs reasonable to expect the game to be 100% free of exploits. I can also tell that youâve never read a TOS in your life if you think this is the first and only game to have ever banned someone for deliberate and malicious exploitation of bugs in an online competitive game.
awryan is salty that some exploits get punished more harshly than others, not that the bans happened at all. It seems there are exploits out there that get used in Guild Wars, but have gone unfixed and unpunished for a while. What makes collecting unearned gems from mail (by exploiting a bug to open the mail 100-7000 times) different from collecting unearned gems as a GW reward (by placing higher on the leaderboard due to these bugs/exploits)?
The exact same argument could be made in reverse.
If the players used the gems before the devs could take them, they probably thought the devs wouldnât ban them. Where as, players who didnât spend the gems used more caution incase the devs decided to take them back. They knew what they were doing was wrong either way.
Well, while weâre doing assessments based on a paragraph or 2. I think itâs safe to assume that either you, or one of your guild mates used the Exploit. But werenât banned because of it because they took the gems back.
I donât know code. Youâre right. As 98% of the player base doesnât know code but still can easily detect bugs. When something isnât working right. Itâs as obvious as knowing the difference between right or wrong.
And in the 2.5 years Iâve played GoW. I have witnessed all sorts of exploits occuring. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME a mass ban for it has ever been implemented. Or at the very least, a thread dedicated to those bans.
I donât read ToS⊠Itâs super weird if you do. I know whatâs right or wrong without a company telling me.
Despite my lack of interest in fine print⊠Iâm very aware of other companies banning players for using Exploits.
I had an issue with the timing of bans. Not the bans in general. They didnât ban enough folks⊠But I completely get why you would be grateful to them if you in fact used the Exploit but didnât get banned.
Since the Exploit wasnât even available to me. I get the luxury of sitting on a high horse and judging those who did.
Because essentially itâs super easy to judge those who cheat. When the option to cheat isnât even available to them.
I donât need a coding lesson to know people make mistakes. Nor does anyone need an ethics lesson to learn those with shame, shouldnât shame others.
See what assuming does? Makes us both sound pretentious as Frank.
⊠If it was Guild Wars mail that was exploited⊠theyâd all been banned. But since the economy wasnât changed due to the Exploit⊠No punishment was given out to anyone in Bracket 1.
does? Makes us both sound pretentious as Frank.