Global Mail Exploit (Banpocalypse 🔥)

[Karanak]

those who exploited the post 100 times have the gems been removed?
I ask because I’m already lost

[Gnome]

The fact is people have been unbanned (3k win pvp player as a perfect example).

I’m all for the ban mate. But if you don’t want players to benefit from expoiting this bug then why are you accepting their actions? Players who have spent gems and acquired mythics are being unbanned and are allowed to keep those mythics - BECAUSE THEY GOT ONE IN 1 VIP PULL RATHER THAN 6!

Get what I’m saying? Where do you draw the line in the sand?

[Fourdottwoone]

@Karanak

those who exploited the post 100 times have the gems been removed?

All extra gems have been removed from every account. Those accounts where the extra gems had been spent past the threshold were banned.

[Fourdottwoone]

@Gnome

The fact is people have been unbanned (3k win pvp player as a perfect example).

That’s an entirely different ban. I don’t know any details about it, so I can’t really comment. I believe there’s a separate thread for it.

@Gnome

I’m all for the ban mate. But if you don’t want players to benefit from expoiting this bug then why are you accepting their actions? Players who have spent gems and acquired mythics are being unbanned and are allowed to keep those mythics - BECAUSE THEY GOT ONE IN 1 VIP PULL RATHER THAN 6!

They got unbanned because they went with the “appeal to support” approach that was listed specifically as an option. Note that the Global Mail Exploit bans were given exclusively for spending a large amount of money you did not own, so I’d assume that paying up for what you owe (e.g. by retroactively purchasing the gems) is a perfectly valid option to get your account back.

@Gnome

Get what I’m saying? Where do you draw the line in the sand?

In the place that minimizes both the alpha error and the beta error. They are mutually exclusive, so it’s a tough choice.

[Gnome]

I get you, its defo a hard choice! I think we can all agree that is inconsistent and the reason I agree with Ryan is due to that insconsistency. There seems to be a very blurred line between cheat and bug exploit, and unbans aren’t definite but rather case by case and not explained formally to players.

Many players who were banned were told that there is no appeal process whatsoever, after being told to appeal. It’s really quite confusing.

And regardless of whatever has been done or said, the very least they couldve done is admit their end of if, regardless of the mistake. I think Ryan covered that part very well.

[Fourdottwoone]

@Gnome

I think we can all agree that is inconsistent and the reason I agree with Ryan is due to that insconsistency. There seems to be a very blurred line between cheat and bug exploit, and unbans aren’t definite but rather case by case and not explained formally to players.

I fail to see any inconsistency in the way this specific ban wave was handled. Individual appeals are always handled case by case. Of course there isn’t any explanation which specific story gets you unbanned, otherwise the community would spontaneously contain several hundred 11 year old players that just happened to try breaking a speed-clicking record without really knowing what they were doing.

@Gnome

Many players who were banned were told that there is no appeal process whatsoever, after being told to appeal. It’s really quite confusing.

More precisely, many banned players who appealed were told that in their individual case, after listening to their explanation and reasoning, the ban was still found to be perfectly justified and around to stay.

@Gnome

And regardless of whatever has been done or said, the very least they couldve done is admit their end of if, regardless of the mistake.

It looks to me like they did, there’s a whole post about it right at the start of this thread.

[Gnome]

I’m gonna leave this open to other responses as I cannot respond personally without emotion.

They have not admitted their mistake.

They have banned indiscriminately and therefore not grounded a formal process regarding cheats and exploits - if there is one please show me. According to previous posts it has never been this chaotic and I’ll leave it at that - Chaotic handling of a double-sided issue.

Ban is worthy in all regards. What warrants an unban?
If you’re willing to play alongside such a bizzare threshold of “exploiting vs barely exploiting” players then go for it. It’s on you.

I know of players who spent gems and have been unbanned and kept their “stolen” mythic pulls. You be the judge then, since it is a ‘fair’ decision by devs.

[Grundulum]

Nobody has mentioned getting unbanned in this thread. Was it in another thread on the forums? All we’ve heard in this thread is stories of unsuccessful appeals. It’s hard to judge on merits when all we have is secondhand (or third hand) information.

[Gnome]

So imagine how difficult it is for those of us that have to deal with the reality of the inconsistency that Ryan keeps pointing out.

Your guild wasn’t impacted? BIG DEAL?!

Devs obviously hold a hidden agenda, keep a secret platform by which cheaters or exploitees are handled case by case, “appeal or no appeal”. To deny it is to be completely ignorant to the fact that it isn’t a cheat but an exploit.

Justify it however you want, honestly, Its all or nothing. Allow “some” to exploit?

Great decision then.

[Amadan]

You’re demanding consistency to a predetermined rule; you’re asking for the devs to follow a strict if/then script in determining punishments.

That is not how it works. You’re not going to get that - never. Sorry.

Here’re the rules about cheating: “If you cheat, you’re probably gonna get punished. If you really cheat, you’re probably gonna get suspended. If you really really cheat, you’re probably gonna get permabanned.” That’s it. That’s the entirely of the rules about cheating in every online game, ever.

This is not a court of law; the devs are not restricted by the exact wording of strict rules. There’s a “spirit of the game” that players are expected to follow, and yes, it’s vague and undefined but you probably know if you’re violating it nonetheless. Yes, this means that reactions to cheating may be inconsistent. Yes, this means that different people may face different punishments for similar infractions. Luckily, this should almost never affect 99% of the players, because cheating is usually really obvious and they know better than to do it. Likewise, anyone who does decide to cheat should do so with the full knowledge and understanding that they’re risking their account, possibly forever, probably without any recourse or appeal.

TL;DR: Cheaters get punished. Don’t cheat.

[Gnome]

No but thats just it, don’t you get it?

We want players to be banned based on a consistent ban. It’s the opposite! Go look up the thread that I got in trouble for bringing up. The pvp player that got unbanned for blatantly cheating a 3k win 0 loss result,

So you understand my complaint? There is no consistency. You cheat or exploit the game, YOU MIGHT GET AWAY WITH IT

KEEP ON DEFENDING THEM lol, cause cheating/exploting players are getting away with it and you’re saying it’s okay.

[Amadan]

@Gnome

cheating/exploting players are getting away with it and you’re saying it’s okay.

No, I’m not. You’re not listening. Let’s try again.

This is what I’m saying:

Don’t cheat. You’ll probably get caught. You may lose your account.

That’s it. I have no sympathy for anyone who loses their account due to cheating; I sympathize for the devs being stuck in a shitty position. The fact that some people may be accused of cheating but yet not punished does not change anything - you should still not cheat; you may still lose your account if you do; this all still sucks.

[Fourdottwoone]

@Gnome

We want players to be banned based on a consistent ban.

More precisely, we want players to be banned consistently under the same circumstances. This seems to have happened for the Global Mail Exploit. You can’t directly compare this ban situation to other ban situations, because circumstances are bound to be different.

@Gnome

The pvp player that got unbanned for blatantly cheating a 3k win 0 loss result,

We don’t know the details. Somebody seems to have looked at the whole situation and came to the conclusion that there wasn’t any intentional transgression involved, so the prematurely given ban was lifted.

Yes, I know that might suck as explanation, it’s perfectly reasonable though. I remember having set a Fire Bomb defense a long time ago to help with a weekly event. For some odd reason that team raked in a crazy amount of defense wins, up to several hundred within an hour. Took me about a day to fully realize what was going on, at which point I wrote a bug report. For all practical purposes it may have looked to the casual observer like I was exploiting the hell out of the game though. I didn’t get banned.

[FeelTheBern]

I’m still waiting on “We’re sorry our glitch caused so much trouble, we are going to do our best to improve and stop putting out new content without thoroughly testing it”
But all I’ve heard is “cheaters cheaters cheaters”

[Slypenslyde]

Here’s my heuristic, and why I’m not upset.

The bottom line is what @Amadan said: if you do something that is obviously cheating, you always risk your account.

But from there, I think there is a spectrum of cheating, and a spectrum of punishment. Cheating ranges from “harmless” to “disrupts the rest of the players”, and punishment ranges from “lenient” to “permaban”.

I generally expect a “more harmless” cheat to meet “more lenient” punishment. But this is a dangerous expectation, because once we say, “The devs are expected to punish this behavior” we are at the mercy of their moods and they are justified in being as harsh as they please. Players want them to be consistent, but in the grand scheme of things it’s more important for the devs to make decisions and stand behind those decisions than have a rigid relationship between the spectrums.

I feel like the devs took a two-pronged approach, and there are clearly two separate activities that were punished according to their harm.

The people who “got a lot of gems” fell under scrutiny. They used an obvious exploit to gain a currency advantage. But they didn’t use it. Gems don’t actually mean anything for your account if you don’t spend them. So they had their gems taken away. This put them at exactly the place they were before the exploit. The punishment fits the crime.

The people who got a lot of gems and spent them got further scrutiny. This is harmful to the game. They could have funded leaderboard runs, acquired troops and other resources, etc. They harmed the game. So the game hit back. The punishment fits the crime.

In my view it’s perfectly consistent. The devs would also be justified banning the entire group. But it makes sense that they treat “harmed the game” and “gained no advantage” differently.

[Slypenslyde]

Let’s play an ethical game! I expect this will go places.

Suppose, while I’m playing the game, I find an exploit that makes my wins worth more points if I make some certain series of taps. I use it to reach #1 on every leaderboard. Meanwhile, you’re spending gems trying to get there. You reach #2. Very respectable.

I get your Orb of Power. If I hadn’t used the exploit (one you don’t know about and perhaps only works for my account), you’d have it. But it’s mine. You find out. Are you:

1. …excited that I used only the resources the game gave me to win fair and square, and willing to let this continue to happen every week as no way in heck am I revealing my exploit?
2. …already filing a bug report and demanding you receive your rightful prize?

[Amadan]

Cheaty McCheaterson is not going to find a lot of sympathy for discovering that cheating has consequences.

[awryan]

@Sirrian and @Saltypatra
I just wanted to let you all know that I’ve changed my mind since Friday. You were 100% right for banning the players even if during Guild Wars. It sucks for the other members. But it’s the person who Exploited the game that’s 100% at fault. They let their guild down. Not you.
So my apologies if I made you feel any sort of remorse for your decision. I know it’s not easy being Judge, Jury, and Executioner.
Salty, I tagged you so you can see the 1 time a year where I admit to being wrong about something. Safe travels back to the mother land.

[ONOPALAVER]

[Live]

@DESTROYER

Believe me, I would have opened this letter a million times, since the game itself offered it to me, when you win a jackpot in a casino. Do they not take it away from you?

YOU didn’t win anything, someone left the gambling machine open and you grabbed everything you could carry with you. When you really think that was a unlimited jackpot which belongs to you, you deserved your ban 100%!