VR downed in 53 seconds

[Primed]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/images/news/2007/october/vr53.jpg

[rgirty]

exploit 12345, bannable and will be fixed via patch.

[Primed]

Still awesome nonetheless. And I don't see how its bannable for the time being, it was just discovered.

[det]

The exploit being?

[Primed]

the throw bombs from the Tempest Smiths don't have cooldowns.

[rgirty]

A blue posted the following verbage:

This topic is the result of a known issue in the game mechanics.
Use of this issue in this fashion is considered an exploit and I strongly discourage you from using it in order to avoid any repercussions on your account.
Rest assured that issues such as this will be resolved in order to remove the temptation.

[Primed]

As was directly beneath that:

I call it "Clever use of game mechanics".

[Richakin]

throw bombs? so is it like in gnomer where those leper technicians can throw wrenches? you mind control them with a priest and spam that and it has no GCD or CD and u can kill anything in a VERY short time.

[rgirty]

Meh, if people want to say it isn't an exploit and a clever use of game mechanics so be it.

If said people get banned, so be it. If they don't, no problem there either.

I personally wouldn't risk it, but thats just me. To each his own.

[Twoflower]

stupid of blizzard -.-

why do they put in mobs that can be mind controlled which have abilities with no CD ? They should have seen that coming ^^

anyway, will be fixed before we know it.

[Mesmer]

Is it just me or does it seem silly to cover the names in the chat window but not on the main screen? I can see at least 4 name so shouldn't be too hard to find them.

[inkmva]

Meh, if people want to say it isn't an exploit and a clever use of game mechanics so be it.

If said people get banned, so be it. If they don't, no problem there either.



In Naxx, this was something you had to do when starting the instance.

Now, all of a sudden, doing it is a bannable offense?

That's just silly.

For once, I actually agree with most of the posts on the official thread where people are saying it's not a bug, it's not something that's horribly easy to pull off, it's not something that'll allow any random 25 people with no gear, no skill, no idea what's going on to go in and grab some epics.

It's simply a very cool way to use the mechanics available in the game.

[swaldman]

A blue posted the following verbage:

This topic is the result of a known issue in the game mechanics.
Use of this issue in this fashion is considered an exploit and I strongly discourage you from using it in order to avoid any repercussions on your account.
Rest assured that issues such as this will be resolved in order to remove the temptation.

.....where was this posted? Buried deep somewhere on a forum?

If they put it on the "breaking news" screen, I could understand it. But otherwise, how on earth are people supposed to know what is an exploit, and what is "creative use of game mechanics"?

To me it doesn't seem very different to the use of enslaved imps to tank Jindo that some people used to do - and that seemed to be OK by Blizzard...

This is even a required mechanic for one of the Naxx bosses!

[inkmva]

It's fairly buried in a thread on the offical forums. Thread here:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=1440484711&postId=14683249548&sid=1#11

[Schue]

Same thing as clearing the trash mobs in mech. If the game allows you to do it and it is a spell of a certain class / classes, why would you be banned for doing it?

[rgirty]

I don't think you can find any verbage in any of my posts where I say the tactic is right or wrong.

People can argue all they like about the "right" or "wrong" of it, however when a blue makes the post that I copied stating that it is an exploit that really is the point of the conversation.

All those people farming jaina proudmore didn't think they were exploiting either, even after they were banned they thought they were right and blizzard was wrong.

But when the dust settled, they all remained banned.

Right or wrong really does not matter when blizzard holds all the power, might makes right in this situation.

I was just trying to inform people of what the blue had posted, the blue used very strong language to get a point across.

[det]

What happend when you farmed the Proudmore chick? Isn't she just a boss like Thrall..only in Theramore?

[Primed]

What happend when you farmed the Proudmore chick? Isn't she just a boss like Thrall..only in Theramore?

She respawned in like 5 minutes, and dropped TONS of gold. Instead of Blizz being intelligent and just reducing the gold she dropped to be minimal, they banned everybody as well.

And there was a quest for the alliance that took her out of her enclosure into the wild...which made cross-faction "assisting" quite possible.

[rgirty]

What happend when you farmed the Proudmore chick? Isn't she just a boss like Thrall..only in Theramore?

It has been a while but this is my memory of that event, it was pre tbc i believe.

She was dropping more gold than normal, or more than what was expected. A raid group from a guild farmed her for hours. They didn't see this as an exploit, and they did not get a warning about it to my knowledge. However, all of them did get banned.

The reasoning behind it was that they knew she was dropping an abnormal amount, thus that was why there were farming her they knew it was an exploit..or something along those lines was what blizz had stated after the bans.

With a situation like VR where a blue has stated that it is an exploit, proceed at your own risk.

Blizzard has a history of banning people for what they deem exploits, from jaina proudmore to the raid group who went as far as modifying their lua files to walk through walls allowing them to avoid the lengthy c'thun trash.

Just trying to provide information here to let people know of the risk associated with using this tactic.

[inkmva]

Well on the "Bliz has spoken" thing, I completly agree with you. They've said it's not OK, it's not OK.

My problem is with the fact that on one hand, they want players to be explorative and figure out how to use game mechanics while on the other hand, they don't want people to use game mechanics in a too rewarding manner.

It feels a bit like Marketing Dep. VS. Development Dep. if you catch my drift.

As for it being bannable, it's hard to belive that all raiders will be scanning fansites and the official forums. Then again; it's hard to belive people will get this idea all out of the blue in huge numbers if they're not following said sites.

It seems to me though that the tactic itself is such a pain to actually execute, these guys should just get kudos from Bliz and recieve their "easy" obtained loot.

[det]

Thanks for the info :)

I remember there was guild that even had a website complaining how they were banned for "abusing" LoS issues on the Chromaggus fight in BWL. At the time we were in MC and I couldn't figure out the problem. When we did Chrommagus, my feeling was that it IS all about LoS...so how could one even get banned for it. In fact..the drakes are about LoS as well....hmmmm

[Primed]

Right det, and thats where the confuson lies. IMO, players shouldn't get banned for anything that has slipped passed the eyes of the dev team. Yes, going in and altering your play files to walk through walls SHOULD be banned, but not for this kinda stuff.

What if that was the only way to down the boss? Priest's MC ability is a CC just like a mage's sheep. Should all the pre-tbc guilds that sheeped the serpents when facing Domo in MC be banned for making the fight easier (possible even?). How should players know that this fight isn't like that fight, where proper usage of abilities makes the fight that much easier?

/yawn getting banned for this is retarded, its not hte players fault...its the devs.

[rgirty]

One could play devils advocate and say that just because you can do something does not mean you should.

When you down a tier 5 boss in under 1 minute using non-pc mobs for assistance that should set off some alarm bells.

We could also look at the case of the 19 twink who made it all the way to outland, went up to the skettis area got in range of his buddies and rep'd up to exalted in order to get the airman trinket. Took him 4 weeks I think of almost nonstop repping to get the item and only a mere day or so for blizzard to strip him of it.

[Gainon]

The testing team dropped the ball, no question, and for that reason this should not be considered a bannable offense. It's not a bug, it's not changing the game mechanics, it's not taking unfair advantage of terrain holes.

Still, I can't imagine how this couldn't be addressed by a hotfix if Blizzard, in their infinite "arbitrariness," considers this tactic a bannable offense. Just make those mobs not MC-able. I can't imagine it taking more than an hour to make that change from the developer side.

[xDarkDrifterx]

Using an ingame ability correctly on a humanoid mob that can be MC'd and then using that ability on the other mobs and or boss(es) if just fine IMO and is a clever use of game mechanics. Blizz created the mob, made them MC'able, then gave them an ability with no cooldown and the players are in the wrong for using it? If they have an issue then just hot fix it, and make the ability have a cooldown on it. I guess my preist will get banned b/c I was MC'ing mobs in SM and using their abilities to help the group . . .

[Primed]

One could play devils advocate and say that just because you can do something does not mean you should.

When you down a tier 5 boss in under 1 minute using non-pc mobs for assistance that should set off some alarm bells.

We could also look at the case of the 19 twink who made it all the way to outland, went up to the skettis area got in range of his buddies and rep'd up to exalted in order to get the airman trinket. Took him 4 weeks I think of almost nonstop repping to get the item and only a mere day or so for blizzard to strip him of it.

One COULD play devils advocate, which is what you are doing. We downed a t2 pre-tbc boss in uner 1 minute through the use of a few engineering gadgets. A team of 3 downed a pre-tbc world boss in under 6 seconds via a summoning and debuff timer. AH bombs from Vael. the Infamous slow-fall mage Thrall kill terrain "exploit."

All of these things are probably not things you should do...but nobody got banned or had items rejected because they did them.

If finding game bugs and design issues isn't fun and interesting for you, so be it.

[rgirty]

Nope, not really interesting or fun at all. I know some enjoy it, hats off to them.

[dgrampa]

My realm went down for a restart today. Might have been to apply a hotfix for the VR exploit. Then again, might have just been to remove the hallow's end stuff. Or both.

[ChaosSaber]

The whole catch with exploit vs mechanic is a matter of what Blizzard wants you to do. In the case of VR, they either: never intended for that MoB's ability to not have a cooldown, or never intended fot that MoB to be mind-controllable. That makes this a bug which makes using it an exploit. End of story.

I realize it seems stupid to some people, but you have to realize that if anyone had tried that in Beta it would never have made it into the release version. Now if this bug didn't completely break a raid boss they would probably have let you get away with it, calling it a feature. But since it is, in their eyes, a bug it is therefore an exploit.

At least they're being good and stating that it's a bug exploit, rather than just banning people who thought it was a feature. Be thankful for the warning, laugh at Blizzard for missing such an important bug, and go back to using already proven, effective, legal strategies.

[xDarkDrifterx]

Be thankful for the warning, laugh at Blizzard for missing such an important bug, and go back to using already proven, effective, legal strategies.

That's one of the issues IMO - there's no Official warning area for these things. What a blue post buried in pages pages of a forum is a warning for all wow players? They need an area on the main page of the wow website and to also have it show up on the launcher. If people don't go on forums and are raiding etc - how are they to know before Blizz looks at them and their "questionable offence"? I use MC all the time on my lowbie preist . . .why? b/c it's fun, different mobs have different abilities that can be useful to the group (some even buff the group for a short time) and these are not questionable, they are left in and are okay to use. There's even a list of MC'able mobs and their abilities on the main wow forum.

People would assume that since it's in the game and they're not using a terain exploit or a log out mail bug or any of the other actual questionable offences, that it's okay - then they'll get a warning or a 3 day vacation.

So far so good - no ones has to our knowledge - but they should hot fix this thing . . .

[rgirty]

That's one of the issues IMO - there's no Official warning area for these things. What a blue post buried in pages pages of a forum is a warning for all wow players? They need an area on the main page of the wow website and to also have it show up on the launcher. If people don't go on forums and are raiding etc - how are they to know before Blizz looks at them and their "questionable offence"?

I agree. I believe we need more of this in a lot of different aspects of the game, and other areas of interest.

[swaldman]

The whole catch with exploit vs mechanic is a matter of what Blizzard wants you to do. In the case of VR, they either: never intended for that MoB's ability to not have a cooldown, or never intended fot that MoB to be mind-controllable. That makes this a bug which makes using it an exploit. End of story.

That's fine. So fix it.
If you really can't wait until you can get a hotfix written, then make very sure that everybody knows that you consider it's an exploit, and threaten to ban people.

But having somebody say "don't do it" on a single post on page 285 of a single forum thread on a forum that only a moderate proportion of WoW players actually read, and then banning people who do it? That's just stupid.

At least they're being good and stating that it's a bug exploit, rather than just banning people who thought it was a feature.

Which would be fine, if they were stating it somewhere that people would actually reliably SEE it! The Breaking News box on the logon screen would be a good example of such a place.

[clevins]

Using an ingame ability correctly on a humanoid mob that can be MC'd and then using that ability on the other mobs and or boss(es) if just fine IMO and is a clever use of game mechanics. Blizz created the mob, made them MC'able, then gave them an ability with no cooldown and the players are in the wrong for using it? If they have an issue then just hot fix it, and make the ability have a cooldown on it. I guess my preist will get banned b/c I was MC'ing mobs in SM and using their abilities to help the group . . .

So when we're doing Mech and one of our locks enslaves one of the bomb throwing demons... and we use him to kill the Gatewatchers... is that an exploit? A bug? Or simply using abilities correctly? I'd argue the latter since it's exactly what you'd do if the situation were real. That's the point, isn't it? Given the abilities of the group and the constraints placed on us by what we're facing, how can we win the encounter? If I can stunlock a mob to keep it away from the group... is that an exploit? Of course not. If Blizz wanted to make that impossible, give the mob stun resists or enough hp that I can't keep it stunned and burn it down.

[silverpie]

Personally, I think the discoverers of something like this ought to be given a title for there efforts--maybe "Tactician."

The other question is, what constitutes fair warning that this is an exploit? In my view, it ought to be displayed along with the "Welcome to Tempest Keep--The Eye" message on zone-in. (If it is hotfixable, they need to do so; if not, it's still probably important enough for a 2.2.4 patch.)

[ChaosSaber]

Blizzard is never going to openly announce "this is a bug and if you use it you're exploiting" because that would be admitting that they f'd up. I'm certain they would much rather silently hotfix it and just tell those who already know about it (ie. people who have read/posted in that thread) to stop it while they get the hotfix out.

By posting on the official forum they are admitting "hey, I found something wierd" sort of like telling the police you found a pound of crack in your driveway. By warning them on the official forum (which is the ONLY way to directly address those involved in an official, discrete manner) they effectively say "ok leave it alone and we'll let you go", saving those who were using it and reported it from the banstick.

From Blizzard's perspective I'm sure this is the best way to go about handling this issue in a discrete manner. Is it the best way for the general community? Probably not.

Let's face it; if something lets you kill a T5 raid boss in under a minute you might want to think twice about using it.

@clevins: The Void Reaver encounter is several orders of magnitude more significant than anything in Mechenar. As such tricks like this warrant more attention and a more severe response. Even if they didn't intend Warlocks to use the bomb-throwers in boss fights those fights are trivial enough in the grand scheme of things that Blizzard likely just chose to ignore it and let the warlocks have their fun.

[Polaba]

Let's face it; if something lets you kill a T5 raid boss in under a minute you might want to think twice about using it.


That pretty much sums it up. However, this kind of does too...

Blizzard is never going to openly announce "this is a bug and if you use it you're exploiting" because that would be admitting that they f'd up.


So, while I don't under any circumstances condone or support hacking or purposefully exploiting, if Blizz hasn't slapped you on the wrist once or twice, why not take full advantage of it?

[clevins]

@clevins: The Void Reaver encounter is several orders of magnitude more significant than anything in Mechenar. As such tricks like this warrant more attention and a more severe response. Even if they didn't intend Warlocks to use the bomb-throwers in boss fights those fights are trivial enough in the grand scheme of things that Blizzard likely just chose to ignore it and let the warlocks have their fun.


Bull. I can use that tactic to get heroic badges over and over. You've fallen into this "oh, ohh... 25 man content is more SIGNIFICANT" trap. The tactici is the same - if it's allowable one place, it's allowable in others. If they don't want you doing it... fix it.

[inkmva]

And as I said, this was not just a viable tactic back in Naxx but the only usable tactic when people figured out the zone to begin with.

Let's be clear about the fact that blizzard has stated that for VR, this is not a 'legal' tactic. We should all agree on this.

However, it's downright silly for them to implement this exact function in their previous, and in many cases most revered, raid dungeon and then suddenly calling it an exploit in a new dungeon.

You can say "oh it's a t5 raid boss downed in under 1 min, haxx!" all you want, but truth of the matter is that VR is easier then the trash leading up to him. He doesn't drop anything really significant, he's not all that fun to play nor does he attune anyone to anything.

For all intents and purposes, he's far from a significant boss.

If this was Illidian, I might agree that this would be 'wrong'. But VR? Nah.

[clevins]

Let's be clear about the fact that blizzard has stated that for VR, this is not a 'legal' tactic. We should all agree on this.


And, while WE can't claim ignorance, as others have said above it's outrageous for Blizz to bury this fact in some random thread, but threaten to ban people for doing it. I can easily see someone thinking "Hey, we can use bombthrowers in Mech that are enslaved against the mini-bosses... I wonder if..." and trying this. Again, if this is a big enough deal for Blizz to feel it's bannable... patch it in a hotfix. Don't say it's a huge deal and then not fix the encounter.

Of course, they're probably working on the massive latency spike issues that 2.2 seems to have introduced

[Wintrow]

I see it like this: if the bombs did minor damage on VR and same ol' damage on players then the MC wouldn't have been labeled an exploit.

So say you're a L70 Priest. You have 24 L70 buddies who wanna tackle VR. And one gets the idea: Hey, lets MC that bomb-guy and see what it does. So you MC him and BAM! VR dead in seconds.

Something has to ding in yr head right? Like "This is too easy". You're NOT going to do that again. Even more so, you should actually submit a ticket to a GM, reporting the thing !!

THAT is why Blizz is not putting it on a big billboard. Any sane raidmember will only do it once, perhaps twice to verify. Exploiters will do it 150 times and get far too rich for their own good. And then they'll get banned...

[clevins]

"far too rich.."

Sigh... You have to clear the trash to him - you're not doing that with 25 scrubs.

And I'm sick and tired of the "oh, we can't publicize X because then people would know about it" argument. If you can't see why that is inherently silly...

They could publicize it of course - and tell people that they'd be banned for it. Log the activity - no one would do it 150 times then. And if they did, they couldn't say "Blizz never told us."

Or... they could FIX IT.
logic ftw...

[inkmva]

That's the old whitehat argument, "don't publish, it'll be exploited" while the only right course of action is, of course, to fix whatever is exploitable (and in this context, exploitable is defined solely by Blizzard as I really, as explained earlier, can't look at this as anything but clever use of game mechanics).

[rgirty]

Whats all this talk about the trash, my guild has only been there a few times and we don't have any problems with the trash.

[clevins]

rgirty,

it's not that the trash is HARD per se, but it's not going to be cleared by people in greens or anything. So the argument that people are going to go there with 25 random folks and get free loot off VR is specious. If you can clear the trash, you can likely kill VR (once your ranged learns to stay alive).

[inkmva]

In my experience, trash to VR has a higher learning curve then VR himself.

The smiths have 500k hp each and do silly damage if, for any reason, are allowed to roam about.

Another thing with VR trash is that you're clearing twice the normal trash if just doing VR. First Al'Ar trash, then VR trash.

For all intents and purposes, trash is the hinderance when it comes to VR and not the boss itself.