All Worlds Emergency Maintenance (Sep. 20)

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Originally Posted by DemonFury

My plan for the gil reduction in 2.0 is actually quite simple i will be draining my gil down to "ZERO" which means they cannot reduce me any further than i will be at ...

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You're too clever for us. Got me beat. Congrats.

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Originally Posted by Amherst

...are you really trying to say that this ISN'T an exploit? The fact that people were selling GC items had NOTHING to do with the seal achievement. Even if it is well intentioned, stop trying to play devil's advocate here. It doesn't work.

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Eh, in my book, an exploit is taking advantage of something like a bug, or a broken mechanic that is clearly not working as originally designed. The Dawn Drop thing is more of a unexpected loophole rather than an exploit, as players are gaining the seals, exchanging them for the drops, and selling the drops for gil all within the design of the system, the devs simply did not foresee the effect of these particular combinations.

That being said, some loopholes become so egregious that their effect on the game become just as bad as exploits, where the line is though is a bit of a gray area, and is something for the game devs to decided. IMO, the atomos/dawn drop doesn't really make it to the exploit level. To draw a parallel to another MMO I play, in Eve Online when Incursion was added, players quickly figured out that one particular incursion site can be stretched and farmed to make far more money/hr than anything else, which led to a nice little inflation run. CCP (the game dev) eventually nerfed that site, but it was hardly declared an exploit, and CCP can be swift and severe when it comes to large scale exploits.

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Originally Posted by Molly_Millions

tbh, who here thought that the maint. was for anything but a fix for this exploit?

I didn't even need to see an official post to know what it was about.

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Well I knew it certainly wasn't for any new and exciting content. Been watching the forums for the last week and was like "Yup, it's getting nerfed." Too bad it took this long.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Tho, I still dont see this as really an exploit, at least not a major one.

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So how much money did you make off of this?

and besides it is not just Dawn Drops that can be used in this manner 1 stack of blood drops sells for 44 gil each multiplied by 99 = 4356 gil earned multiply that times 1000 which is the equivalent of spending all 50k seals gives you 4,356,000 Gil which is more than what you get from dawn drops just takes 3 times as long to do. the only true way to fix this is to make it so that all gc items bought cannot be sold to any npc in game

I'll tell you why this is not an 'exploit'.

Firstly, SE set the vendor price for Dawn Drops. No one figured out any system work around to make them sell for more. Since the addition of grand companies, the dawn drops have always been there under recruit. This was a very long time ago adition, it is nothing new. Though at the time, there was no way besides the few quests offered to get seals, so whos going to waste them on dawn drops? Later on down the line, new ranks are added and ways to get seals constantly are added. People have been playing this for a long time and clearly it didnt take people very long to pick the dawn drops as the item to deplete seals on for this event. So I would say people have done this in the past when there was nothing else they wanted from the GC and were maxed on seals.

Now SE adds the Atomos NM event, where you can get over-aspected crystals/clusters and exchange them for Seals of your Grand Company. At first, they messed it up to where you could get more than one cluster. That was their blunder and they fixed that already. However, SE set the exchange rate for these items themselves. 1 cluster = 3000 seals, 4 crystals = 1000 seals. SE also set the drop rate and amount of crystals dropped from atomos, at first being 3 to 5, now being 5 or 7. They also set the voidstone to be left up for a certain amount of time and to be multi-examinable. No special tricks by players were needed to increase the amount of crystals you get, amount of crystals you have to turn in, or amount of seals you get from turning in crystals.

The NPC that gives you seals for crystals wont let you turn in anymore if it will put you over cap. So any player that has everything they want from GC and wants to get that 500k seal ach, has to do something about it. So of course they would Take advantage of the Dawn drops that have been there since the addition of the Recruit rank, and have always been purchaceable with seals, and vendorable as a means to convert seals to gil.

Its not an exploit, its something to take advantage of while it lasts.

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Originally Posted by Orophin

Well I knew it certainly wasn't for any new and exciting content. Been watching the forums for the last week and was like "Yup, it's getting nerfed." Too bad it took this long.


So how much money did you make off of this?

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7 mil

/10somesome

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Originally Posted by Reika

stuff

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Pretty much, but then you have to realize that while it's not something that can be technically qualified as an exploit, many players nevertheless will use that term to describe stuff they believe is unbalanced/unfair etc.

It's just semantics tbh.

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Originally Posted by Amherst

You're too clever for us. Got me beat. Congrats.

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Actually, I'm doing the same thing; reducing my gil to 0 before 2.0. Call it futures trading if you will. the fact of the matter is, the revaluation will have an effect on the economy to some extent, as will new content added to the game. Whether I come out ahead or not, really isn't that much of a concern to me though, because there are going to be plenty of new players entering the game that all have 0 gil as well.

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Originally Posted by Reika

I'll tell you why this is not an 'exploit'.

respectfully snip'd

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ex·ploit (http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/ebreve.gifkhttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gifsploithttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/lprime.gif, http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/ibreve.gifk-sploithttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gif)n. An act or deed, especially a brilliant or heroic one. See Synonyms at feat1.

tr.v. (http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/ibreve.gifk-sploithttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gif, http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/ebreve.gifkhttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gifsploithttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/lprime.gif) ex·ploit·ed, ex·ploit·ing, ex·ploits 1. To employ to the greatest possible advantage: exploit one's talents.
2. To make use of selfishly or unethically: a country that exploited peasant labor. See Synonyms at manipulate.
3. To advertise; promote.


just saying...

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Originally Posted by Reika

7 mil

/10somesome

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That's 70% of my current wealth. I've never had more than 20mil at one time. (by my own choosing) Somehow this is fair that you can generate that kind of money and actually ENCOURAGE people to take advantage of it?

I guess there are hardly any honest people left in the world. People only continue to do it because they know there's no repercussions.

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Originally Posted by Aenarion

Pretty much, but then you have to realize that while it's not something that can be technically qualified as an exploit, many players nevertheless will use that term to describe stuff they believe is unbalanced/unfair etc.

It's just semantics tbh.

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if you want to look at it that way then making and selling francesca heads for major profit was not an exploit, fighting mobs naked so the casters could cure over and over to proc max xp was not an exploit, making and selling fish hooks for major profit was not an exploit, using a crafter to stun ifrit was not an exploit, burning down garuda before astral flow was not an exploit, linking leves as fisher to get massive exp was not an exploit, leve linking parties where you fail leves were not exploits, and raising and standing still during moogle to get another shot at them was not an exploit.

none of those are exploits by that definition, but they all did something that the dev staff had not intended so they were taken care of and deemed as exploits. all of the above were using things in the game to an advantage so they were deemed exploits and taken care of.

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Originally Posted by Nero

stuff

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What Reika and I have been trying clarify is the definition of exploit for game devs from a technical (and eula/game mechanics) standpoint.

Your dictionary definition really has little application here as far as that goes. Not saying you can't use the term exploit to describe it, just that it's not really the correct/accurate term.

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Originally Posted by Aenarion

Eh, in my book, an exploit is taking advantage of something like a bug, or a broken mechanic that is clearly not working as originally designed.

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Except you have to look at the full picture when making that call and not just each individual component and mechanic since it all adds up to the player experience.

So either this is working completely as intended in which cases SEs intention was to destroy the economy, and for the life of me I can't figure out why they would do that, or SE did something incredibly incompetent (Not least for letting it go on so long and not fixing it within hours) that did not work as originally intended, in which case it is an exploit.

That being said, I would never argue for punishing players who take advantage of such obvious mismanagement of a game. SE could have fixed this very quickly and chose not to so the result is SEs fault, not the fault of the players that used the exploit.

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Originally Posted by Nero

ex·ploit (http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/ebreve.gifkhttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gifsploithttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/lprime.gif, http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/ibreve.gifk-sploithttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gif)n. An act or deed, especially a brilliant or heroic one. See Synonyms at feat1.

tr.v. (http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/ibreve.gifk-sploithttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gif, http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/ebreve.gifkhttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gifsploithttp://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/lprime.gif) ex·ploit·ed, ex·ploit·ing, ex·ploits 1. To employ to the greatest possible advantage: exploit one's talents.
2. To make use of selfishly or unethically: a country that exploited peasant labor. See Synonyms at manipulate.
3. To advertise; promote.


just saying...

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Exploit when used in an mmo means something else.

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Originally Posted by Orophin

That's 70% of my current wealth. I've never had more than 20mil at one time. (by my own choosing) Somehow this is fair that you can generate that kind of money and actually ENCOURAGE people to take advantage of it?

I guess there are hardly any honest people left in the world. People only continue to do it because they know there's no repercussions.

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Dont worry about it too much. just like my once 8 mil gil, my now 16m gil will just sit on my char forever. i dont really buy too much from people, since I also craft and gather everything myself. Its more likely to end up used on vendor materials like coke.

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Originally Posted by darkstarpoet1

if you want to look at it that way then making and selling francesca heads for major profit was not an exploit, fighting mobs naked so the casters could cure over and over to proc max xp was not an exploit, making and selling fish hooks for major profit was not an exploit, using a crafter to stun ifrit was not an exploit, burning down garuda before astral flow was not an exploit, linking leves as fisher to get massive exp was not an exploit, leve linking parties where you fail leves were not exploits, and raising and standing still during moogle to get another shot at them was not an exploit.

none of those are exploits by that definition, but they all did something that the dev staff had not intended so they were taken care of and deemed as exploits. all of the above were using things in the game to an advantage so they were deemed exploits and taken care of.

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Read my above post where I said a part of it really comes down to dev's discretion, also, exploit, at least where I come from, is something that's a bannable offense, and most of your example really falls more under design oversight than exploits.

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Originally Posted by Reika

I'll tell you why this is not an 'exploit'.

Firstly, SE set the vendor price for Dawn Drops.

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They've been at the GC since...forever so no SE didn't expect people to buy them even at all since mobs rarely debuff you, let alone sleep you.

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Now SE adds the Atomos NM event, where you can get over-aspected crystals/clusters and exchange them for Seals of your Grand Company

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Which was a good way to rank up and get your gear, especially newer players.

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The NPC that gives you seals for crystals wont let you turn in anymore if it will put you over cap. So any player that has everything they want from GC and wants to get that 500k seal ach, has to do something about it.

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That 500k seal achievement could be obtained normally even before this event, it was a long term goal for helping out your GC. Can you explain the logic of people who got the achievement and still gaining seals and vendoring drops?

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Its not an exploit, its something to take advantage of while it lasts.

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THAT IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF AN EXPLOIT.

Pretty much agree with Reika,

When you've bought all the 25k weapons you would need, crafting set, all 3 chocobo barding, x4 lowbie GC outfit, the 6k overcoat set, all of the GC accessories pieces, excess 'cool' looking gear (limsa has some pink pieces!) Relic key item, all ayther passes, over 20 stacks of both grade 4/5 dark matter, around 12 stacks of firepots, x6crafting/gathering scrolls (low and high), enough rat tails/ midge baskets to get my fisher from 36 >> 50...

....then currently sitting at 49,972 seals with x2 stacks of crystals left with 402/500k left on shield achievement and NOTHING else to spend them on. I'll dump the rest on dawn drops/blood drops.. 1 hour left /6m

;/ Some people really don't have much else they could spend it on and I'll take an advantage of gil as it comes~

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Originally Posted by Cynthis

Except you have to look at the full picture when making that call and not just each individual component and mechanic since it all adds up to the player experience.

So either this is working completely as intended in which cases SEs intention was to destroy the economy, and for the life of me I can't figure out why they would do that, or SE did something incredibly incompetent (Not least for letting it go on so long and not fixing it within hours) that did not work as originally intended, in which case it is an exploit.

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The system is working completely as intended, the result however, is not. That means it is not an "exploit" by definition, but rather a design flaw that needs to be fixed/rebalanced.

I think the issue here is that a lot of people's definition of "exploit" is rather overly broad. I mean, you can pretty much fit in just about anything that ever got rebalanced or tweaked to fit under your definition of exploit.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

They've been at the GC since...forever so no SE didn't expect people to buy them even at all since mobs rarely debuff you, let alone sleep you.



Which was a good way to rank up and get your gear, especially newer players.



That 500k seal achievement could be obtained normally even before this event, it was a long term goal for helping out your GC. Can you explain the logic of people who got the achievement and still gaining seals and vendoring drops?



THAT IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF AN EXPLOIT.

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nonono, the faction leve exploit was an exploit, because it was taking advantage of a BUG. I reported that one btw. There is no bug to be taken advantage of by trading seals for dawn drops and then vendoring. That is working as intended.

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Originally Posted by Aenarion

What Reika and I have been trying clarify is the definition of exploit for game devs from a technical (and eula/game mechanics) standpoint.

Your dictionary definition really has little application here as far as that goes. Not saying you can't use the term exploit to describe it, just that it's not really the correct/accurate term.

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Exploit (video gaming)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An exploit, in video games, is the use of a bug or glitches, rates, hit boxes, or speed, etc. by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers.

If that's not the accurate term I don't know what is. It was obviously not the design intent of the devs to accumulate seals, even after the nerf on the clusters, to buy up items to vendor for gil.

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Originally Posted by Reika

nonono, the faction leve exploit was an exploit, because it was taking advantage of a BUG. I reported that one btw. There is no bug to be taken advantage of by trading seals for dawn drops and then vendoring. That is working as intended.

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if it wasn't an exploit, then there wouldn't be emergency maint. to fix it today.

just sayin'

and I'm saying that after taking advantage of it myself. I watched prices skyrocket, because I was buying mats with my profits. The fact of the matter is, it was unintended, and I'm glad it's being fixed not only because it f'ed the economy up royally, but because it was difficult to do anything that was actually fun while everyone was spamming atmos for gil.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Exploit when used in an mmo means something else.

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Say's who?

- Exploit .
Taking advantage of a glitch or game mechanic to gain an advantage ( Pulled out of a random MMO-Dictionary )

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Originally Posted by Aenarion

What Reika and I have been trying clarify is the definition of exploit for game devs from a technical (and eula/game mechanics) standpoint.

Your dictionary definition really has little application here as far as that goes. Not saying you can't use the term exploit to describe it, just that it's not really the correct/accurate term.

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1. To employ to the greatest possible advantage:
3. To advertise; promote. ( to promote Gil in this case )

This is actually what happend, so why isnt it accurate? I dont want do argue over this, since SE made their move, but im curious.

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Originally Posted by NarikoStar

When you've bought all the 25k weapons you would need, crafting set, all 3 chocobo barding, x4 lowbie GC outfit, the 6k overcoat set, all of the GC accessories pieces, excess 'cool' looking gear (limsa has some pink pieces!) Relic key item, over 20 stacks of both grade 4/5 dark matter, around 12 stacks of firepots, x6crafting/gathering scrolls (low and high), enough rat tails/ midge baskets to get my fisher from 36 >> 50...

....then currently sitting at 49,972 seals with x2 stacks of crystals left with 402/500k

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You managed to accomplish that before Atomos? If so, bravo. As Elexia pointed out (I did so as well earlier) the GC achievement for 500k seals was meant to be a long term thing. Calculate out how many 750 seals caravans (because 1000 seems rare as hell) it'd take to do that.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Dont worry about it too much. just like my once 8 mil gil, my now 16m gil will just sit on my char forever. i dont really buy too much from people, since I also craft and gather everything myself. Its more likely to end up used on vendor materials like coke.

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Well you're in the vast minority I believe. There are quite a few people that did this event that don't craft or gather and wouldn't have generated this kind of money before ARR launched.

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Originally Posted by Molly_Millions

if it wasn't an exploit, then there wouldn't be emergency maint. to fix it today.

just sayin'

and I'm saying that after taking advantage of it myself.

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Back in the day, you could make 12 linen yarn from 2 flax. Now you only make 1 linen yarn from 2 flax. Was it an exploit back in the day that you could make 12 instead of 1? They eventually changed it so can we call every weaver an bad bad exploiter?

Im saying there is a line between what is an exploit, and what is working as intended. It may have been much faster for them to deterimine that it was 'Too much' and change it, but just because they are changing it does not mean it was an exploit. I'm sure everyone will still be able to convert seals to gil with vendorable GC stuff, just not as fast.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Back in the day, you could make 12 linen yarn from 2 flax. Now you only make 1 linen yarn from 2 flax. Was it an exploit back in the day that you could make 12 instead of 1? They eventually changed it so can we call every weaver an bad bad exploiter?

Im saying there is a line between what is an exploit, and what is working as intended.

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To be fair, that was working as intended then. That changed happened when they revamped all the recipes.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Im saying there is a line between what is an exploit, and what is working as intended.

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You don't hotfix what's working as intended, just sayin'.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Back in the day, you could make 12 linen yarn from 2 flax. Now you only make 1 linen yarn from 2 flax. Was it an exploit back in the day that you could make 12 instead of 1? They eventually changed it so can we call every weaver an bad bad exploiter?

Im saying there is a line between what is an exploit, and what is working as intended. It may have been much faster for them to deterimine that it was 'Too much' and change it, but just because they are changing it does not mean it was an exploit. I'm sure everyone will still be able to convert seals to gil with vendorable GC stuff, just not as fast.

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could you make a million gil/hr making yarn? I don't think so. That was intended, atmos for gil was not. Hence the hotfix.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Back in the day, you could make 12 linen yarn from 2 flax. Now you only make 1 linen yarn from 2 flax. Was it an exploit back in the day that you could make 12 instead of 1? They eventually changed it so can we call every weaver an bad bad exploiter?

Im saying there is a line between what is an exploit, and what is working as intended.

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yeah and you got 80-200 sp a synth. you get 2k now off the same 1 synth.

that's also not taking into account the fact that yoshi did a complete set of crafting changes including the shard costs, abilities, materials needed, and crafts made.

if it makes you feel better that you used an exploit to make millions then you can consider it an exploit as well.

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Originally Posted by Orophin

To be fair, that was working as intended then. That changed happened when they revamped all the recipes.

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But then, everyone that made 12 back in the day before they changed it and stockpiled (I did :)) pretty much got the one-up on anyone that wants to start making linen yarn now. I still got stacks of this stuff left over. Its the same with this.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

You don't hotfix what's working as intended, just sayin'.

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Reika isn't saying they intended for people to use atomos as they are, Reika is saying the game mechanics are working as intended as far as trading for seals, and using said seals at your disposal for whatever you wish. whether that be gil, items, or rank ups.

Sorry, i'm just being realistic and not emotional.

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Originally Posted by Reika

But then, everyone that made 12 back in the day before they changed it and stockpiled (I did :)) pretty much got the one-up on anyone that wants to start making linen yarn now. I still got stacks of this stuff left over. Its the same with this.

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no it's not because it was intended to make 12 per synth, whether you were able to keep it or not after the crafting changes is completely besides the point.

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Originally Posted by ChiyoKatsui

Reika isn't saying they intended for people to use atomos as they are, Reika is saying the game mechanics are working as intended as far as trading for seals, and using said seals at your disposal for whatever you wish. whether that be gil, items, or rank ups.

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Yes -- The mechanics of buying an item and selling an item is working fine; Using Atomos primarily to inject the economy with gil out of thin air however is not working as intended or else they wouldn't hotfix it. You don't try to nip something that is working perfectly fine, SE isn't Gala or Areanet.

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Originally Posted by ChiyoKatsui

Reika isn't saying they intended for people to use atomos as they are, Reika is saying the game mechanics are working as intended as far as trading for seals, and using said seals at your disposal for whatever you wish. whether that be gil, items, or rank ups.

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if it was intended they wouldn't have hotfixed it.

/end thread

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Originally Posted by Nero

Taking advantage of a glitch or game mechanic to gain an advantage ( Pulled out of a random MMO-Dictionary )



1. To employ to the greatest possible advantage:
3. To advertise; promote. ( to promote Gil in this case )

This is actually what happend, so why isnt it accurate? I dont want do argue over this, since SE made their move, but im curious.

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There's a key difference between taking advantage of a bug/glitch, or something that's clearly outside the scope of the system's designed function, and taking advantage of an overlooked result from a system that's functioning as intended.

For example, if you had found a way to continue to get clusters from atomos, that would be an exploit, or if you had find a way to trade in all your seals at one time for dawn drops, that would be an exploit.

As things currently stand however, gaining the seals via crystals is working as intended, so is being able to trade seals for dawn drops, and so is selling the dawn drops for gil. The design oversight here is just how much gil can be obtained via this method, which is a balancing issue. This is more akin to an overpowered weapon skill like Path of the Storm, which allowed a group of marauders to just burn through and annihilate a large number of higher level mobs, which SE also eventually nerfed.

Would you say all marauders who used path of the storm back in the days were "exploiting"?

Really, it all boils down to semantics in the end, and what one's own personal definition of the word. Me and Reika is simply using the more technical definition, while many tends to jump right over to their personal/emotional definition of it.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

Yes -- The mechanics of buying an item and selling an item is working fine; Using Atomos primarily to inject the economy with gil out of thin air however is not working as intended or else they wouldn't hotfix it. You don't try to nip something that is working perfectly fine, SE isn't Gala or Areanet.

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Which they should of realized before even implemented the event. Even a kid could realize what you could do with unlimited seals. So why do this to begin with? Seems to be just fine in my opinion. The only reason they are making changes is so people move along now, which in the end just hurts players who haven't gotten to use this method the way they wanted. Whether it was for gil or not.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Sorry, i'm just being realistic and not emotional.

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I think that's the best way to carry out a discussion. :) I try not to let emotion get in the way either and just stay objective about what I'm commenting about.

I wanted a legit way to make money. I for one wanted an Auction House not a market ward. I tell you why. I cannot get a retainer in Uldah and have not been able to for months. Bam no way to sell my shit. I have tried selling all sorts of stuff in LL and GRID market wards only to find it not sell. Fast moving stuff, lower my price, or just rare and hard stuff, it did not matter it did not sell. Uldah is the only place on my server to really get your stuff moving.

My other option was to mine the Halatali all day for weeks and make electrum crowns with the amber and zircon rocks and ore and sell those back to npc for over 6k each on my GSM. I do that just fine but I would rather have a supplemental way of making money and getting my crafted goods to market is the best way I can do that. Some Days I might not feel good enough to play or mine the halatali and the market would be there. Unfortunately for me and many many others on Aegis it is just not available. It might be for some but not as many as I know would like it to be.

They needed for long time now an auction house not a market place.

But what is done is done. I hope to GOD in 2.0 they give us an honest way to market our crafted goods. Besides low ball prices to npc. Otherwise stuff like Atomos is only the beginning of what has been termed "Exploit". I don't really aggree with that term but I guess its a lowsy excuse SE comes up with whenever something don't go their way.

Honestly, it just feels like XI nerfs all over again. Once someone finds an easier way to make gil, they nerf it. And so, since you can easily make gil off Atomos, they nerf it.

I totaly agree with what SE is doing. Don't need the economy to be messed up when 2.0 hits. I only made gill to invest in better gear , not to hoard gill and not use it .