Hard Mode {Found It}

[Kaeko]

TL;DR version:
Agree to disagree

With all due respect Kaeko, I disagree with your assertion that doing things legitimately is worthless and/or largely negated by the fact that nothing in this game "truly requires anything beyond 2, maybe 3 players" by virtue of the exploits you have so usefully assisted in bringing to light.

You have, I submit, incorrectly substituted the fact that you can currently cheat the system in order to succeed due to SE's many failings in the game mechanics department as the true "mark of accomplishment" with killing these various things traditionally. By traditionally I mean with a party without intentional use of exploits.

I fully agree with you on your points (2), (4) and (5) insofar as those exploits engage themselves passively whether you seek them out or not in every encounter you enter into and so diminish all our achievements universally. In other words, their universality levels the playing field and so makes their detrimental effect on the difficulty of any given achievement moot (because everybody who posts a video glorifying themselves is passively suffering from (2), (4) and also sometimes (5)). I should say this in no way diminishes their damaging effect on the game and their being fixed should still be high priority for SE. I share your hope of these mechanics being altered for the better.

Anyhow, I agree there are exploits that engage themselves without conscious action by players but saying "Look, I did this solo because I specifically targeted the failings in the game and exploited them to succeed, and therefore those who did not specifically target the failings to succeed and simply did it "as intended" or as close to that as possible haven't achieved anything" is somewhat skewed. For me that is akin to saying "You earned your money by working all day, I earned it by defrauding my insurance company without much effort, therefore people who work for their money haven't achieved anything". Yes that analogy is a stretch but it's the closest one I could think of.

Anyhow that's all.

P.S. Keiko keep up the good work bug testing their game for them. They need it.

P.P.S. Good on you OP for going out there with other people and trying new things.

Let me know if I missed the main points of your argument, but you are saying that the difference between the videos I presented and the 8man group killing the ogre is essentially intent - that is I knowing sought to exploit the most broken aspects of the game whereas they only unintentionally did so (and therefore did so to a lesser extent). The analogy that what I did is akin to defrauding a bank and what they did is more legit (like a hard working everyman) is used.

I think I personally meet you about half way on this line of thought.

In disagreement with you, I feel that we all have different "standards" when it comes to legit ways to fighting something. I believe that whether you knowingly or unknowingly abuse some massively broken aspect of the game, you are still benefiting. To extend this line of thought, which aspects are truly "broken" and which are simply just strong, intentional mechanics of the game can be blurry at times (for instance I saw you did not consider shield mechanics "broken"). Because in some rarer situations, "exploits" are hard to distinguish from variants of normal gameplay, I just usually say screw it if you can do it without 3rd party tools or overclocking your computer then it's all the same to me.

In agreement with you and continuing, just because someone (in this case me) thinks all these videos are the same, and there's really no difference in terms of exploitation does not mean everyone shares my opinion. In fact, I would probably be in the minority and you the majority if we somehow did a straw-poll. When we get into the realm of player-created challenges like solos and these high level mob group videos (where the goals are set by players, not developers), every player/group is truly entitled to their own opinion and most importantly their own sense of accomplishment. So while I roll my eyes a bit when I see someone post a celebration-parade post about 8-manning a Lv87 ogre or a Lv90 Basilisk, I'm sure many others truly see it as a great accomplishment.

In summary, we do these player-created challenges for a sense of accomplishment. What we deem as valid challenges versus invalid challenges will definitely vary group to group, issue to issue. This should not diminish our personal sense of accomplishment when we meet our own goals. This is why I am always extremely upfront and precise when describing how I solo something. It allows the person reading it to personally judge "is this valid to me or not?" and they can then make their own decision as to the validity of the method.

[AngryNixon]

TL;DR version:
Agree to disagree



Let me know if I missed the main points of your argument, but you are saying that the difference between the videos I presented and the 8man group killing the ogre is essentially intent - that is I knowing sought to exploit the most broken aspects of the game whereas they only unintentionally did so (and therefore did so to a lesser extent). The analogy that what I did is akin to defrauding a bank and what they did is more legit (like a hard working everyman) is used.

I think I personally meet you about half way on this line of thought.

In disagreement with you, I feel that we all have different "standards" when it comes to legit ways to fighting something. I believe that whether you knowingly or unknowingly abuse some massively broken aspect of the game, you are still benefiting. To extend this line of thought, which aspects are truly "broken" and which are simply just strong, intentional mechanics of the game can be blurry at times (for instance I saw you did not consider shield mechanics "broken"). Because in some rarer situations, "exploits" are hard to distinguish from variants of normal gameplay, I just usually say screw it if you can do it without 3rd party tools or overclocking your computer then it's all the same to me.

In agreement with you and continuing, just because someone (in this case me) thinks all these videos are the same, and there's really no difference in terms of exploitation does not mean everyone shares my opinion. In fact, I would probably be in the minority and you the majority if we somehow did a straw-poll. When we get into the realm of player-created challenges like solos and these high level mob group videos (where the goals are set by players, not developers), every player/group is truly entitled to their own opinion and most importantly their own sense of accomplishment. So while I roll my eyes a bit when I see someone post a celebration-parade post about 8-manning a Lv87 ogre or a Lv90 Basilisk, I'm sure many others truly see it as a great accomplishment.

In summary, we do these player-created challenges for a sense of accomplishment. What we deem as valid challenges versus invalid challenges will definitely vary group to group, issue to issue. This should not diminish our personal sense of accomplishment when we meet our own goals. This is why I am always extremely upfront and precise when describing how I solo something. It allows the person reading it to personally judge "is this valid to me or not?" and they can then make their own decision as to the validity of the method.

Agree to disagree on some points indeed

There is an underlying extended logic to my original post but both our walls of text have been cordial and I found your counter-argument quite pleasant. So in the spirit of amity I shan't tire you with another wall of counter-arguments lol.