Dark Devices - Exploitation

[celticprince]

The Definition of Exploitation is to do something against or around the conventional design of a function. Intentionally not completing an objective falls under that category.

Intentionally killing mobs for xp chain bonuses is not an exploit. That is working as intended.

ex·ploi·ta·tion
ˌeksploiˈtāSHən/
noun
noun: exploitation; plural noun: exploitations

1. the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work.
"the exploitation of migrant workers"
synonyms: taking advantage, abuse, misuse, ill-treatment, unfair treatment, oppression
"the exploitation of the poor"

2. the action of making use of and benefiting from resources.
"the Bronze Age saw exploitation of gold deposits"
synonyms: utilization, use, making use of, making the most of, capitalization on;
informalcashing in on
"the exploitation of mineral resources"
By your definition and the ones I posted above the vast majority of actions taken is an exploit, Grats, you killed one more mob then you needed to finish a quest. EXPLOIT! You bought that spear you needed for your carpenter leve instead of making it your self EXPLOIT!. Until SE comes out and says how people are doing Dark Devices is an exploit it is working as intended. With as many fates and quests i have seen that pretty much allow you to do this and encourages it it seems pretty clear to me this is working as intended and is not an exploit.

[Aikanar]

I find myself in agreement with CrimsonJenn's point of view. In a variation of 'A rose by any other name', this fits the definition of an exploit; it is done using a clearly unintentional game mechanic. Hiding behind a 'devs dind't called it an exploit' excuse is a wacky form of legalistic exploitation as well, one that relies on the fact that SE seldom interacts directly.

I must also thank the OP for giving me another opportunity for personal amusement. Until now I've never heard of the Dark Devices fate, or never paid attention to it. Now, I will purposely look for it and finish it as intended. For great justice!

[cainejw]

Hiding behind a 'devs dind't called it an exploit' excuse is a wacky form of legalistic exploitation as well, one that relies on the fact that SE seldom interacts directly.

Do you even know what legal semantics are? I would be arguing in the manner that celticprince argued. I would be providing you with a definition and picking apart, word for word, the contextual use of the term.

I am saying that only one group of people are allowed to decide what is or is not an exploit. That is the same group of people with expressed responsibility of developing this game and fixing those exploits. That would be the developers and associated staff.

CrimsonJenn seems to believe that she is an arbiter of gameplay. She gets to decide what is an exploit and she gets to decide how fast people should level. I'm saying that CrimsonJenn is nothing more than a player and should be taken as such--with no real power outside of a personal value and opinion.

[Iwazaru]

Well here's my side of this I guess on my server.

There's a huge fc full of lv50's that will camp where DD spawns just so they can instantly finish it before everyone else, and then berates/insults everyone in chat who asked them not to do it. This obviously stirred up a lot of people and there was a mass reporting of said players, last I heard they got in contact with a GM and the gm basically said if you have enough reports they will ban/suspend the person(s) in question...not sure if they got enough as I hit 50 and got the hell outta there but the level 50's doing it were complete dicks and would purposely steal other people's mobs when they were doing quests/grinding because why else would he sit there doing it...exp? lol

My point is, at least on my server, the insultations and whatnot are mostly coming from the people harrassing other players/camping the fate to instantly finish it (who are all at 50 might I add) just to piss off people on purpose. This is a weird situation, because it's a form of griefing that can't really be defined as straight griefing by a GM.

Farming the mobs in a fate is so not exploitation though, not by any stretch of the imagination, exploitation is about taking advantage of a mistake and this is obviously *not* a mistake and even if it was the exp gain from said mistake is so small/has such a small time window that you hardly gain anything from it. In fact I was farming the mobs in the mine in between fates with a party since there's such a large amount of downtime in that area, we were gaining the same amount of exp per min if not more due to getting all the mobs (except when the griefers were around trying to steal mobs from us) and it still wasn't THAT much but it was something to do in between fates that kept our exp gain per minute pretty high.

Regardless, ANY gathering fates can be exploited in exactly the same manner, ANY boss fate can be exploited similarly (though it requires someone tanking the boss while the rest of the group kills the adds/heals the tank) it's just people choose not to do those for whatever reason.
There would have been a seriously easy fix to both of the above situations aka gathering fates automatically turn in any piece of whatever you pick up or get from kills and adds on spawn at certain %'s of the boss's health. But no, it's designed this way on purpose for whatever reason, and I have faith that SE's design team know what the hell they're doing after designing 20+ final fantasy games, not to mention whatever other games they've designed.

You want to see real exploits, look up anything about people being banned from GW2 1-2 weeks after launch. So many exploits happened due to gw2's design team being a bunch of idiots.

[azphyxxxiate]

Maybe they'll just get rid of it altogether Then everyone can just stfu.

[celticprince]

Maybe they'll just get rid of it altogether Then everyone can just stfu.

Wouldn't that be something lol.

[celticprince]

So a real exploit, the speed runs of AK, have been fixed.

from the patch notes:

The following adjustments and countermeasures have been implemented:

-Changes have been made to the behavior and mechanics of the enemies found within the “The Wanderer’s Palace” and “Amdapor Keep” dungeons to counteract instances of players running through the dungeon without engaging enemies on the way to bosses.
As advancing through dungeons without defeating enemies is not an intended strategy, we plan to continue making further changes in the future to discourage this type of behavior.
-In instance dungeon “The Wanderer's Palace” and “Amdapor Keep”, we have increased the amount of AllaganCoins that can be obtained from a treasure chest.

IF dd was such a bad exploit then why was it not addressed as well?

So one real game affecting issue resolved and an auto log out of afk players implemented.
Feel better now people? Can everyone go back to getting along and playing how they see fit and letting SE decide whats an exploit and needs fixing, while leaving each other alone about their play style and refrain from meaningless death threats?

[CrimsonJenn]

The problem is the mobs being killed are not required in any way towards the event yet they spawn endlessly so players take advantage of this, and anyone who tries to finish the event normally is scorned and assaulted. The design of the endlessly spawning mobs is that they slow down the group or act as sort of a minion deterrent like an villain sending his henchmen to slow down the heroes. It adds tension and a fun aspect to the event itself taking advantage of this and just sitting there for 20 minutes was definitely not the intention of the design. Now, if the people doing the event grinded while a small few slowly achieved the goal this would fit the design, you know the whole well hold them off save the princess heroes! All in all, i don't think badly of people using the exploit frankly its part of MMO culture to find inventive ways around problems leveling included. I just think we could benefit more from more rewarding and interesting fate designs in general than relying on a small aspect of a few.

[celticprince]

Did you design it? are you the writer responsible for the fate's story? mighty presumptuous to claim what the design is intended to be if you had nothing to do with it. it would be like someone other than me explaining the point of the missions I wrote for the MMORPG The Repopulation. The fact remains no one is capable of stopping you from completing it. All they can do is blacklist you and keep you from joining their party or free company and act like immature punks and call you names. The chain killing of mobs for the ludicrously high xp chains can be done anywhere with enough effort.

No the real problem here is bigots and idiots treating anyone not playing how they do like trash. Nothing SE can do will fix that and it has nothing to do with the fate itself. Just happens to be a popular event and when crowds form people butt heads.

[CrimsonJenn]

It's not presumptuous at all, in fact i even quoted from the fate itself. The story plays out about people being kidnapped for a sacrifice, the twist being that the people you were sent to save were actually the cult leaders. And I think many are misinterpreting my intentions, I for one don't want the grind removed, i just want it to have a purpose during the fate itself. In fact i would greatly enjoy the idea of the monsters progressively getting stronger throughout the fate duration and giving greater rewards, this would greatly set a feel of urgency and excitement to an otherwise monotonous grind. As for the the immediate objective with the sheeps and such i would like to see the grind aspect continue through the entirely of the FATES rounds. Rather than just being subject to the first one thus the importance of the grinders keeping the objective crew safe from an onslaught of endlessly spawning enemies that grow in fervor at the plight of their cult leader. Interesting concept no?

As for being an "Arbiter" or whatever, your right I am just a player and my lone voice carries no weight as is the same for yours. Some of the greatest things in gaming started out as exploits or bugs, this could prove no different i don't seek its destruction only its evolution into something much greater.