What Do You Think GGG's Stance is on These Bugged Items Being Made and Traded?

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DiabloImmoral wrote:

This entire league has been league of exploits. No one needs to be banned or punished. Just delete the items and move on.

How about we ban everyone who used any exploit during entire league. Would love to see that

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Bruh Empyrian (and his entire team)

I thought I was very clear the type of cheating I was referring to(3rd party tools that are not Awakened PoE Trade) Exploit cheating is very distinct from 3rd party tool cheating.

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Exploit cheating is very distinct from 3rd party tool cheating

No it's not. Cheating is cheating.

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No it's not. Cheating is cheating.

I agree, to clarify I was not referring to exploits being less cheating, just that the method of cheating is distinct.

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ShardFenix wrote:

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Exploit cheating is very distinct from 3rd party tool cheating

No it's not. Cheating is cheating.

You're conflating exploiting with cheating. One is simply taking advantage of a system. One is engaging in deceit to manipulate. It's like saying "crime is crime" so the punishment should be the same regardless. No. It may feel nice to posture like this, but anyone who puts more than half a second worth of genuine thought into this, knows a blanket punishment is not suitable.

If you crafted many of these items and sold them, then a temporary ban may be suitable.

If you bought or crafted one of these items, then a warning or a short ban may be appropriate.

If you RMT or do something stupid like that, then of course they're going to permanently ban you.

They also need to consider that it was their own fault this happened. Punishing people due to their own negligence will always involve a certain amount of hypocricy and evoke spite in an already non-retentive player-base. They need to be mindful not too be too harsh and absolutely need to ignore everyone talking about "bad precedents" etc.

THIS statement posted leaves NO debate to what needs to be done here, regardless of how many player accounts violated the rules and regardless of what league this was done in.

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If you uncover an exploit in Path of Exile and abuse it for your benefit, we will ban you.

Posted by Chris
on Apr 20, 2021, 9:43:37 AMGrinding Gear Games

GGG, literally ALL eyes are on you at this point. Whatever you choose to do about this situation will set a precedent for the future. Here's the straight up truth, many players WILLINGLY violated the rules of the game. This is a clear cut 100% justifiable instance where bans should be done. I'm all for fighting for the player but this exploit exposed the bad ones. This bug was exploited by players for their own gain, directly or indirectly.


There's NO plausible deniability here. ANYONE who's played this game for even 5 to 10 hours, let alone have made it past act 5 in the game knew full well that 1 handed weapons and shields are game legally restricted to 3 sockets. The only exceptions to this rule were those sanctioned by you, GGG. The only reason these threads look like it's debatable is because the violators are on here trying to twist, sugarcoat and justify their actions. Whether they made the items or bought and sold them, it's all been ill gotten gains.


"It's too many of us", "GGG won't/ can't ban that many people"

These are the comments that are most commonly said both IN game and on these forums regarding this. Don't prove them right. Bans have to be done for every single account that created the bugged items, as well as those that posted the illegal items for trade. If these players are not banned, then GGG sends out a clear message:

"Every future bug can be exploited with no consequences and as long as X amount of players are willing to follow suit"

The question will then be how many players is needed to violate the rules before GGG decides to ignore it or give a slap on the wrist with little to no punishment being done at all. Myself and many other players did NOT participate in the rule breaking strictly out of fear of risking our accounts being banned. If you remove the fear, then you remove the control of your players.

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Any gems socketed in these items are at risk for being destroyed when these items are fixed.

Clearly this was not only a warning shot but also a signal flag for a lack of faith in GGG following your own rules. No such warning should have been given out. Any gems within illegal items should not have any warning whatsoever. The same way there are no warnings given for other punishments from GGG. Players have been banned for MUCH lesser known offensives. You're normally tight lipped about what specifically is the cause for bans, mutes or probation causes; however there's two questions you 100% have to clarify for the players once and for all going forward:

What are exploits and what deems it bannable? Are bans based on numerical amount of players that violate the rules?

The result of your actions regarding this will encourage players to either follow the rules 100% OR break any rules as long as it's trendy. Myself and many other players that follow the rules will now be tempted to go with the "monkey see, monkey do" crowd. Exploit hits, do it, profit, sell off and hands are wiped clean.


TLDR: 1) Ban every account of those that created / crafted the bugged items.

2) Ban every account that sold the illegal items. It's easy for the
violators to have crafted on one account and passed off their profits
to a secondary one.

3) Delete or convert the bugged items back to normal versions, in ALL
leagues.



Edit: There has to be full accountability taken here. I stayed online literally 24 hours warning people in Global and trade chat telling them: Do not make or waste their currency on buying the bugged items. I did that so that anyone who WASN'T aware of the madness going on, wouldn't get caught up in what was going on as well as the future consequences. Some actually thanked me, others went about their business and did what they did. I know if I'd have not been aware of it and logged on unsuspecting; I'd have probably bought the items. Reading the forums, alot of us here did NOT partake in it; not cause we couldn't but strictly out of fear of getting our accounts banned on this clear as day exploit.

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TLDR: 1) Ban every account of those that created / crafted the bugged items.

2) Ban every account that sold the illegal items. It's easy for the
violators to have crafted on one account and passed off their profits
to a secondary one.

3) Delete or convert the bugged items back to normal versions, in ALL
leagues.

I'm quoting this because it's the easiest thing to quote apart from the novel you wrote.

Let's start with the obvious elephant in the room for you, banning the players who participated in the bugged interaction with a beast craft. My opinion is nobody is getting banned. Plain and simple. To use your own quotes of the Empy incident back in Ultimatum, which was a dramatic and huge influx of items flooding the economy that was not intended. They deserved the league ban. In fact I remember Empy flat out saying he knew what he was doing was wrong, but did it anyways cause big loot explosions. (Was fun to watch honestly).

Now that is a wildly different scenario to this incident that became public knowledge two days ago. Firstly, these items are not adding anything into the economy/item base that didnt already exist. Secondly, you have a HUGE majority of the community able to do this bugged interaction due to being late in the league, and the same items being easily and readily available in standard.

The exchange of hands concept perfectly describes how this is affecting the economic state. Items were made, money swapped hands, and some items became expensive where others didn't. Nothing crazy honestly as we see the same things happen all the time when a streamer or content creator finds some crazy interaction, or new build.

So again, I believe (not stating it as fact) that nobody will be banned. If someone does, it'll likely be the streamers who were showcasing this interaction live.

Secondly, I do agree with you that the items should be removed. They're dramatically powerful and not intended. However, to those who purchased these items, or spent time and crafted some, I believe their punishment is simply just losing said item, or losing the sockets. Economy will normalize, players will forget about this, and we will all move on and be happy little campers playing the game.



I also want to finish this off by saying a simple sentence my buddy told me as we were talking about this.

"Not everything in life is designed to fit everyone, this isn't Burger King, you can't always have it your way."

Why does this matter? Because you can moan and complain all day on here, in-game, on Reddit, on the Discord etc. However you're not making the decisions here. The developers are. If you're upset these items exist, I simply ask how does that affect your gameplay when you're in maps, fighting bosses, farming Delve, etc. It doesn't. If you have this negative outlook and always feel the need to be cognitive of whats going on in the game or breaking a rule, I have news for you. You're no longer having fun. You're no longer playing a game. But hey, to each their own.

At the end of the day, I'm gonna map, farm, play etc. 6L 1h or 3L who gives a shit, things still die on my screen, loot still drops, and I still get my excitement from shwings.

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WoT_Seanchan wrote:

GGG, literally ALL eyes are on you at this point.

Submits thesis with improper use of literally and an all-caps all in the opening sentence. Proceeds explain why if GGG doesn't follow his instructions, they're setting a bad precedent. Confuses a forum comment from Wilson from castaway with ToS.

I reckon we ban anyone who literally doesn't understand the word literally.
- Guy≥ToS

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hmcg020 wrote:

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WoT_Seanchan wrote:

GGG, literally ALL eyes are on you at this point.

Submits thesis with improper use of literally and an all-caps all in the opening sentence. Proceeds explain why if GGG doesn't follow his instructions, they're setting a bad precedent. Confuses a forum comment from Wilson from castaway with ToS.

I reckon we ban anyone who literally doesn't understand the word literally.
- Guy≥ToS

Ad hominem, or strawman? I'll go with the former. =0[.]o=

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WoT_Seanchan wrote:

I'm all for fighting for the player but this exploit exposed the bad ones. This bug was exploited by players for their own gain, directly or indirectly.

You say this, but then only focus on the creation of items with extra sockets and nothing else.

According to you, someone who crafted an illegal item and stuck it in their stash just in case the items survived...abused the item for their benefit and deserves to be banned. Where's the benefit if it was neither sold nor used prior to being fixed?

The deliberate omission from from your post makes it sound like someone who bought an illegal item and put it to use...somehow didn't abuse the item for their benefit?