Recent Economic Abuse

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DalaiLama wrote:

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PhrozenEclipse wrote:

If the ATM spits out money and you just continually take from it knowing its not supposed to you go to jail when you are caught for theft

Absolutely false analogy. When you withdraw money from an ATM, you are taking out money that is yours, possibly paying a fee for that exchange, and have agreed to be liable for withdrawals, including possibly a sizeable penalty for over withdrawals. Your card/account terms do not allow you to withdraw money that isn't yours (subject to loan agreements). Game drops are allowed by the game and aren't forbidden. You aren't withdrawing drops that were yours to begin with. If people were pulling more currency/cards out of their stash, than their stash had, it would be such an exploit.

The "exploit" was like a bank offering a 25 cent account credit for people who never used a bank branch office, 25 cents credit for people who only used their phone app to check balances and double credits for people who didn't use their account during peak hours, and the bank not realizing someone could $1.00 in credit not just per day, but for hundreds of transactions every day.

A bank would halt such promotions and rewrite the rules. GGG should be declaring Mea Culpa on this bug.

If GGG ever implemented diminishing returns, they would never have largely exploitable bugs. GGG has hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue. They can prevent these problems. Every league presents new potentially exploitable mechanisms. Some are for more damage, some for more survivability, some are for more loot. Previous "the Vision" patches only enforce the idea that GGG implements many such loopholes on purpose.

That one small group would find them and utilize them to such a disadvantage of everyone else is almost certainly NOT what GGG wanted. They are well within their rights to stop such exploits.

The blame lies in the mirror though in this case. This wasn't some weird manipulation of the game that forced errors.

Imagine if their was a league where people were running T7 maps and making a fortune.... if such a thing had happened, surely we would remember it, and GGG could have learned from that.

They already gate many things behind certain bosses and map tiers. This was easily preventable on GGG's part

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Pathological wrote:

"

DalaiLama wrote:

"

PhrozenEclipse wrote:

If the ATM spits out money and you just continually take from it knowing its not supposed to you go to jail when you are caught for theft

Absolutely false analogy. When you withdraw money from an ATM, you are taking out money that is yours, possibly paying a fee for that exchange, and have agreed to be liable for withdrawals, including possibly a sizeable penalty for over withdrawals. Your card/account terms do not allow you to withdraw money that isn't yours (subject to loan agreements). Game drops are allowed by the game and aren't forbidden. You aren't withdrawing drops that were yours to begin with. If people were pulling more currency/cards out of their stash, than their stash had, it would be such an exploit.

The "exploit" was like a bank offering a 25 cent account credit for people who never used a bank branch office, 25 cents credit for people who only used their phone app to check balances and double credits for people who didn't use their account during peak hours, and the bank not realizing someone could $1.00 in credit not just per day, but for hundreds of transactions every day.

A bank would halt such promotions and rewrite the rules. GGG should be declaring Mea Culpa on this bug.

If GGG ever implemented diminishing returns, they would never have largely exploitable bugs. GGG has hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue. They can prevent these problems. Every league presents new potentially exploitable mechanisms. Some are for more damage, some for more survivability, some are for more loot. Previous "the Vision" patches only enforce the idea that GGG implements many such loopholes on purpose.

That one small group would find them and utilize them to such a disadvantage of everyone else is almost certainly NOT what GGG wanted. They are well within their rights to stop such exploits.

The blame lies in the mirror though in this case. This wasn't some weird manipulation of the game that forced errors.

Imagine if their was a league where people were running T7 maps and making a fortune.... if such a thing had happened, surely we would remember it, and GGG could have learned from that.

They already gate many things behind certain bosses and map tiers. This was easily preventable on GGG's part

It's easily preventable in hindsight; it's essentially impossible to foresee everything players will do.

You're right, the bank analogy is terrible, primarily because the number of interactions is infinitely smaller than the number that get changed and updated every league-start in PoE.

Again; exploit does not mean directly use a bug - it means misuse a weakness. Nobody using this exploit was unaware of its position as a massive outlier. The people using this strategy weren't doing so by mistake, nor are they the kind of people who don't well understand PoE and know that such output would be vastly outside the normal for the investment.

There is some grey area where it would be reasonable for players to believe something was intended (not by being mechanically allowed, but by clear historical basis) despite it not being so. This is not that. This provided VASTLY higher return than any player experienced enough to be using it could reasonably believe was intended.

It's not a matter of one party or the other being at fault; both are at fault. GGG doesn't "owe" people anything - it is their property and their rules. It's not a case of "well, GGG fucked up so everyone who used the mechanic is expunged of personal responsibility and immune from reprisal". Both parties fucked up, but game development is hard and bugs and balance issues are expected, while exploitation (of bugs and of functioning oversights) is not.

"

BuyTradeSell wrote:

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PhrozenEclipse wrote:

I get you guys point, however, you are going to have to try harder if it is your stance that GGG "Intended" for one specific mechanic to drop you 1k raw divines in under a week. It is not "Reasonable" to believe that as a result of said intended mechanic that the drops that did drop where therefore intended. Those are completely separate issues. Once the "intended" mechanic was used and found to have "Unintended" results(btw, there is loads of evidence to support that GGG doesn't intend this from prior events), it should have been reported. No one is arguing the mechanic, but to insinuate that you thought GGG intended to ruin the economy in this way is not a valid argument and you all know it.

Well you clearly dont understand what they did because they werent dropping raw divines. So maybe youre unaware of what our arguments are since youre unaware of the methods they used to farm their currency.

You are going to have to try harder to show that a divination card that only takes one card, turns in for 5 divines, is clearly shown to be able to drop on Tier 1 maps (Blocking all other Div card drops, very common mechanic in this game) and implementing an ability to Scry maps and change the div cards to drop from other maps, using scarabs which guarantee divination card drops from rare packs and scarabs which duplicate divination cards at bosses, Isnt working exactly as one would expect and intended.

You keep using the "result" to justify the method. The methods used were intended. The result being good are not on the player, thats on GGG. Again no one is saying GGG cant say "Oops our bad, delete the gains, fix the problem. The issue is the Ban for using the exactly intended mechanics exactly as they are shown, with the exact expected result and being banned for it.

Delete the divines, who cares? Dont ban people for playing the game exactly as they showed just because the result isnt what was expected. This is "Abusing" a mechanic like using Heist to get jewelry for chaos recipes. Just because the currency received is lower doesnt mean that you arent using the mechanics exactly as they are presented to the players.

"

Pathological wrote:

"

DalaiLama wrote:

"

PhrozenEclipse wrote:

If the ATM spits out money and you just continually take from it knowing its not supposed to you go to jail when you are caught for theft

Absolutely false analogy. When you withdraw money from an ATM, you are taking out money that is yours, possibly paying a fee for that exchange, and have agreed to be liable for withdrawals, including possibly a sizeable penalty for over withdrawals. Your card/account terms do not allow you to withdraw money that isn't yours (subject to loan agreements). Game drops are allowed by the game and aren't forbidden. You aren't withdrawing drops that were yours to begin with. If people were pulling more currency/cards out of their stash, than their stash had, it would be such an exploit.

The "exploit" was like a bank offering a 25 cent account credit for people who never used a bank branch office, 25 cents credit for people who only used their phone app to check balances and double credits for people who didn't use their account during peak hours, and the bank not realizing someone could $1.00 in credit not just per day, but for hundreds of transactions every day.

A bank would halt such promotions and rewrite the rules. GGG should be declaring Mea Culpa on this bug.

If GGG ever implemented diminishing returns, they would never have largely exploitable bugs. GGG has hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue. They can prevent these problems. Every league presents new potentially exploitable mechanisms. Some are for more damage, some for more survivability, some are for more loot. Previous "the Vision" patches only enforce the idea that GGG implements many such loopholes on purpose.

That one small group would find them and utilize them to such a disadvantage of everyone else is almost certainly NOT what GGG wanted. They are well within their rights to stop such exploits.

The blame lies in the mirror though in this case. This wasn't some weird manipulation of the game that forced errors.

Imagine if their was a league where people were running T7 maps and making a fortune.... if such a thing had happened, surely we would remember it, and GGG could have learned from that.

They already gate many things behind certain bosses and map tiers. This was easily preventable on GGG's part

It's easily preventable in hindsight; it's essentially impossible to foresee everything players will do.

You're right, the bank analogy is terrible, primarily because the number of interactions is infinitely smaller than the number that get changed and updated every league-start in PoE.

Again; exploit does not mean directly use a bug - it means misuse a weakness. Nobody using this exploit was unaware of its position as a massive outlier. The people using this strategy weren't doing so by mistake, nor are they the kind of people who don't well understand PoE and know that such output would be vastly outside the normal for the investment.

There is some grey area where it would be reasonable for players to believe something was intended (not by being mechanically allowed, but by clear historical basis) despite it not being so. This is not that. This provided VASTLY higher return than any player experienced enough to be using it could reasonably believe was intended.

It's not a matter of one party or the other being at fault; both are at fault. GGG doesn't "owe" people anything - it is their property and their rules. It's not a case of "well, GGG fucked up so everyone who used the mechanic is expunged of personal responsibility and immune from reprisal". Both parties fucked up, but game development is hard and bugs and balance issues are expected, while exploitation (of bugs and of functioning oversights) is not.

"

Lucky_Kudja wrote:

"

BuyTradeSell wrote:

"

PhrozenEclipse wrote:

I get you guys point, however, you are going to have to try harder if it is your stance that GGG "Intended" for one specific mechanic to drop you 1k raw divines in under a week. It is not "Reasonable" to believe that as a result of said intended mechanic that the drops that did drop where therefore intended. Those are completely separate issues. Once the "intended" mechanic was used and found to have "Unintended" results(btw, there is loads of evidence to support that GGG doesn't intend this from prior events), it should have been reported. No one is arguing the mechanic, but to insinuate that you thought GGG intended to ruin the economy in this way is not a valid argument and you all know it.

Well you clearly dont understand what they did because they werent dropping raw divines. So maybe youre unaware of what our arguments are since youre unaware of the methods they used to farm their currency.

You are going to have to try harder to show that a divination card that only takes one card, turns in for 5 divines, is clearly shown to be able to drop on Tier 1 maps (Blocking all other Div card drops, very common mechanic in this game) and implementing an ability to Scry maps and change the div cards to drop from other maps, using scarabs which guarantee divination card drops from rare packs and scarabs which duplicate divination cards at bosses, Isnt working exactly as one would expect and intended.

You keep using the "result" to justify the method. The methods used were intended. The result being good are not on the player, thats on GGG. Again no one is saying GGG cant say "Oops our bad, delete the gains, fix the problem. The issue is the Ban for using the exactly intended mechanics exactly as they are shown, with the exact expected result and being banned for it.

Delete the divines, who cares? Dont ban people for playing the game exactly as they showed just because the result isnt what was expected. This is "Abusing" a mechanic like using Heist to get jewelry for chaos recipes. Just because the currency received is lower doesnt mean that you arent using the mechanics exactly as they are presented to the players.

I could not agree more, banning players in this case is not the right move. I see mainly two groups arguing over what happened:

Group A: It’s unreasonable to believe GGG intended for a mechanic to yield such high rewards and claims that unintended results should be reported.

Group B: The methods used (e.g., farming specific divination cards through map scrying and scarabs) were within the game’s mechanics and worked as expected. They believe the bans were unfair since players were following the intended game mechanics, and any unintended consequences should be addressed by GGG without penalizing players.

My Perspective:
Given that players were using in-game mechanics as presented, it leans more towards clever use of game mechanics rather than outright exploitation. However, developers might view it as an economic abuse if it significantly disrupts game economy. Clear communication and guidelines from the development team are essential to prevent such situations and ensure fair play. Vote with your wallet, if you do not support the ban, do not give them money this league. That is my decision.

"

Pathological wrote:

"

DalaiLama wrote:

"

PhrozenEclipse wrote:

If the ATM spits out money and you just continually take from it knowing its not supposed to you go to jail when you are caught for theft

Absolutely false analogy. When you withdraw money from an ATM, you are taking out money that is yours, possibly paying a fee for that exchange, and have agreed to be liable for withdrawals, including possibly a sizeable penalty for over withdrawals. Your card/account terms do not allow you to withdraw money that isn't yours (subject to loan agreements). Game drops are allowed by the game and aren't forbidden. You aren't withdrawing drops that were yours to begin with. If people were pulling more currency/cards out of their stash, than their stash had, it would be such an exploit.

The "exploit" was like a bank offering a 25 cent account credit for people who never used a bank branch office, 25 cents credit for people who only used their phone app to check balances and double credits for people who didn't use their account during peak hours, and the bank not realizing someone could $1.00 in credit not just per day, but for hundreds of transactions every day.

A bank would halt such promotions and rewrite the rules. GGG should be declaring Mea Culpa on this bug.

If GGG ever implemented diminishing returns, they would never have largely exploitable bugs. GGG has hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue. They can prevent these problems. Every league presents new potentially exploitable mechanisms. Some are for more damage, some for more survivability, some are for more loot. Previous "the Vision" patches only enforce the idea that GGG implements many such loopholes on purpose.

That one small group would find them and utilize them to such a disadvantage of everyone else is almost certainly NOT what GGG wanted. They are well within their rights to stop such exploits.

The blame lies in the mirror though in this case. This wasn't some weird manipulation of the game that forced errors.

Imagine if their was a league where people were running T7 maps and making a fortune.... if such a thing had happened, surely we would remember it, and GGG could have learned from that.

They already gate many things behind certain bosses and map tiers. This was easily preventable on GGG's part

It's easily preventable in hindsight; it's essentially impossible to foresee everything players will do.

You're right, the bank analogy is terrible, primarily because the number of interactions is infinitely smaller than the number that get changed and updated every league-start in PoE.

Again; exploit does not mean directly use a bug - it means misuse a weakness. Nobody using this exploit was unaware of its position as a massive outlier. The people using this strategy weren't doing so by mistake, nor are they the kind of people who don't well understand PoE and know that such output would be vastly outside the normal for the investment.

There is some grey area where it would be reasonable for players to believe something was intended (not by being mechanically allowed, but by clear historical basis) despite it not being so. This is not that. This provided VASTLY higher return than any player experienced enough to be using it could reasonably believe was intended.

It's not a matter of one party or the other being at fault; both are at fault. GGG doesn't "owe" people anything - it is their property and their rules. It's not a case of "well, GGG fucked up so everyone who used the mechanic is expunged of personal responsibility and immune from reprisal". Both parties fucked up, but game development is hard and bugs and balance issues are expected, while exploitation (of bugs and of functioning oversights) is not.