Players are being given 72 hours bans for unlocking waypoints for another player/account with turtle.

[Sobx.1758]

2 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Could be true, but that doesn't really change the fact that if doing something doesn't feel 'right' in an MMO, even if the mechanics allow it, people shouldn't feign ignorant when something bad happens to them when they do it. Those people will never be on the safe side. 

I don't see in what way this is supposed to "not feel right". Whether the players would get ported to wps as turtle passengers or not, both would actually "feel right" to me. The only difference is "what the devs want it to be", nothing more.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Obtena.7952]

2 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

I don't see in what way this is supposed to "not feel right". Whether the players would get ported to wps as turtle passengers or not, both would actually "feel right" to me. The only difference is "what the devs want it to be", nothing more.

Comes down to intuition I guess. Being ferried around on a mount for map completion definitely wouldn't feel right to me. 

[Jedrik.3109]

11 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Imagine being banned for playing the game in unintended ways ... what a concept. I'm sure that when Anet developed the Turtle, they all sat around and said "kitten, such a good idea to let someone else do map completion for you". 

But hey, sure, let people sit around stunned that there was a negative impact on doing something that was questionable in the first place. 

Funny because the way I found out you could help others unlocking a way point this way was from an anet dev in Dragon's End. 

 

...

"Best community"

[Obtena.7952]

1 minute ago, Jedrik.3109 said:

Funny because the way I found out you could help others unlocking a way point this way was from an anet dev in Dragon's End. 

 

...

"Best community"

Sure, he told you it could be done. That doesn't sound like an endorsement though. FAFO I guess. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Sobx.1758]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

Comes down to intuition I guess. Being ferried around on a mount for map completion definitely wouldn't feel right to me. 

What intuition? You understand that for the past few posts you basically... wrote nothing?

[Jedrik.3109]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

Sure, he told you it could be done. That doesn't sound like an endorsement though. 

He literally got me all the way points.

...

[Obtena.7952]

2 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

What intuition? You understand that for the past few posts you basically... wrote nothing?

Ironic question.

What intuition ... the intuition SOME people have for using questionable mechanics as a veteran MMO player. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Obtena.7952]

1 minute ago, Jedrik.3109 said:

He literally got me all the way points.

...

OK ... good for you I guess. 

[Jedrik.3109]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

OK ... good for you I guess. 

Are you ok?

[Sobx.1758]

2 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Ironic.

What intuition ... the intuition SOME people have for using questionable mechanics as a veteran MMO player. 

Ironic how?

Again, in what way anyone should think anything about doing this is unintended (or being a "questionable mechnic")? Even moreso in light of the posts of the other user above?

 

1 minute ago, Jedrik.3109 said:

Are you ok?

I think that summs it up, ty 😅

Edited December 3, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[BjorJlen.9674]

Some very good points said here all around in my view, though I "think" having Arnet using a program to detect speed hacking, and the Turtle being flagged as such by "accident", is more the case. Turtle's have been used like this for quite a while now with no issue at all (same with chairs which are mounts, as has been said as well), so perhaps this is a new'ish program Arnet is now using these days. I myself hope so, because if this isn't the case, it's a big shift in what they consider breaking the rules of the ToS. Communication is key here, as always, and so I will be very interested in hearing a reply from them here in the coming week (as yeah, they more than likely don't work "much" on the weekends). However, if they don't respond to this thread/concerns, openlly & with transparency, that too will be a reply of sorts as well... and not a good one. For like in RL, whenever there is a lack of communication, everything can go to crap very quickly. 🤔

[Jedrik.3109]

1 minute ago, Obtena.7952 said:

OK ... good for you I guess. 

19 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

 

And all the others he helped with way points mon-fri for 5 months on Dragon's End when I used to lead it.

So yeah. Good for us..

..I guess.

[Sobx.1758]

Just now, Jedrik.3109 said:

And all the others he helped with way points mon-fri for 5 months on Dragon's End when I used to lead it.

So yeah. Good for us..

..I guess.

Just, um.... just because they're using it and spreading information about it for the players to use, it... um, you know, it doesn't mean they're... endorsing it?
I think that's about how it will go. Because apparently at this point that 2-post trench is too deep to get out of no matter what you'll say. 😉

[Neferpitouh.4356]

14 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Comes down to intuition I guess. Being ferried around on a mount for map completion definitely wouldn't feel right to me. 

It does not matter how does it "feels" to anyone. If there were not enough benefits to justify the "weirdness", anet wouldn't allow it. The only thing that matter is ToS and anet's stance.

Let's brainstorm some benefits;

- Turtle is the most useless/underwhelming mount in the game. Ability to taxi people/alt accounts to WP's highly boosts its selling value.

- It allows people to socialize. Provides vetaran players with turtle mounts a way to help newer people. Or just any other player that finds manually activating WPs extremely boring. There is no shame or weirdness in this especially if you consider the full WP unlocks on the cash shop.

- Allows new players to ignore the biggest wall of chore they'll hit in the game, preventing burn themselves out on a fully dark map.

.

.

.

and so on.

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Neferpitouh.4356

[Neo K.9145]

12 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I think I've reverse-engineered what is happening.  There's hacks out there that players use for map completion that just teleports them to each POI and WP as needed.  Anet responds to this by creating a program to detect when this is happening via seeing when players are teleporting about without using the waypoint.  This has an unintended side effect because the program cannot tell when someone is injecting code to teleport around vs. when somebody is riding the turtle, because the only thing being checked is if somebody is teleporting.  

This is what I believe as well and why I mentioned that the 'solution' for now might be to simply go slower. Don't unlock all of core tyria in one day and spread it out. When this feature was discovered on the tea chair ANet flat out winked and said have fun, and devs have even told players about it in game so I really don't think they've decided it's illegal it's just that their autodetection is picking up false positives, which is still bad. 

29 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Imagine being banned for playing the game in unintended ways ... what a concept. I'm sure that when Anet developed the Turtle, they all sat around and said "kitten, such a good idea to let someone else do map completion for you". 

But hey, sure, let people sit around stunned that there was a negative impact on doing something that was questionable in the first place. 

It's actually not unintended. The tea time chair was the first game item that made this possible and when people asked ANet about it they flat out said have fun, and devs have pointed it out in game and told players about it with the turtle as well. It's basically a side effect from the fact that we can WP with mounts and it's easier to just let us do this than it is to develop a way to disable WP unlocking when a passenger. That's a ton of dev time for something the game isn't designed to do.

[Obtena.7952]

10 minutes ago, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

It does not matter how does it "feels" to anyone. If there were enough benefits to justify the "weirdness", anet wouldn't allow it. The only thing that matter is ToS and anet's stance.

Let's brainstorm some benefits;

- Turtle is the most useless/underwhelming mount in the game. Ability to taxi people/alt accounts to WP's highly boosts its selling value.

- It allows people to socialize. Provides vetaran players with turtle mounts a way to help newer people. Or just any other player that finds manually activating WPs extremely boring. There is no shame or weirdness in this especially if you consider the full WP unlocks on the cash shop.

- Allows new players to ignore the biggest wall of chore they'll hit in the game, preventing burn themselves out on a fully dark map.

.

.

.

and so on.

 

So here is some history ... there have been instances  ingame where people were exploiting mechanics for 'benefits' for a long time that suddenly resulted in them getting banned. Just because they were able to do those things, for any length of time, doesn't mean it wasn't a problem for Anet or the TOS. Hence, if something feels too good, the risk is on the PLAYER to decided to use that mechanic or not. 

I'm not debating there are 'benefits' or what they are. Is this temp ban some conflicting set of systems/mechanics in the game? Could be, probably is ... but MAYBE it's not so ... proceed at your own risk. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Sobx.1758]

7 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

So here is some history ... there have been instances  ingame where people were exploiting mechanics for 'benefits' for a long time that suddenly resulted in them getting banned. Just because they were able to do those things, for any length of time, doesn't mean it wasn't a problem for Anet or the TOS. Hence, if something feels too good, the risk is on the PLAYER to decided to use that mechanic or not.

Ok. Like what, specifically?

Edited December 3, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[kharmin.7683]

8 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Ok. Like what, specifically?

Careful.  It's against the CoC to discuss exploits.

[BjorJlen.9674]

21 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

So here is some history ... there have been instances  ingame where people were exploiting mechanics for 'benefits' for a long time that suddenly resulted in them getting banned. Just because they were able to do those things, for any length of time, doesn't mean it wasn't a problem for Anet or the TOS. Hence, if something feels too good, the risk is on the PLAYER to decided to use that mechanic or not. 

I'm not debating there are 'benefits' or what they are. Is this temp ban some conflicting set of systems/mechanics in the game? Could be, probably is ... but MAYBE it's not so ... proceed at your own risk. 

You make a very valid point there, but I do not exactly understand your logic. Please define the term "exploiting mechanic's". In the history of gaming, players have always discovered ways' to use established in game mechanics to do things that the Dev's never even thought of. Combo's being a great example of this. Dev's don't know everything after all, and while they may have "intended" such mechanic to be used in a certain way, it is a Dev with very little game experience to believe such things don't, or shouldn't happen. Creativity by the players is a great thing after all, and that should be applauded, not frowned down upon.

Is hacking not cool, and should be prevented as much as possible? Of course. But in my experience at least, there is really no such thing as a exploitable mechanic IF said mechanic was put into a game by the Dev's themselves. It just comes down to how a player wants to play a game, and use a established mechanic is all. That's one of the things that make Gw2 so great right? Play how you want to play. So long as it is not against the ToS, and is not a "hack", then it's just personal preference on the player in how they want to play the game. So while you make some good points, the exploiting mechanic comment still confuses me. After all, people who play Mesmer's are able to TP people to Waypoints, Masteries, and such, which I would assume not all Dev's thought would happen, nor even "intended" it to be used as such. Is that a exploiting mechanic? Nope. That's just creative use of an established mechanic is all... 🙂

Edited December 3, 2023 by BjorJlen.9674
Dang typo's.... lol

[Lucius.2140]

57 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Imagine being banned for playing the game in unintended ways ... what a concept. I'm sure that when Anet developed the Turtle, they all sat around and said "kitten, such a good idea to let someone else do map completion for you". 

But hey, sure, let people sit around stunned that there was a negative impact on doing something that was questionable in the first place. 

The turtle concept was a taxi mount where one player could give a free ride to his friend. So i doubt they didn't think someone will use it to move around the map and discover it....

Edited December 3, 2023 by Lucius.2140

[Sobx.1758]

3 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Careful.  It's against the CoC to discuss exploits.

I'm not asking obtena about any specific instructions in regards of "how to exploit whatever", I'm asking what he's referring to.

[Manpag.6421]

30 minutes ago, Neferpitouh.4356 said:

That's not what it means. It is not against ToS even when you are multiboxing. One keystroke is still responsible for one action on one account when using turtles. That is teleporting to a waypoint on the account that owns the turtle. The other account teleporting along with the turtle user is just intented game mechanic. By your logic even riding turtles on normal way or using skiff would be against the ToS.

That may be rules as intended, which is why I specified “as written”, i.e. a literal reading of the rules. And yes, in the strictest sense that would include both normal turtle use and the skiff, because one movement action is moving characters by the same amount on both accounts, so in logs both movement events would have identical timestamps. In your example, each ready confirmation would have a different timestamp, and that is your “action” to enter the instance.

I don’t know if that’s intentional, but again: this is just a literal reading of the rules. It’s rare that ANet ever come out and give us specifics, because the more specific they are, the more loopholes they risk creating. In the absence of an official exception, we’re both speculating, and any ambiguous rules open themselves up to both a conservative and more open interpretation.

In any case, I suspect the reason this specific issue is happening has nothing to do with simultaneous actions on different accounts, and more to do with how the game logs events. I’d imagine using a waypoint, or other method of teleportation (Teleport to Friend, mesmer portals, Prototype Position Rewinder etc) logs an action on your account before the movement, but because the player being carried doesn’t interact with the waypoint, all that is logged is the sudden position change. If this happens enough times without a corresponding action beforehand, that’s going to raise some flags. And it isn’t as simple as “check if the player is mounted”, because otherwise players using teleport hacks will just mount up first to avoid detection.

It might be possible to test this by the second player using the waypoint they’ve just teleported to before the first player goes to the next each time, because if you’re stood on the waypoint, you won’t move anywhere and so there would be waypoint interaction > teleport in the logs. But I guess that depends whether whatever new system is in place checks which waypoint has been used, or just flags movement across the map without a preceding waypoint use. Either way, this needs some work to be nuanced enough to work as intended without catching legitimate use.

[Dayra.7405]

It is and always was bannable to "achieve something" while afk.

Assume a GM wispering the 2nd seat player, he didn't answer, then this is the same as the occasional afk/bot farmer bans.

Maybe there were (I've no clue) even cases of selling such tours, then this is an illegal competition to the Gem Store WP-Passes.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Dayra.7405

[Obtena.7952]

40 minutes ago, BjorJlen.9674 said:

You make a very valid point there, but I do not exactly understand your logic. Please define the term "exploiting mechanic's". In the history of gaming, players have always discovered ways' to use established in game mechanics to do things that the Dev's never even thought of. Combo's being a great example of this. Dev's don't know everything after all, and while they may have "intended" such mechanic to be used in a certain way, it is a Dev with very little game experience to believe such things don't, or shouldn't happen. Creativity by the players is a great thing after all, and that should be applauded, not frowned down upon.

Is hacking not cool, and should be prevented as much as possible? Of course. But in my experience at least, there is really no such thing as a exploitable mechanic IF said mechanic was put into a game by the Dev's themselves. It just comes down to how a player wants to play a game, and use a established mechanic is all. That's one of the things that make Gw2 so great right? Play how you want to play. So long as it is not against the ToS, and is not a "hack", then it's just personal preference on the player in how they want to play the game. So while you make some good points, the exploiting mechanic comment still confuses me. After all, people who play Mesmer's are able to TP people to Waypoints, Masteries, and such, which I would assume not all Dev's thought would happen, nor even "intended" it to be used as such. Is that a exploiting mechanic? Nope. That's just creative use of an established mechanic is all... 🙂

I'm not here to argue with anyone that what is happening in this specific instance is an exploit or not. My point is simple: if someone is doing something that is questionable use of mechanics to get some unintended result, the risk is on THEM to use the mechanic to achieve that result, regardless if a dev put the mechanic in the game or not. 

My definition of the term exploiting mechanics has no relevance here. We already know what the practical result of such a thing is, so there isn't a reason to discuss it. 

But hey, if people think ferrying around others to get map completions is OK ... they can do that. They are going to argue because the mechanic to do so is ingame that it shouldn't be a problem? That hasn't worked in the past so ... what people argue or think is pretty irrelevant to the consequences if Anet decides to take action. For me the strong hint in this case is that it appears these banned people are triggering some other system that is intended to catch players doing unintended things in the game. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[BjorJlen.9674]

3 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I'm not here to argue with anyone that what is happening in this specific instance is an exploit or not. My point is simple: if someone is doing something that is questionable use of mechanics to get some unintended result, the risk is on THEM to use the mechanic to achieve that result, regardless if a dev put the mechanic in the game or not. 

My definition of the term exploiting mechanics has no relevance here. We already know what the practical result of such a thing is, so there isn't a reason to discuss it. 

No argument intended or inferred. 🙂 Just good old fashion discussion and debate, and of course clarification on what is/what was meant is all. Still don't quite understand "questionable use of mechanics", as that is a matter of conjecture whether true or not (so long as it isn't against the ToS of course, then shame on that person lol). Didn't take into account the AFK part that @Dayra.7405 mentioned, which is also a good point I might add. Personally, I like exploring and opening up the map as much as the next person, but just being AFK and letting someone else do it for me just seems boring as hell to me. One or two Waypoints is one thing, but doing it a ton of times just seems like... why play the game at all, ya know? 😉