Evolving shoulders in Tower of Rot turn into Bloodstained Shoulders?

Taking advantage of a bug and exploiting are not the same thing.

An exploit is defined case-by-case basis by SOE.

There's a fine line between being creative and taking advantage of the game's mechanics/bugs, and taking advantage of something totally broken that comes to be deemed an exploit.

I'm sorry, but what side got in "trouble" at all??
Those who were *flipping instances* on purpose to kill 1-2 trash mobs and then repeat - were easily found out. The only "trouble" they saw was a removal of the items farmed with **no intent** to do the HA at all.
Or would you prefer all were drawn and quartered - or something that rises to the "crime" ??
-R

The whole concept of "exploiting mechanics" is subjective.(but you know that)
Some things rise to "actionable" - and others (like yours) are far too petty to bother with.-R-RT
-R

"Exploting" is not subjective.

Its simple abusing some stuff to get some rewards you should not have got.

The good items that dropped in those HA, first person who did get some was excused because of not knowing, but if same person got 2 right after each other, then that person did exploit a bug.
I dont know how it came into the game, except that it did, probably been a dev testing some stuff, and forgot to remove some code.

Those persons who did exploit that bug, deserved that the ill gains taken away from them, and good thing it was. I only feel sorry from the persons who bought the items in the bazaar and did not know it came from that, and got their items taken away, loosing their pp.

About the shroud, its in a different League, some persons got a shroud, but it was not dropable, so influence on the overall game is small.


But imo, devs should put in a new command: /exploit, where people can report in what they think is exploiting, and that should raise priority code at devs to 1 of their top, to find out, so they can respond fast. You can ofc bug report it, but there it will come in between other bugs and might drown.

Think about it for a second. Everyone will use /exploit for everything.

Just type /ex.

Exploit or not, i think this was the best solution for everyone.

/exploit Feign Death pulling
/exploit hiding behind a wall to avoid AE's while still healing the tank
/exploit Fear Kiting
/exploit Root Rotting
/exploit Double Invis
/exploit MultiQuesting
/exploit Quad Kiting

Obviously, all of the above is not considered an "exploit" by the devs, even though they were all unintended. On one hand is emergent gameplay (creative use of mechanics and finding loopholes), which is different than exploiting (using unfair means to gain an advantage).

The fair/unfair ethic isn't always clear cut, which is why exploits are, by definition, only those things called such by the dev team.

In this case, it seems that an item was uncommonly dropping off a number of uncommon mobs. I'm willing to wager than the vast majority of players didn't use some secret trick to get these mobs into some sort of instant-respawn cycle or used some trickery to get these items to drop. When the Shroud did drop, evolving it by normal means resulted in the Bloodstained Shoulders item - there was no broken mechanic along the lines of "If you put it in your 6th inventory slot in your 3rd bag on the second full moon of a year that follows a leap year…" that was taken advantage of. An item dropped fairly, evolved normally, and resulted into an amazing chase item - naturally players flocked and got as many as they could. Sure, the drop may not have been intended (then again, lacking a dev response, who knew for sure?), but it's not like it took anything unusual to get these items (flipping HA's in my eyes was much more suspicious, being abnormal behavior).

In my view, it's best left at that. Players saw an uber rare item and went for it. There was nothing suspicious, shady, or out of the ordinary about how this item was obtained or evolved. If you were lucky enough to get the Shroud, Bloodstained Shoulders was just the natural result.

So. I see people who got thier item before the fix, saying YAY THEY DIDNT TAKE IT AWAY
then I see the players on the other side, downtrodden crying I DIDNT GET MINE.

Sorry boys. There's only one cookie. You need to share.

I deliberately chose not to chase the shoulders out of Tower of Rot. That's not how I want to earn that item. I want to earn it the "raid way"
Am I grumpy that others chose to grab the shoulders while the could? Of course not.
Groupers rarely see gear of that caliber. Period.

I know as a raider myself. Sometimes I take the gear and stats I have already, for granted.
Sometimes. I have to think, "A group geared Chanter has 65-70k HP.
I have 90k... Oh

To the group content players that went and snagged a drop. Kudos. Farming that would have been a difficult challenge. I for one don't
Mind seeing a little raid love trickle down your way once and a while.
To the raiders that went and snapped one. kudos. You saved some currency

To the raiders who are upset? Relax alright. The gear in the other slots your wearing is still far superior

I think you may have missed the joke...starting anything with /ex exits you from the game...so nothing would ever get report.

No, I got the joke.

My post was directed towards those calling "EXPLOIT!!!!11!!!one!"

Sorry, nothing about this says exploit to me.

I'm curious if a dev could enlighten us and post how many of these shrouds dropped during the one week they were available. I'd also like to know how many shoulders dropped from raids for the (nearly) past 8 months plus for completeness' sake how many were purchased with raid coins. I would appreciate the info.

I was hoping to see an increase in the chance of it dropping in raids. Depending on the numbers, I'd get a better idea on what would be a prudent increase.

I'm just trying to give more "birds" some more "worms".

I can't see where that info would serve any purpose - other than to sow the eeds of H8 and discontent between groupers and raiders. I'd rather not know.
GRATZ to those that did get one!! (I wasn't one of them)
-R

Closing this topic as it is no longer on track with its original purpose.