Customer Service Clarification Requested: What Constitutes an Exploit?

In light of recent events, many players would like a few specific scenarios clarified in regards to what is "suspension-worthy" and what isn't. Frankly, there are many of us who assumed long-standing gameplay mechanics were legitimate and are now concerned that they are not. While it's now clear that opening a chest prior to being given a lockout is a no-no (despite being overlooked for many, many, many years), there are other similar instances that need to be clarified.

I would really like to get an official answer on this, and would prefer you hold your speculations to yourselves, though I'm sure they will inevitably be posted anyway. All of the examples given below are things I would not feel "dirty" doing or consider exploiting, but now that assumption is being called into question. If you'd also like clarification on these or other scenarios, I encourage you to post your support in this thread.

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- When attempting to complete hunter achievements, is it OK to run an instanced mission up until the point where the "named" will spawn, then drop the task if it doesn't? As long as the chest isn't opened and no "end of mission" rewards are given, is this considered an offense?

- When attempting to complete conquests that are granted prior to the "end of mission" trigger, are we allowed to drop the task if we don't complete a given conquest? A relevant example would be Lady of Life, where two opposing conquests are not attainable within the same run. Completing one conquest, not opening the chest, dropping the task, and then running it again to complete the other conquest is common practice when completing the Relife Adornment augment in TBM. I'm asking this question specifically because I know players who didn't abuse loot chests in the Overthere mission, but were banned anyway while attempting to complete the Brown Thumb achievement via dropping the task after beating the boss.

- When attempting to complete collection achievements, after the point where the four collectibles spawn, is dropping the task prior to the "end of mission" trigger considered an exploit?

- When attempting to gain experience points through the use of an instanced mission, like the ones in TBM, TDS, or EOK, is it considered an exploit to clear the zone of NPC's, then drop the task without completing the mission, and grabbing the same mission again to clear the zone?

- At what point exactly is dropping a task no longer OK. After the task locks? Upon request? Only after the chest is opened (though this will no longer be a thing post-patch)?

All of the above examples are similar to the chest/lockout exploit, though it can be argued they are of varying degrees of severity. Regardless, the idea is still the same: a reward is granted through an instanced mission with an intended lockout, whether it be experience, achievements, collectibles, or vendor loot, and that lockout is circumvented by dropping the task prior to completion and running the mission again.

Clarification on this would be greatly appreciated, as most of the scenarios presented above are standard practice for attaining various instance related achievements in Everquest.

I have a couple dozen other examples I'd love clarification on not related to instances, but I don't want to be suspended for potentially posting exploits, even in cases where the hard-coded game mechanics have existed since 1999. Levitation, circumventing locked doors, proximity aggro mechanics, and simply existing as a Bard (until recently) all come to mind.

These are the most relevant questions to what just happened, and I think they need to be answered. Despite being a legitimate player who immediately reports all bugs and exploits I find in the game, I'm deeply concerned that many of the practices I thought "on the level" could get my accounts punished.

I second this as there are things I have done to complete an achievement that I now question if I would get suspended for. I am pretty sure everyone who has tried to complete a hunter or collection that is locked behind an HA has done it up to the point of the collections spawning or a named/PH spawning and dropping the task depending on the outcomes and repeating it if needed. If this is a violation of the rules it just adds another time sink to the game that is not needed. Considering how HA xp is gained I don't see this as an exploit as you are basically trading xp for an achievement until you finally get that named to spawn or get your final collection to drop. In the open world you at least get xp clearing over and over again waiting for a named spawn but in this situation its pretty much a trade off.

The only HA's that don't give exp for the mob kills are COTF. TDS, TBM, and EOK HA's all give experience on mob death.

You're not getting the chest loot in the above example.
I would think, if in your example, you got the CHEST and open it, finishing the mission 100%. you then where able to go right back and do the mission again and get the chest 10 minutes later, I would say exploit. In your example you never finish the mission 100%.

LOL, you think the two people in CS have played EQ and know what any of those words mean.

omgosh, get over yourselves people and stop spamming.

They are all being a bit silly over this.

you are forgetting the fact that all those that got suspended got really nothing to do now except with tons of free hours reading and posting on these boards.

Fransisco, you're that guy...a schadenfreude, gloating while witnessing others in a low time. Gotwar has legitimate questions. I've seen many people do questionable things too. Like going afk while working on an evolving item, going afk with pets/merc and working on faction, going afk while farming tradeskill items. I've heard of people getting missions to work on evolving items specific to a certain type of mob/zone, drop it and do it again, is that an exploit? They really should give examples of what is considered exploits and warn people first instead of outright suspensions.The way the current situation was handled with long suspensions instead of a warning, since it affected a large population of players, is disappointing.

While I do understand the OPs question, I fully support that devs don't often give a detailed explanation on exploits. All a concrete "here is the line" ruling will accomplish is to give the average cheater justification to cheat more egregiously when the new exploit isn't specifically addressed in the previous explanation.

Yeah, I was doing "Search for Ilsuras" back to back by killing all drachnids, dropping task and requesting it again until I finally got that shrink earring. Was that an exploit?

What about shrouding down to request a mission? Is this an exploit? It's been happening since shrouding was put into the game.
What about using the game ticks to get by see-invis mobs?
Parking a mage in a convenient spot in an attempt to bypass clearing trash?
Gimping people into raids who aren't flagged for them?
There's a lot of things I'm concerned about now that may or may not be exploits.

The only disappointing part is that the cheaters could have been banned sooner; this may have stopped the spread of their infectious abuse to so many others.

Be glad it's not a permanent ban and try to learn a lesson about what can happen when abandoning your personal accountability because someone else should have prevented you better.

Oh yah, and is multi-questing hand-ins for epics considered an exploit?

This is one of about 15 threads that have been posted in the last few hours. I admit I didn't read the full post because I assumed it was a long diatribe (like many of the others).

Although I think the OP is going a bit overboard. Exploits "can" be a fuzzy line to cross, and I reasonably believe daybreak won't punish people for happening to be near the edge. Daybreak has even said they only banned people who did this repeatedly in a short period of time (so not people who happened to do something like it or accidentally did it once).

But yay drama!

It's unintended, it gives an advantage, they RECENTLY patched out some of the more abusive instances. ...how about this; think for yourself?

It's not their job to reprogram 15 years of content immediately. Nor is it their job to directly draw a bright line for you. If doing something seems unintended, err on the side of caution and be honorable.

Interesting question. is there a list of all possible exploits? This could be interesting.

On a more serious note: I Illusioned through hundreds if not thousands of locked doors in this games. Exploit?

IMHO, it should be considered an exploit.
It never made sense to me how a character could complete a quest without performing all the quests steps personally.

Converting all the old quests to the current quest-system would be an enormous improvement for TLPs imo. That way, epics would mean more than "I bought this for 50 krono".

What about third party software that has been used for years to cheat. Not saying its only purpose is cheating but the potential is built in. Why are they still turning a blind eye?

Yes, that was an exploit as well. Everyone knew it was an exploit to bypass zone geometry by using illusions.