Brac wrote on Nov 18
th, 2013 at 3:35pm:
I am a long time lurker, rare poster. I originally came to the vault for the dick jokes with a little DDO sprinkled in. I have noticed recently that most new members are just here looking for exploits. So I am here to help. Before you jizz your pants in excitement, realize you will have to put some work in. I do not give a man a fish, I teach him how to tip strippers.
Instead of you coming here to beg for the info, then being told who to PM , then opening a picture of a penis with two 90 degree bends (yes two), I am going to teach you how to be at the top of the exploiting pyramid.
The first thing to realize is that there are different types of exploits.
Quest Exploits: Quest exploits allow you to complete a quest much quicker then norml. A common, recently fixed one was in the Maze of Madness. You were able to get above the maze and complete very quickly.
Value Exploits: Value exploits allow you to gain game wealth very quickly. By either quickly getting items or plat. The recent dupping exploit and an exploit that would allow you to open a chest an infinite number of times would both be value exploits.
XP Exploits: XP exploits are different then quest exploits because they allow you to gain XP outside of a quest with little effort. For a full description of these exploits you will need to speak with Otto or Jeets.
Stupid Exploits: These are the exploits that exist, yet have no value. If you find a way for your pure 20 monk to stay centered while wielding a bastard sword and shield, awesome, more power to you. But no one cares about this exploit.
Fun Exploits: Fun exploits generally make the game easier but do not effect the economy or any quest directly. Using the axe out of VON 1 when you are level one would be a good example. Currently there are a number of fun exploits.
Now that you have an idea of the types, how do you find them? There are two ways to find exploits, on accident or on purpose. I will give you an example of an accidental find. We will use the quest Litany of the Dead. When it originally came out the final chest was in a tower in the orchard. When a side was completed you would then enter a new instance, break a crystal,a chest would spawn. This chest dropped the most valuable game items at the time. Tome pages and named items. In our example a group completes the quest as normal. During the final fight with the undead beholder a player dies, then dc's. The other five players complete, go through the door, and loot the chest. The dc'd player reconnects and is in the quest dead (before the time of ddo store and cakes). He really wants to loot the chest and asks if someone can come help him. The cleric in the group decides he will. He enters the still active quest through the front door. Runs to the end and rezzes the player. They both go through the door. There is a new crystal, they break it, and a new chest respawns. The cleric is able to loot the very valuable chest again. And has also just discovered an amazing exploit.
Finding an exploit on purpose is very different. There is trial and error and you should have a basic understanding of game mechanics. Using the above Litany example. A smart player runs the quest for the first time. Realizes that the chest is spawning in a separate instance. Understanding how game mechanics work the player then asks himself, how can I get into the chest instance by avoiding the quest? Maybe he tries to find a way to climb the towers, maybe he realizes right away, just run through the quest again. Maybe a couple times he tries to run through the quest and the wall is up (initially in the quest to prevent this type of exploit, but it did not always go up). Either way, he sees the potential, and then gets to work on the how.
If you are going to try and find exploits, ask yourself first, what has worked in the past. Many exploits are variations on a game mechanic that is chronically buggy. If it works with this, how about with that?
Next is the life cycle of an exploit. Now that you found a great value exploit, infinite plat we will use, what do you do with it? First thing to do is share it with your close friends. If you are reading this, we are now close friends, send me a PM. You do this because exploiting is like sex, it is just not as fun to do alone. Spend a couple days making infinite plat with your friends, buy everything of value on the auction house, plat cap all of your characters, now what? Now it is time to expand the circle. You share it with a couple other people, the not as trust worthy ones. You do this so the exploit will spread and many people will be doing it. Why you may ask? Once again it is like sex, if you get caught doing it in public, it's better if the police have more then one bare ass to chase.
Turbine gets grumpy when people exploit and eventually will do something about it once it gets out of hand. Turbine is also a for profit endeaver. They will not ban 10% of thier player base, therefore losing 10% income. If just you and your friends happen to be caught? They have no problem banning eight people. That is why eventually your great exploit has to filter into the masses. The beauty is that you got bored with it three weeks ago and sucked all the value out of it you wanted. Now if bannings start, your clean, for the last three weeks at least. And if you do get nabbed, due to the number of people doing it, your usually looking at a short vacation. And 99% of the time when you go back, the value you got out of the exploit is still there. The other 1% of the time, well...
So now that you are armed with the tools you need, go forth and open your shared bank, run away from the banker, dc in mid action, jump on every wall, run around with your mail box open, find a use for 9000 potions of wonder, and come back to tell us all about your great findings. And if none of that works, PM Epoch.
Holy shit a rational and well thought out post. Here even.
What the fuck is up with that! I do agree with you though, in many ways we are the QA for the product. Like most developers they don't see the value in spending seriously on QA and QA has absolutely NO teeth in affecting deployment cycles.
Kinda sad really but no to be unexpected. DDO is in that painful middle ground where it's too big to have a small team dedicated to the product and adamant on producing quality work yet too small to afford true AAA support and quality control.
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