The LFR discussion

[padrearnhand]

dissapointing despite blizzard stating that what the majority of top guilds where doing was an exploit that no one is holding their hands up and saying yeah....we where wrong

[Doc]

Thanks for the measured responsed in some of these replies. I'm in no way racing for World First, or even Realm First. I do however enjoy the game, and raiding content as challenging as my guild and I can succesfully pull off.

With that said, I'm following the news closely. We learned of it when it may have still been of some use, but decided not to try it. We didn't even debate the morality of it as much as the feasability for us.

I refuse to stoop to the level of the vapid (and seemigly rabid) masses and demand bans and penalties. I think thats childish. Thats not to say that I'm not interested in the results.

From what I've gathered, it became a veritable arms race, with so many of the top guilds utilizing this feature.

Did this become sort of a Mutally Assured Destruction scenario? As many have said, depending on the level and severity of any possible penalties, was it better to eat that chance than possibly fall behind?

In closing, keep up the work that you do. I have no strict loyalties, but enjoy compelling drama as much as the next person. Seeing Paragon (or whomever) constantly battle to claim these bragging rights is entertaining, and helps the comunity as a whole.

[arx]

...
Trying to play this off as though you're actually downgrading when you go from 4pc 391 to 4pc 384 is disingenuous at best. If the new tier sets and some trinkets weren't OBVIOUS upgrades despite losing ilvl's, you guys wouldn't be doing it. Just because you guys might be better at the game than most doesn't automatically make you smarter than most. Red herring arguments are red. And herrings.

Of course it's of benefit -- we wouldn't be doing it otherwise. As a guild, we don't really do anything in the game that doesn't improve our characters for progression, i.e. we don't do any "sightseeing". Maybe I should stop assuming that it's obvious to others.

What I was trying to say is that every character in a top guild should have had a personal LFR run in any case. Combined with 4+ normal runs, it's very likely that you get most of the important 4-set bonuses, e.g. for tanks, and a fair amount of other items. Unlimited LFR loot allowed most of the others to get 4-set bonuses as well for those who want it, instead of just for about half the people. For some it's a great upgrade, for some it's pretty useless -- it depends entirely on how good or bad the t13 bonus is. Some of the trinkets are also pretty nice, and you could concentrate more of them, which is probably a bigger edge actually.

Comparing those two scenarios, using the bug gives a moderate advantage. However, looking at these forum threads, I'd get the idea that people are upgrading from 391s to full 397 or something if I didn't know better.

I'm not saying it's a justification for the means, but it is quite hyperbolic. Not that I was really trying to defend our actions either per se, more so explaining the line of thought, but I can certainly understand how my comment would come off as such. Perhaps I'm already too cynical at this point, when nearly every boss and progress constantly forces you into similar decisions, most of which are even harder to make.

[padrearnhand]

It would have been better if Paragon or another wow guild had come out on a popular forum and said " we know about this exploit however we are not going to use it". This would have probably led to a faster reponse from Blizz.

Saying that others where doing it and the need to make quick decisions is similar to athletes using perfomance enhancing drugs and hiding behind the excuse " well everyone else was"

I think the top guilds need to ask themselves do we want to be the best or simply win at all costs.....just now it seems to be the latter

[xenophics]

I would personally very much love if Blizzard reacted to this and other matters with more force, and continued to do so consistently in the future. As many people have written before, I don't feel the guilds should end up in situations where they need to make a decision between using an exploit or not. It should be an automatic choice, and stricter action would help there.

No guild would even consider using anything shady if they knew that the encounters would get changed instantly and shady stuff would be punished. Now sometimes stuff gets fixed, sometimes doesn't, and often it takes more than a day or two to even acknowledge that there is a problem.

This still doesn't justify any actions, and I think they should serve suspensions / take the loot away for everyone. But this is also (another) chance for Blizzard to take a firmer grip on these matters.

This is just my personal opinion.

[zYN]

Saying that others where doing it and the need to make quick decisions is similar to athletes using perfomance enhancing drugs and hiding behind the excuse " well everyone else was"

Who's hiding? I'm still welcoming any and all punishment that might come out of this. I'm fully prepared for the consequences. I haven't tried to deny the fact that it's blatant exploiting at any point.

What does bother me is that we have to gamble with this at all. Most recent example was from last tier. We didn't screw around and exploit, so we didn't get an edge. A handful of other guilds did and got an advantage through a bug that I've personally reported almost few years back regarding reseting a raid ID. There was never any punishment for these exploits. The guilds in question only gained from doing so. Things like this have been an on-going trend for a while now.

It's stuff like this that hurts _everyone_ involved. It's a lose-lose situation and you have to make the best of it. If most of the main competition does it and you don't, it's a pure roll of the dice who gets the advantage. If you copy them, the worst thing that will happen is that you're all on equal footing. And I'm pretty confident in our abilities if we can start off at equal footing.

Until Blizzard starts reacting with harsh punishments for messing around with obvious exploits, this is pretty much what you can expect. While reading the threads on various community sites has been fun (come on, who doesn't enjoy some drama?), it still leaves a shitty taste in my mouth after the amusement wears off.

[Adicïa]

; they were doing it so we had to cheat aswell to stay competitive -

Is this the mentality hanging over DREAM Paragon?
We all were 8 year old at some point, we all did things and got punished. Remember when your dad or mom yelled in rage why we did a certain thing? Indeed, we all said the same ; but he did it also !

It's getting time for Blizzard to make an example, it shouldn't matter they have to clean the whole world because it's their own mess. But from the top 10 guild whoever is exploited deserver a 2 week bann which gives the fair guilds in the top 10 a 2 week advantage for the World First', and delete ALL DS-gear already farmed - fair/unfair - from an exploiter.

I'm a 100% sure there are potential candidates for the World First' who don't abuse the LFR exploit, a respectful salute to them!

[Thotz]

You just wanted to taste the forbidden fruit. You shouldn't have had to exploit at this point yet. When the time is nigh you will always find a good way to exploit the hard bosses in mechanic wise, before they will be fixed. That's what you usually do.

[Thotz]

"Let's do this. That way no one takes damage and we can kill the boss. Quickly, before it'll get nerfed. When it's already nerfed, we don't have to worry about wiping in future." Clever use of broken game mechanics.

[Mjollnir]

; they were doing it so we had to cheat aswell to stay competitive -

Is this the mentality hanging over DREAM Paragon?
We all were 8 year old at some point, we all did things and got punished. Remember when your dad or mom yelled in rage why we did a certain thing? Indeed, we all said the same ; but he did it also !

It's getting time for Blizzard to make an example, it shouldn't matter they have to clean the whole world because it's their own mess. But from the top 10 guild whoever is exploited deserver a 2 week bann which gives the fair guilds in the top 10 a 2 week advantage for the World First', and delete ALL DS-gear already farmed - fair/unfair - from an exploiter.

I'm a 100% sure there are potential candidates for the World First' who don't abuse the LFR exploit, a respectful salute to them!

Are you a teenage girl devouring all of the delicious gossip? Because people like you are lovin the drama. Pretending to be so appalled in order to get some personal satisfaction out of it. Your agenda is showing. As is your passive/aggressiveness. Remember Ensidia? A flat out exploit for world first LK. What did they get? A 72 hour ban. And this isn't even remotely close to that.