[Updated] Season 19 Abuse of Game Mechanics

General Discussion
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Update (12/11):
Patch 2.6.7b is now live, which addresses the abusive use of game mechanics. Since this is a super small patch, patch notes are available in the usual Patch Note module in the launcher, on the website, and here on the forums.

Thanks for your patience while we worked as quickly as possible to deploy this fix!

Original Text:

It’s recently come to light that there is a method in which players can unfairly leverage the Seasonal buff, Pandemonium, in an unintended and unfair way to progress as a solo player. We wanted to let you know exactly what our stance is and what steps we’ll be taking to correct this.

First, utilizing a group buff to progress in solo Greater Rifts is not intended and will be considered cheating. Players found using this mechanic may have their accounts suspended or closed, based on severity of abuse as well as previous account history. These account actions are between Blizzard and the offending players, so please note we will not be commenting on the status of accounts on a public basis, as has always been our standard practice.

Second, we will be deleting any and all clears from the Leaderboards where we have been able to confirm this exploit was utilized.

Third, we will be fixing this exploit. We ask that you do not make use of this exploit in the meantime while we are working to deploy a patch. Our team is already at work on a solution and, as soon as it’s ready for deployment, we’ll update this thread accordingly. We won’t detail this exploit here, but it takes some planning, know-how, and research to make use of this; this is not the type of exploit you can perform by accident.

Lastly, this is a good time to remind the community of a few things:

  • Third party addons of any kind are strictly prohibited. While any kind of botting software falls clearly under violation of our Terms of Service, for Diablo III, this also includes any kind of overlay software, map hacks, or any other addons or alterations to the client. Addons are not supported for Diablo III and use of them may result in account warnings or permanent account closure.
  • We are committed to continuing to support Diablo III, including taking action against botting and cheating. Please keep in mind that we do routine actions to keep Sanctuary fair for everyone, and we will not regularly provide public notice of mass account actions.

We’re working on resolving this issue as quickly as possible and thank the community for bringing it to our attention, expressing your concerns thoughtfully, and having patience while we remain committed to our Blizzard principles of Play Nice, Play Fair and Commit to Quality.

Thank you.

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that was fast! thx for ur work d3 team!

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Thanks Nevalistis. :smile_cat:

P.S. I think that you meant deleting not "leading " in this sentence.

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Thank you for the open line!

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There should really be some explanation done here about what portion of this tactic is an exploit.

For instance, the post calls out using a group buff in a solo GR. This was clearly the most egregious part of the exploit. However, the same exploit is available to get a 2-player GR clear with 3 people.

Further, the same tactic is available for a 4-player GR team to use to get a 4-player GR clear. This is also almost certainly not intended (blizz has repeatedly removed the ability to use anything outside a GR to affect GR performance), but it’s not at all clear whether this would qualify as an exploit.

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Ty for the swift update!

Coffee for all of the Diablo team working to fix this. :coffee::coffee::coffee:

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That is the way to excuse programming incompetence? Yay…
That mechanism was in PTR, you were aware of that.
Mike

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Good response. Hope you guys fix it soon!

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You are correct. As you imagine, I was doing this as fast as possible. <3

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And they fixed a version of the exploit between PTR and Live release. Players are inventive though…so find new ways around things.

Software of any kind is not issue free, and never has been. Blizzard has been clear on their stance about Exploits for years. Blizzard End User License Agreement - Legal – Blizzard Entertainment

Cheating: Create, use, offer, promote, advertise, make available and/or distribute the following or assist therein:

  1. cheats; i.e. methods not expressly authorized by Blizzard, influencing and/or facilitating the gameplay, including exploits of any in-game bugs, and thereby granting you and/or any other user an advantage over other players not using such methods;
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It’s not really necessary. It’s a clearly unintended use of game mechanics to have others “doing the work for you,” so to speak. Again, we won’t be detailing the steps to perform this exploit because we want less people doing this, not more, and people tend to do things “just to see if it works.” (Don’t do this. Seriously. You can, and will, be putting your account at risk.)

General rule of thumb for exploits: If something feels so wrong you have to ask, it’s always going to be safer to just not do it.

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Glad to see Bliz taking this stance.

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Thank you! Y’all are doing a great job! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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will it be the same for all the “players” who did GR 150 solo ?

if we look Diabloprogresss , we can see 9 toons at GR 150 .

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Obvious he does not care about getting banned . Clearly impossible to do with zbarb. Maybe he did it to do as a joke.

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It’s nice to see the swift action to take care of this. But it would be cool if you guys could take some swift action on fixing the game. It’s great not being able to play with friends because there is no way to invite them because they show as non-seasonal, even though they are playing seasonal. Still wondering why banning people for various reasons is taking so much precedence over fixing a game that is not new by any means but feels like it’s in Beta.

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I’ll take this as an official, conclusive statement that the use of TurboHUD is strickly prohibited. There’s been people trying to find any excuse to use it.

Also it’s a good to react to the S19 theme exploit quickly but the thing is it shouldn’t have been allowed to even go live. It should’ve been patched right after PTR.

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Thanks, Nev, but I think I confused things by mentioning a 3-player team clearing a 2-player GR. That’s obviously exploiting.

However, what about a 4-player team clearing a 4-player GR using the same tactics? That’s not having anyone outside helping you, etc? It’s clearly unintended to me, but I’ve already heard folks talking about doing it for 4-player clears.

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There was a fix after the PTR to an aspect of it. Players are inventive though. At least that is my current understanding of what happened.

I would take the comments about other forms of cheating being actionalbe to heart. It would be very wise to take it as warning that any and all forms of cheating can result in account penalties.

EDIT -

Nev responded in the THUD thread that Producer Matthew Cederquist commented in. He had reminded folks that actions were coming regarding all third party software and bots and a statement would be made.

A player asked when that would be. Response today.

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