Reduce all xp/rep gain going forward by an irrational number in the range of 14% without notifying them 
Soooooo since Iâm seeing a lot of confusion (here and elsewhere), hereâs some insight into how we draw the line between what makes something a punishable exploit versus a âhappy little accident.â
The key factor here is intent. Did the player do something with the specific intention of causing a glitch to occur, and did they do it order to exploit said glitch for their own benefit?
This recent glitch makes a pretty clean example. The players who were abusing it had to do some Very Weird Stuff to cause it to occur, and then did so repeatedly. No reasonable person would expect that this behavior was intended, and the players involved had to go out of their way to cause it. Itâs obviously unintended, itâs obviously a glitch, and the people who abused it were obviously exploiting said glitch for their own benefit. Thatâs pretty open and shut.
Someone mentioned Esfandâs random MC reset in this thread, which is a pretty clean example of the other end of the spectrum. In that case, they just turned up to raid and the instance had been reset. They didnât do anything intentional to cause it or go looking for reproduction steps so they could abuse it - in fact, they reported it to us and didnât continue until they got confirmation that it was out of their control (and that we wouldnât consider it an exploit if they cleared).
Side note for the curious: that was a completely separate bug that has existed since 2004, and actually happened several times back then, it just wasnât being broadcast to thousands of viewers at the time.
Obviously, neither situation is ideal - we try our best to provide a fair playing field for everyone - but thereâs a pretty massive difference between âthe instance is reset and we donât know whyâ and âif we do this One Weird Trick we can infinitely farm this dungeon boss.â Thatâs the key factor that turns something from an accident into an exploit.
This ended up being longer than I expected so Iâll wrap it up with one last caveat: there is a lot of context and nuance that goes into these situations, and theyâre not usually as cut and dry as these two examples. We end up making a lot of judgement calls based on the specifics of each exploit as well as their overall impact on the game (the phrase âclever use of game mechanicsâ originally came from one such convoluted situation). These two cases just happen to be pretty obvious.
338 Likes
Boom. 
20 Likes
Delete their loot, or allow EVERYONE to get double loot.
45 Likes
But what about the people who literally advertise that they are exploiting? Like people who are in general chat all day saying âcan someone layer me for mobs please.â That literally translates to âcan someone help me exploit.â Why arenât they being banned?
39 Likes
They will though? What part of âthe people who abused it were obviously exploiting said glitch for their own benefit.â didnât you get?
1 Like
Can we please get some rough estimation on the number of accounts youâve taken action against as well as a description of what is happening to their exploited gains?
36 Likes
The last major exploit in bfa a bunch of streamers got 3 month bans and it wasnât as bad as this one which allows you to farm gear.
7 Likes
Lore Iâm sure the Classic team has a solution for dealing with the fallout of this. If you need a case study of another MMO that had this happen check out the boss farming for Neverwinter (the online MMO).
A forum post discussing the issue. It was a big deal at the time for the players and economy.
https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/neverwinter-online-s-exploit-disaster-continues-1437576/
These exploits have been possible since head start allowing exploiters to easily farm and sell high level drops from bosses. Most of these have been fixed but the damage is already done with innocent players purchasing the flood of farmed items and incredibly rich exploiters hiding their loot among mules and friends.
2 Likes
Take up your noble ban hammer my lord.
9 Likes
honestly doubt theyâll ever do anything about that.
6 Likes
They should have not taken the loot.
PERIOD.
Delete their items.
49 Likes
As I donât watch streamers or associate with their ilk, I was unaware of it until the warning yesterday 4 hrs prior to the server restarts for the hotfix.
We can only hope that Blizzard recognizes the seriousness of a streamer publicizing this exploit, and punishes those who did with an appropriate severity.
If we come to the forums and just post about an exploit and how to do it, it incurs both forum and game bans, why should it be any different for streamers who have actually used the exploit as well as publicized it. Sounds like there should be a punishment for the exploit, and a further separate punishment for using the streaming services to publicize it.
10 Likes
Heâs a poster boy for Blizzard which is why the example was used to exempt him. 
11 Likes
They didâŚthose items were deleted.
2 Likes
Source of that?
1 Like
I think this is a sensible definition and gives Blizzard a way to enforce these situations with some clarity. A player who stumbles upon a glitch and uses it is likely okay; a player who actively facilitates the glitch has crossed the line.
The question is when knowledge of the glitch itself becomes facilitation. For example, say someone innocently stumbles onto a glitch and then 1,000 players follow suit. Can you really hold the first few players harmless and punish the rest who actively sought to exploit it? Close call.
1 Like
The items werenât deleted, according to Esfand a moment ago.
10 Likes
when did it get fixed in pre-classic WoW?
4 Likes
They were told that they were allowed to enter the raid.
What part of the sentence the group waited for confirmation from the devs that it was an unintended bug and that they could do the bosses again.
5 Likes