wow Suspensions for Black Empire Coffer Farm Reverted

[Starym 3,779]

 

Earlier today a large number of players were suspended for farming the Black Empire Coffer in Assaults (which drop 500 Coalescing Visions) multiple times. The suspensions reportedly ranged from 1 to 8 days (with the length either depending on the amount farmed or on earlier suspensions, it's unclear at the moment), meaning many players were going to be locked out of the early 8.3 content, for some including the raid release next week.

Luckily for everyone involved, Blizzard have now explained that they were wrong to suspend these accounts, as their initial suspicion of exploiting from these players were incorrect - it was possible to farm the chests without doing any exploitative behavior. Meanwhile the issue allowing for the multiple use of the Coffer has been stealth-fixed (which was also an issue since people didn't notice anything about it in the hotfix notes and thus assumed it was ok to do), and the suspensions have been lifted! 

You can also read up on the 8.3 Assaults for more details in our overview here.

Suspensions (source)

Hello.

We’ve removed the suspensions that were issued for repeatedly looting the Black Empire Coffer.

We hotfixed the underlying issue earlier this week. Our initial analysis suggested that there was exploitative behavior here: a series of actions that needed to be taken outside of typical gameplay in order to gain advantage. However, further investigation revealed this was not always the case. This chest could reset under innocuous or even accidental conditions.

[darkgreenwax 409]

I don't wanna be that "guilty until proven innocent" doomsayer guy - but it seems like their "initial investigation" was just "guessing" what the cause was versus actually seeing any action done from these players indicating an exploit.

I don't know, it's good they rightfully removed the suspensions but seems like it was brazenly handed out to begin with.

[Starym 3,779]

7 minutes ago, TyZone said:

I don't wanna be that "guilty until proven innocent" doomsayer guy - but it seems like their "initial investigation" was just "guessing" what the cause was versus actually seeing any action done from these players indicating an exploit.

I don't know, it's good they rightfully removed the suspensions but seems like it was brazenly handed out to begin with.

Not to mention the fact the issue was stealth fixed so no one could even know it was unintended behaviour.
(Edit - man, posting stuff right after you wake up from a 3 hr "nap" is a bad idea - I see i literally already wrote the exact same thing in the article above lol)

[dartbodman 64]

Are they removing the improperly obtained currency or keeping it?

 

Man, Blizzard should really put these patches on some sort of test server before going live.

[Starym 3,779]

1 hour ago, dartbodman said:

Are they removing the improperly obtained currency or keeping it?

 

Man, Blizzard should really put these patches on some sort of test server before going live.

They didn't mention anything but I'm assuming they're letting players keep it, as presumably they'd have announced the removal as well.

[dartbodman 64]

3 hours ago, Starym said:

They didn't mention anything but I'm assuming they're letting players keep it, as presumably they'd have announced the removal as well.

Presumably they'd mention that it was fixed and do some research before handing out bans, but here we are...

[Valhalen 1,484]

11 hours ago, Starym said:

Luckily for everyone involved, Blizzard have now explained that they were wrong to suspend these accounts, as their initial suspicion of exploiting from these players were incorrect - it was possible to farm the chests without doing any exploitative behavior. Meanwhile the issue allowing for the multiple use of the Coffer has been stealth-fixed (which was also an issue since people didn't notice anything about it in the hotfix notes and thus assumed it was ok to do), and the suspensions have been lifted! 

Of course it was wrong to suspend the accounts. Banning people because of their own staff incompetence is unfair, obviously. I'm surprised 8.3 had such a poorly optimized launch. They had months to test it in the PTR, yet spawn rates are awful, enemies sometimes don't count towards the daily objectives or the assault progress bar, and now that.

Edited January 17, 2020 by Valhalen

[dartbodman 64]

5 hours ago, Valhalen said:

Of course it was wrong to suspend the accounts. Banning people because of their own staff incompetence is unfair, obviously. I'm surprised 8.3 had such a poorly optimized launch. They had months to test it in the PTR, yet spawn rates are awful, enemies sometimes don't count towards the daily objectives or the assault progress bar, and now that.

I'm not surprised. Almost no issues I've reported on a PTR have been fixed during a PTR.

[Starym 3,779]

16 hours ago, dartbodman said:

Presumably they'd mention that it was fixed and do some research before handing out bans, but here we are...

Eh, not really, stealth fixes have been a thing since Vanilla, they're not gonna stop those, but removing stuff from people's inventory has always been announced etc.