Here’s What That Hunt Exploit in Module 14 Was All About

In Neverwinter it’s really rare that true exploits are mentioned in the patch notes. Devs usually like to pretty much keep them under the radar, fix them, and move on. But the latest PC patch notes indeed mentioned a fix for an unspecified “hunt bug”. Unspecified however is not a term we like around here. So we hopefully got all the information on what exactly was the case and why this was an issue.

[su_quote cite=”avenfell”]I like how they downplay the exploit in those notes. The exploit has existed since the initial Ravenloft launch and it has been abused by several specific guilds nonstop, it was used to produce over 100k rough astral diamonds every 30 minutes and to dupe 10s of 1000s of stacks of emeralds and flawless sapphires. Clearly there will be no punishment handed out and as always cheaters do prosper. The exploit allowed users to use any combo of cards without them being consumed and froze the hunt boss in 1 spot unable to move or attack and it recieved none of the buffs from the corresponding cards.[/su_quote]

Here’s How It Worked

User “avenfell” already hinted in the patch notes thread on Arcgames that this was not your usual everyday bug. Players could indeed re-run Hunts infinitely without their Tarokka Cards being consumed. The exploit worked like this:

  1. Enter the Hunt with a team of two or more players
  2. One player (A) initiates the Hunt
  3. The other(s) kill themselves, get placed outside Madame Eva’s tent, and go to the first location of the target
  4. Player A adds cards, but does not leave the tent
  5. The other(s) kill the hunt, which is now bugged and stays in one place
  6. Everyone gets loot, and the party leader their cards back
  7. Repeat

We’re currently not sure whether the Wanted Poster was consumed by the way. But even if it did, the profit you make with a full set of the right cards is more than the cheapest ones sell for on the Auction House. So either way you’re looking at a nice gain here. We obviously can only speculate how many players or teams actually exploited the bug to obtain tons of salvage and RPs. But in case our information is correct, it definitely has some potential to generate a decent amount of wealth in a totally unintended way.


Have you witnessed or performed the bug yourself? What are your thoughts on the severity? Share them on our social channels, in the comments below, or the corresponding thread on our message board!

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17 thoughts on “Here’s What That Hunt Exploit in Module 14 Was All About

  • September 2, 2018 at 9:12 am
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    That’s the Community Manager admitting that the Hunt exploit existed and that no one will be punished, even though they know who was abusing it?

    And yet, Zebutard threatened to ban me years back when I mentioned that Astral Diamond Fountaineers were still in the game and had not been punished? Her retarded reasoning being that I was alleging that the game still had exploiters in it and that discussing exploits on the forum was not allowed!

    My, times have changed. But they have not changed ENOUGH!

    Where are the bans? Oh, they are reserved for people who legitimately claim their free, Unbound packs at Winter Festival and open them all on one character?

    Can they find no balance in anything?

    😡

    • September 2, 2018 at 9:53 am
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      Cheers! It’s corrected.

    • September 2, 2018 at 11:57 pm
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      I am Avenfell in-game, 6 posts but i have played off and on since Nov 13. I simply am not a forum warrior, in this case however I felt something needed to be said and I know for a fact there were no bans b/c the entire Strawberry Yakuza guild/alliance is still present online and they used this exploit 24/7 for over a month.

      Every time you saw a lfg shout in barovia such as “LF1 HDPS Hunts, pm ty” it was Yakuza 9/10 times looking for a rep. b/c their people were passing out at they keyboard from doing this around the clock for a month.

      • September 3, 2018 at 8:15 am
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        It’s always the same guilds, isn’t it?

        The issue was that the article credited the Community Manger with your quote, not a player. The Community Manager making a public statement of that sort is highly significant. A player saying it is not. Being inaccurate and misleading is not what this blog is about.

        But you should be careful what you say in public, as Craptrick have a history of banning the messenger over exploits like this. If you tell them publicly how it was done, they assume you were doing it and ban YOU.

        That’s if their algorithm has not already banned you for opening legit parcels at Winter Festival…

        🙁

  • September 2, 2018 at 9:21 am
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    That’s actually misquoted. It was the user avenfell who said that, not Julia.

    • September 2, 2018 at 9:53 am
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      Thanks. The quote wasn’t meant to state Julia.

  • September 3, 2018 at 12:04 am
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    Avenfell here, I dont see how 6 posts makes any of my information wrong, apologies for not being a forum warrior.

    I can say with confidence that there was no action taken b/c I still see the entire Strawberry Yakuza guild and alliance present in game. They were by far the largest abusers of the exploit running it around the clock, the entire reason the information got out was b/c they eventually started recruiting HDPS in Barovia zone/lfg b/c their members were growing tired of the exploit having already amassed millions in rough astral diamonds and countless stacks of emeralds and flawless sapphires.

  • September 4, 2018 at 2:31 pm
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    Exploit is still active on Xbox … not sure about PS4. Word is they have publically said they aren’t banning people for using it so it’s a free for all on console right now. I hate doing exploits but if everyone else does and I don’t I lose.

  • September 6, 2018 at 6:33 am
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    It’s all over zone chat on PS4. Ghunt is a new word it seems….

  • September 9, 2018 at 2:21 pm
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    If the game was fixed right no glitches would happen no one needs banned stop whining give them time to fix the glitch ..

  • September 11, 2018 at 12:21 pm
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    There might not be bans, but I understand people on PC who did the glitch have had there AD and refinement points striped from there characters. Console users should expect the same sort of punishment for doing the glitch.

    • September 11, 2018 at 2:06 pm
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      As I understand it, in the past people have been banned for 3 to 10 days, sometimes permanently, and I know one guy says he was banned for 30 days. But most often for a temporary period, but their ill-gotten gains remained.

      But stripping all of their RP and AD is a fierce punishment. ALL the time they spent exploiting round the clock has just gone down the drain, including the “legit” amount they’d have got without exploiting.

      Or so it seems to The Powers That Be…

      Except, of course, for those who already converted tens of millions of AD to Zen, bought Epic Companions and Legendary mounts, bought rank 14s, loads of UES, UMoPs etc and upgraded artifacts and gear and so on.

      Rolling back all their characters to the start of Mod 14 would be the real bitch! They’d lose any new boons and gear drops as well!

      😀

      Of course, it was not the players who coded the exploit. How are players supposed to tell a genuine exploit from an Easter Egg?

      • September 13, 2018 at 8:53 am
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        Seems to me, most exploits are pretty clearly not intended behavior. At the release of Mod1, the Arcane Reservoir quest was sharable and all party members got the sparks. That meant you could run it over and over by getting your guildmates to run it and share it with you. If you then had an alt that started the run, but then dropped out – that alt would never be marked as having done it and could initiate the run for people over an over.

        So… people that just ran it and didn’t use alts to exploit the bug didn’t get penalized because AR being sharable was kind of on Cryptic. But anyone that used alts to exploit the bug on purpose go banned (perma) because that was on them – clearly the intended behavior isn’t that you can let people run a weekly quest over and over by dropping the party once they got in, then starting another party, etc.

        On this hunt – clearly killing yourself to fight a boss that isn’t moving or reacting while also not burning cards that are supposed to be burnt is an exploit and there’s no way anyone with two brain cells that match could possible think this was intended behavior. The announced on the 12th for console users:

        “We are aware of an exploit being used in the Barovia Hunts that bypasses the intended gameplay and are working on getting a patch out for this as quickly as possible. We will be reviewing playlogs and any character found using the exploit will be subject to possible actions taken against player accounts as per our Terms of Service.”

        So, there you go. I wouldn’t be surprised to see rounds of bans on PC too.

    • September 13, 2018 at 8:15 pm
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      You “understand”? Nobody from any platform has reported that. You are either: speculating, wishing or spread false information. You have proof otherwise, submit it.

      • September 13, 2018 at 8:21 pm
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        For clarification, my previous comment is directed at Alan R.

  • September 23, 2018 at 9:54 am
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    I worked with MUDs (pre graphic MMOs) for many years as a builder and head builder (designed and wrote content) and I got to know and work with many coders who kept things going.

    I have seen coders work all day and come home and stay up three nights straight to fix a code problem. These guys are dedicated and almost fanatical.

    There is just no way a coder would leave an error in their code uncorrected for a month unless they were prevented from correcting it. Or it wasn’t a bug.

    So who benefited from this ‘bug’?

    Certainly NOT the players – they got banned. Oth, Cryptic got to flush millions if not billions of AD from the game. Remember, these were not newbies, these were players with mature characters who already had great amounts of AD before the ‘bug’ was found.

    ‘Bug’? No, this was a deliberate trap.

    Obviously a card can be removed from a character as part of a quest; part of a quest could be temporarily disabled while corrections were made; and, an entire area (Barovia) could be ‘closed for repairs’ while corrections were made. Strangely, none of these simple actions were taken. This leads to the straightforward conclusion that this was a deliberate action; a player trap intended to be used to the detriment of the players.

    ‘0-day’ exploits are so called because true ‘exploits’ are corrected or blocked immediately.
    ‘Exploits’ don’t run for weeks and involve hundreds of players. Contractions of Fate asks above ‘How are players supposed to tell a genuine exploit from an Easter Egg?’ It’s simple: any advantage that persists for more than a day should be considered a legitimate Easter Egg.

    Unless of course you suspect you are dealing with dishonest admins who want to reduce vital resources in a game and don’t mind punishing their players to do it.

    I hate to think that anyone is this cruel, dishonest, manipulative and devious but, the facts don’t care about my feelings. Apparently, the admins don’t care about the players either.

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