Playtime is over for Diablo 4 players who used an exploit in the game to speed up their progression and duplicate items. Activision Blizzard is cracking down on players who abused the exploit, dropping the banhammer on all those who participated. According to Blizzard community manager Adam Fletcher, the exploit has since been patched out in a recent hotfix. The harsh punishment is deserved, according to Diablo 4 players on the game’s subreddit. Blizzard’s message to the game’s community is clear: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
What Was Diablo 4’s Game-Breaking Exploit?
Diablo 4 was released on June 5th of this year. A month and a half later, on July 20th, the game’s first season began: the Season of the Malignant. In order to participate in the game’s seasonal content, players would have to leave their original characters behind in what the game refers to as the “Eternal realm.” They could then create new characters who would be able to access seasonal content in the “seasonal realm.”
After a month and a half of gameplay, Diablo 4 players could acquire quite a bit of powerful loot that they would have to give away to access the seasonal content. But an exploit was discovered that could bridge the gap between the Eternal and Seasonal realms. By logging in on an Eternal character and disconnecting your internet, you could transfer your Eternal character to the Seasonal realm, bringing all that hard-earned loot with you. After that, it’s a simple matter of dropping whatever you wanted to pass on to your Seasonal character. You could also do the opposite, passing Seasonal-exclusive content to Eternal characters.
Diablo 4 Cheaters Fooled Around Until Blizzard Found Out
The situation was bad enough, but on August 3rd, it got even worse. In the Season of the Malignant, players can access items called Malignant Hearts, which are powerful accessories that grant great boons to the player. Because of how accessories work in Diablo 4, you can only equip three of these powerful items at once. But as a result of this exploit, Eternal characters could be given upwards of twelve Malignant Hearts at once, making them essentially unkillable in PVP and ruining the game for everyone.
SEE ALSO: Diablo 4 Patch Set to Change Those Pesky Treasure Goblins… for the better?
Naturally, the developers had to step in. This was not the Diablo 4 Blizzard had envisioned. The exploit had destroyed the intent of the seasonal content and was actively making the game less fun. The company began issuing bans to players who had used the exploit on their characters and patched the exploit out of the game for good. Adam Fletcher, the aforementioned Blizzard community manager, had this to say in the game’s Blue Tracker forums:
“I just wanted to let everyone know that this was addressed a few days ago in our last hotfix and hasn’t been present in the game since… [w]e have also actioned on select accounts related to this incident. We appreciate everyone for bringing this to our attention.”
Over on the r/diablo4 subreddit, users began relishing in the karmic justice taken out on the exploiters.
One user writes of the harsh punishment, “Good. You exploit then you get banned.”
Another summed up his thoughts on the matter by simply writing, “Surprised Pikachu face.“
Surprised Pikachu face, indeed. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
What do you make of Activision Blizzard taking such actions on the players? Is it fair to blame the players for an exploit the developers failed to identify? Let us know what you think in the comments!
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