Neverwinter Exploit Involving Unified Elements And Profession Packs

We received information today about a severe bug with how random results are being requested from the server. This new Neverwinter exploit is currently mainly used to get Unified Elements from every completed Elemental Evil HE and to manipulate the drops of several Profession Lockboxes, most namely the Leadership and Professions Special Pack. The bug is confirmed on the PC version, but could be working on Xbox as well.

Unified Elements Price Development
Unified Elements Price Development

Although a lower demand and a higher supply play into this development, the plummeting of the prize for Unified Elements definitely has something to do with the exploit as some sellers are posting insane amounts at the auction house.

We used our very own Auction House Tracker to evaluate the severity of the exploit and compile a list of suspicious sellers. We know that the exploit has been reported to the devs weeks ago and is live for at least over a year (yes, you read that right!) and a safe assumption is that it’s been there since the start of the game. That’s why we decided to immediately go public to speed up the fixing process.

You can find the details below, but we’re urging everyone to not use the exploit, because now that it leaked Cryptic will monitor and ban offenders. The spoiler text was submitted to us and has been edited (grammar, punctuation and some reference links).

[su_spoiler title=”Exploit details” style=”fancy” icon=”caret”]You might remember ArcheAge having that RNG exploit last year and guess what, NW suffers from the same problem. Apparently whenever the client requests a random drop, the server rolls the dice and sends back the result. In case the drop can’t be stored because the inventory is full, the client might or might not feedback an error (it does for lockboxes, but not for Heroic Encounter rewards – they just don’t open). However, requesting the same random drop again results in a reshuffle of the result. And that’s an issue. Clicking 100 times on a HE reward while your Profession Inventory is full will result in 100 different results.

People figured that those HEs in Spinward Rise and probably elsewhere too drop either a green Elemental Resource or an Elemental Aggregate or an Unified Element. If you block your Profession Resources Inventory with white trash and place exactly one UE in it, any completed Heroic Encounter will drop an UE. Why? As said, every click on the encounter reward generates a completely new result. In case the server sends back a green resource or an Elemental Aggregate, it can’t be placed in the inventory because it’s blocked. But if you click long enough, at some point RNG will result in an UE, which can stack on top of the one you purposely stored.

This also works for several Profession Packs. Since the value of UEs has dropped quite a bit, people are manipulating their inventory to always get a Dragon Egg from those packs. This basically works with every pack or lockbox that drops profession resources or assets, but only a few limited are profitable.[/su_spoiler]

Maybe this is the longest standing exploit of the game to date, the first mention of the exploit was during the third Lillend promotion in March/April 2014. What was only a vague rumor back then can now be verified as substantial. You need to know that the Currency Inventory looked like the Professions one before they reworked it in Module 5: Rise of Tiamat. During the Lillend promotions, the Professions Booster Pack from the ZEN shop was dropping either Tarmalune Trade Bars or the companion. Since you could block the currency inventory and rule out a Trade Bar drop, clicking long enough would eventually result in a Lillend. While that’s the first official hint it would seem that the exploit is around forever, but simply hasn’t been noticed before.

As said we used our own data to compile a list of suspicious sellers. Exploiters of the Heroic Encounters simply sell a lot of Unified Elements while those that exploit Profession Packs sell Dragon Eggs in combination with either Adventurers and Men-at-Arms from the Leadership Pack or blue assets from the Professions Special Pack.

[su_spoiler title=”Suspicious Sellers” style=”fancy” icon=”caret”]

@handle Value* Amount
@alfoonsoo 135226417 2542
@andrefscampos 119638119 1524
@anmargan 11158953 1192
@anonym9696 78648984 1650
@asdfjklf1 171803616 3169
@asomusmaximus 28821032 806
@atriar 32532965 1841
@b0ven 139043621 1690
@Bartones 67116913 1423
@blu3army 403978814 6476
@chocshoppe 137544896 2986
@craxyguy1 268399264 4988
@crazydiiva1 284660378 6062
@csubakli 14386593 899
@cyberking101 37551217 2997
@dacaleos1 17778582 864
@eattstyt 102530936 26322
@ed0imam 15324868 942
@eocroos 70035363 1702
@flameberga 8036974 626
@flandrie 61255987 46178
@focusmeanddie 67259206 1384
@idontwinitskk 12521000 976
@igoranilovic984 39209826 1830
@ivannnnnn83 15552154 962
@judgeer 32604568 1702
@karedesandjura 8316883 553
@kurikoko123 209078441 2803
@ll11xx 166390741 13862
@mariosalgado01 188155693 3836
@marteljames 30241638 2112
@martianmnhunter 40586299 689
@massivewall 211212070 3901
@mikimet 15865392 817
@mousica 5746406 516
@mstrssihr 14492398 925
@negotians 74388388 1379
@nightwalker1000 44572463 724
@ninoden 136026532 2662
@nuudlz 60690801 1387
@pastajetotoliko 93931662 1626
@pepein 173966400 2131
@pyroakiles 22781881 1779
@revovlerjesus1 173398535 2222
@rharaz 153080476 3155
@ringyo 9922266 891
@ryvengrothexplorer 89071155 2007
@schweifer1982 28697133 1384
@serengi192 16797365 812
@sh3r1ock 8601535 509
@shoogaboogaloo 431505095 6258
@squibo 24157146 1307
@turn0fff 11657971 806
@venomous10 98825350 1909
@venshou 76522236 1337
@warbeastpunch 763691231 13381
@xhuljanohd 32453322 550
@zereldo 98476793 1283
SUM col-sum col-sum

*Please note that this is not profit but the sales volume of each player.
[/su_spoiler]

@shoogaboogaloo
@shoogaboogaloo buying up packs

Although we cannot ultimately verify everyone (albeit unlikely, those that sold a lot of Unified Elements could have gotten them from large Alchemy farms), we feel pretty confident about that list. As always, we have a more detailed one up here, which is divided into weekly columns and covers the last ten weeks. Just to give you a feel you can look up the top two sellers by typing their names into the search box under in the @Seller column. During the last week @warbeastpunch posted 960 Dragon Eggs along with 429 Leadership and 737 other assets, meaning the account is exploiting both the Leadership and the Professions Special Pack. @shoogaboogaloo is an example of someone mainly doing the Leadership Pack. In case you sell those packs on the AH you might recognize some of the names, because they are buying up the packs and resell the exploited drops for profit.

The list continues in this way and the first major exploiter of Heroic Encounters is @ll11xx, who has posted an absurd amount of up to 1,500 Unified Elements per week. The account bots or used to bot in the Drowned Shore completing hundreds of minor Heroic Encounters in the process. Also some classic bots made the list like @eattstyt (who already appeared in our botting report twice) or @flandrie (who will make our botting report this week), which did not exploit per se but just sold the UEs they were regularly getting from completing HEs. Some more or less prominent lockbox resellers are present as well, which seem to boost their profits by exploiting the Profession Packs they get.

Possible fixes include altering the client/server communication so that repeated clicking on the same pack or lockbox does not grant a new result. You could also simply disallow opening packs altogether while certain inventories are full. Or make all inventories auto-expendable like the currency bag or introduce an overflow mechanism. The only reason why this exploit isn’t even more severe is based on the fact that the regular inventory has an overflow bag and the incomprehensible decision to make some inventory space limited (although no money is being generated from it, because you can’t even buy expansions), backfires in a big way.

Last but not least, let’s talk some implications. Whenever fixed (or even before), the market should react as follows:

  • The value of Profession Packs, that is currently partially tied to the price of Dragon Eggs, will drastically go down. Looking up our RNG value page you can see that the legit value of the Professions Special Pack is around 15k and it currently sells for 70k.
  • The reselling value of lockboxes might diminish because the Profession Packs are overvalued.
  • Prices of Dragon Eggs, Unified Elements and all Profession Assets will go up. Hard to tell for the Leadership assets though, because those are not actually being exploited.

It’s hard to foresee the actual development, especially because bullet three might partially offset the other two (Profession Assets affect the value of Profession Packs which affect the value of lockboxes). However, it’s safe to say that an investment in Unified Elements for example, which hover around 10k currently, can’t be wrong.

NWO_Unblogged

We are always looking for people that contribute to this blog. For more information contact us via blog@nwo-uncensored.com or check the forum.

14 thoughts on “Neverwinter Exploit Involving Unified Elements And Profession Packs

  • July 21, 2015 at 5:13 am
    Permalink

    It should be mentioned that increased cost of unified elements and dragon eggs will directly impact the cost of epic gemmed pants/shirts/rings/neck/waist coming from professions. For example i stop producing those things when the AH value is less that double the cost of the ingredients. If eggs go back to 70k and unified elements go back to 50k most producers are not even going to bother with them unless they are selling for at least 240k. Almost all of them are selling for less than that (in some cases half that).

    • July 21, 2015 at 7:44 am
      Permalink

      Yknow, I thought this website provided valid useful information, but now I see this kind of stuff. While I think reporting exploiting is important, all you did was link your auction house tracker to list people selling professions assets…. Also I think calling out people by name is atrocious in news articles… so what are you a personal blog or are news source, because honestly this article surprised me at first, but made me sick by the end.. and not because of the exploit… because of the formatting of the post on the left hand it looks like you are witch hunting because your data by your admission is circumstantial not factual, and on the right hand it looks like shoddy reporting or a witch hunt where you just call out names of people that sell certain items potential exploiters intending to do what?

      Basically what I am saying is this post is kind of obnoxious, because if you are right and it is an exploit, now everyone knows and you have fucked the game… if you are not right, and those people aren’t doing something wrong, you are literally calling a witch hunt and putting black marks on people’s names for your own news article… stupid

      • November 17, 2015 at 4:00 am
        Permalink

        I know the list had something to do with you so don’t get mad he did the right thing just like with the ad dol exploit they dev knew about it. infact a friend who knew a game master or dev gave him a exploit to use. so the part were the players so happen to find these exploit and they not being fix it’s because they dev gives them out. my friend gave me this eploit and I ofc reported it. he use to be in win or lose we bronze or what ever there call and yes they don’t care they love to exploit if they can. that right the dev give exploit to players and the *ONLY WAY TO STOP IT* is to give that exploit to everyone so no one make ad or get anything off of it that how you have to force the dev/ game master to fix the game

    • July 21, 2015 at 8:05 am
      Permalink

      Presumably the cost of those items has been driven down to some degree by the lower materials cost though. No idea how quickly that might recover.

      So *that’s* how the Lillend exploit worked. Eep.

  • July 21, 2015 at 9:15 am
    Permalink

    I bet original poster stocked the hell up on exploited assets and released this bug just to make a once and for all profit, Gnerally “good doers” like this have an agenda

    • July 21, 2015 at 7:37 pm
      Permalink

      If the origional poster wanted to take advantage of this they wouldn’t have bought the assets on AH before posting the article. They would have used the exploit directly.

      If your saying that a person shouldn’t buy the lowered price goods because its because of an exploit you shouldn’t buy anything on AH. In Neverwinter the prices are largely controlled by exploits on almost every item. That has been the point of the weekly report since the beginning.

  • July 21, 2015 at 9:39 am
    Permalink

    I also find it cute that none of the major exploiters from chocolate Shoppe (now coffee express) are on here, it’s the only reason they have gear

    • July 21, 2015 at 7:39 pm
      Permalink

      Do you think the big exploiters who are geared use their primary account for exploits? Noone does that, they set up alternate accounts to run leadership farms, etc. That way if they do get in trouble they do not loose the gear/characters they actually play on. However, if you know of an exploit they are using and want to give visibility to it, this is a good forum for submitting an article on the subject.

  • July 22, 2015 at 3:24 am
    Permalink

    Good job! I totally support this one!
    Lazerpirate: It was obviously posted that the devs should finally fix it.
    And you thinks that we are stupid!
    Botters/ Exploiters thinks we are all stupid and we all beleive that someone doesn’t play the game, login for 10 mins/day (or spending all time in Spinward in this case) have absolutelly no skill/knowledge of dungeons or pvp but suddenly he has BIS gear on everything.
    Beside: I find that hillarious that so much ppl suddenly a civil right lawyer.
    Identifing exploits and sellers on the AH are just that much easy…

  • July 22, 2015 at 10:13 am
    Permalink

    Hey i’m pretty sure you can take @eocroos off the list. I know he has full charslots (50) and maxed out alchemy for unified production. I can’t guarantee he didn’t bot but it’s highly unlikely. Reason: He’s on my FL and those morning pray login logouts are horrible ^^

  • July 22, 2015 at 11:58 am
    Permalink

    Actually nevermind that, I can’t say for sure.. and 1.7k UE is alot.. if he didn’t do anything he should be fine with some investigation 🙂 Scratch my last comment ^^

  • July 22, 2015 at 12:50 pm
    Permalink

    lollll, i stopped making UEs because prices dropped below 50k and i just got to 25 leadership. But if this exploit ever does get fixed, u will see my name on that list again. Aint nothing better then restarting professions tasks once every 9 days instead of this daily leadership stuff. Nice article though those 2 names that was mentioned have been buying all my professions/leadership packs.

    • July 23, 2015 at 5:42 am
      Permalink

      Hey, good to see you here. Nothing better than the person clearing it up themselves! Enjoy the weekly prof then, with the recent gateway nerf leadership will be tedious.

      • December 27, 2015 at 6:56 am
        Permalink

        i saw a handle which is THE MAIN ACCOUNT…………….

Comments are closed.