Diablo 3 has not even reached the 3 month mark yet people have already exploited the living hell out of it! Before progression with the article, you should know that exploits and hacks are different. Hacks require software to cheat the game while exploits take advantage of a bug found in the game's code. Now with Blizzard being one of the top dogs when it comes to making games, you kinda don't expect these things to show up. Prepare to scratch your head as we show you the top Diablo 3 exploits that have caught our attention!
Note: This post is meant for information purposes only. We in no way will show you how to exploit the game and are strongly against it.
Crafting Dupe
Diablo 3 uses a controversial always-online DRM system that was meant to prevent this very thing. Item duping was a big plague in Diablo 2, but is it possible in Diablo 3? It certainly WAS possible. Here is a video that shows you a player from the Asian servers duping items:
After some digging, I found this forum thread that apparently explains how this exploit was done. You need 2 people for this exploit, let us refer to them as Player A and Player B. Here is what is done:
- A gives crafting materials to B
- B crafts the item
- B returns the crafted items to A
- B then moves to a new waypoint
- A then leaves the game, causing him to loose the item gained from B, but gaining back the original crafting materials. Therefor A returns to his original state
- At this point, the session ends abruptly
- When this happens, the crafted item B had given to A is returned to B. Thus, B gets a free item because A kept his crafting materials
Before you go around to trying this, Blizzard has already fixed it by releasing a stealth-patch (way to go, this exploit never existed as long as they don't admit it right?).
Item Dupe
Not really sure what is going on in this one, but it looks like software was used. Since I am not sure if this is considered a hack or an exploit, I will include it anyway.
Gold Dupe
Details are sketchy about this exploit, but apparently some Asian player found a way to farm thousands of gold in just 20 seconds. No wonder the gold on Asian servers is so devalued with bugs like this ruining the economy. Apparently there are many mysterious players on the Asian servers selling billions of gold per day. Maybe they know of this exploit?
Auction House Reset
This one is pretty funny. Seriously, wait until you read the details. It makes you question if this game was made by Blizzard or an armature developer. Basically, here is how this exploit worked:
- A puts an item on the Auction House
- B buys the item
- A withdraws the money gotten from the auction
- B turns back his computer clock by 2 days
- Player B gets his money back as if he never purchased the item, while A keeps the gold from the transaction
Seriously? Who the hell binds an in-game economy system to the player's local computer time? This bug has apparently been fixed. A long discussion about this exploit can be found here.
Pathing Exploit
This is also a pretty amusing exploit. It basically involved placing a wall of the item "Boneweave Hauberk" on the ground. This blocked both you and monsters, effectively creating a wall that allowed ranged classes to pummel monsters without ever taking damage. Here is a video showing it in action:
This bug was apparently discovered in this forum thread. This exploit has been fixed.
There are also other "spot specific" pathfinding exploits like this Wimsyshire one where the player can stand in a specific spot and the monsters cannot attack him.
Leveling Exploits
Exploits revolving around quest experience allowed players to level up a lot faster than conventional means. Patch 1.0.3 fixed this exploit by reducing the experience gained from repeating a quest. Here is what it looked like:
Treasure Goblin Farming
Blizzard has apparently ignored this issue. This exploit involves players repeatedly starting a new game and only going to a certain waypoint where Treasure Goblins spawn nearby. Here is one such waypoint:
Account Session Id Exploit
We saved the best for last! This is by far the worst exploit to be discovered for Diablo 3 and has caused many players to suffer. Hackers basically found a way to steal the session id of other players in a multiplayer game, allowing them to access the victim's account without alerting the authentication server. A lot of people where effected by this exploit, and while forum threads such as this one where still showing up many people (including myself) avoided multiplayer games like the plague. Blizzard only offered a rollback for the effected accounts, but never an explanation. Rollbacks gave the player back their inventory but also caused them to loose progress.
Blizzard has apparently fixed this issue in patch 1.0.2b.