Major Diablo 4 item and gold duping exploit forces Blizzard to shut down trading
Trading between players in Diablo 4 is no longer a thing, and won't be until a major exploit has been fixed.
The first major exploit in Diablo 4 has been discovered, and it's one Blizzard is taking very seriosly. Usually, exploits give players unintended powers but don't affect other players, such as being able to bring Eternal Realm characters into the Seasonal Realm, or deal more damage than realistic by combining certain Aspects and class skills.
This one, however, is a duplication exploit, and it's severe enough that it could ruin the player economy, which is why Blizzard has disabled trading between players until it's been fixed. The news comes from an official post on the Diablo 4 subreddit, in which a Blizzard community manager said trading will be offline until the exploit has been fixed.
"As always, any account that engages in gold and item duplication exploits will be actioned in accordance with our End User License Agreement," they explained.
The exploit is a little clever, and surprisingly simple. It seemingly also relies on intentionally losing connection to the server, like most of the other Diablo 4 exploits. For the duping to occur, the player who initiated the trade needs to crash the game or disconnect from the server after dropping items/gold in the appropriate slot.
Upon logging back in, the items/gold would be refunded, while also remaining in the other party's inventory. You can imagine how repeating this process would cause... issues.
It's all a little unfortunate, too, because today's Diablo 4 patch is supposed to promote trading by logging players into the Trade channel by default.
The good news is that, if you unknowingly traded with another player who took advantage of that exploit, you won't get banned. The same Blizzard representative later confirmed.