games, as demonstrated in a modded instance of
Rivals of Aether. Common types of exploits include: ;
Duping: Duplicating items or money. ;
Lag and disconnection exploits: A game with inadequate lag handling may let players intentionally cause lag for themselves to cause an advantage. Similarly, a game that lets a player disconnect immediately with no consequences may let players exit a game without suffering a loss. (
Shogun 2: Total War) ;Geometry: Taking advantage of how the game world is built. Typically the goal of these exploits is to reach normally inaccessible areas or take unintended shortcuts in the game world. These are commonly achieved by going through walls, crossing invisible barriers made by the programmers, or scaling ledges not intended to be climbable. ;
Twinking: Twinking usually refers to taking advantage of design flaws in the game's gearing system in order to equip a new or low-level character with much higher level gear. Other actions commonly referred to as "twinking" include giving a new character a large amount of gold, and intentionally keeping a character at a low level while gaining much better equipment. ; Movement speed bugs: These usually allow the player to move faster than intended, such as
bunny hopping. Many of these have been embraced by certain games, such as skiing in the
Tribes series. ; Safe zones: Places where a player can attack with no risk of being attacked back. This is often a form of an exploit in the geometry (terrain) of a game—however, a game may have areas that make players within them safe (especially in PvP games/zones in which the opposing faction(s) may not enter) from attack while not disallowing the safe players to attack. ; Game mechanics: Taking advantage of the systems that make up the gameplay. A
game mechanics exploit is not a bug: it is a case in which a system is working as designed, but not as intended. An example is the "wavedash" in
Super Smash Bros. Melee, in which the momentum gained from using a directional aerial dodge could be retained on landing; with proper timing this allows characters to use a stationary attack while sliding across the ground or reposition themselves in a snappy, precise way. ; Cheesing: Performing repeated, usually considered cheap, attack moves in such a way that doesn't allow the enemy to respond or fight back. An example would be
Street Fighter II in which one can perform repeated moves that keep the enemy being attacked and against the side of the screen, with no way for them to perform a counterattack. Each game has the potential for exploits unique to that game's rules. For example, in
World of Warcraft, wall-walking allowed a player to climb steep mountains that are supposed to be impassable to get into unfinished areas or make one's character not attackable by mobs or other players.
EverQuest had an exploit in
player versus player analogous to
weight cutting in sports whereby a player would intentionally lose
levels by dying in order to compete against lower-level players while wielding higher-level items and skills. In the game
City of Heroes players used teleport powers to place others inside the PvP zones' watchtowers which, because they were originally designed as props for atmosphere, had no means of egress other than
teleportation. ==Response==