it was clear that these tasks were still a target for botting.
Can we get the real reason maybe?
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Call me crazy (you're crazy), but I can see why a bot net might run them as part of their overall operations plan, even though to us regular humans they look like they're not worth running at all ever. Maybe. Possibly.
From our perspective, if garbage profession task we don't bother doing becomes even more garbage, net loss is diddly squat.
Call me crazy (you're crazy), but I can see why a bot net might run them as part of their overall operations plan, even though to us regular humans they look like they're not worth running at all ever. Maybe. Possibly.
From our perspective, if garbage profession task we don't bother doing becomes even more garbage, net loss is diddly squat.
I'll jump on the crazy train with you. It's not clear why someone would bot these, but I guess if you're automating tasks, who cares about having the automate the prerequisites to get the materials. If it's all automated and you only have to check it every once in a blue moon to scoop up the proceeds, what does it matter? I get that you'd make more AD by taking the materials and selling them on the AH, but that's a lot more complicated that just automating everything, so in a way it could be more profitable to just run hundreds and hundreds of accounts through leadership.
So that being said, maybe that's why people should care. If Cryptic is still seeing "traffic" generated by this type of botting, even if the impact to the game economy is small or a non-factor, that's still traffic they have to handle. Every log in request, every request to the Gateway server, and every transaction takes server resources. And it might be possible it was enough to cause degradation in quality for the actual players.
Granted, that's a lot of assumptions...but if removing a "garbage" task from Leadership reduces server resources, then I would imagine this is a good change, right?
Stronghold AD and Surplus Box donations required real AD and purple gear. That effectively reduced AD in economy. With wards in bar store i think i had best moments of economy.
Now player has all AD for himself and can salvage all purple gear. Wards expensive again. Vouchers for AD and Surplus Boxes - almost cost free, can be done from browser without logging into game. What was the reason to remove AD from Leadership? "Progress without playing the game".
I guess we won't see any Leadership improvement with this update, just the removal of the rAD from the tasks and that's it? At least take the time to remove the rare task "Diamond Shipment" too...
And you do know that upgrade costs for companions are still beyond good and evil? Or that the drop rate of 30 companion tokens from any companion pack from lockboxes is practically non existend?
And while we're on the crafting/professions topic, why are there still profession tasks around that require AD as "resource"?
Bots were probably spamming enchanted coffers for enchants and doing it on such a scale that they had stacks of marks of gratitude to run the task.
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instynctiveMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,885Arc User
I never bothered with using the rare tasks for AD. Instead, I'd sell Marks of Gratitude on the AH and actually get more AD than they were worth on the rare tasks.
But now, I'm farming RP.
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"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
darkstarcrashMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,382Arc User
This makes sense to me. Only someone with large numbers of leadership toons would be generating enough marks to make the quests worth running on anything more than a casual basis -- so presumable the devs saw a suspicious interaction with leadership farms and these tasks. Removing bot incentives is a positive thing.
The only time I've run these rare tasks since the Great Leadership Change is in the last few days -- I've been running Rescue Prisoners when it's one of the Heroic Tasks of Heroism in the Portobello campaign, so a few of my guys accidentally accumulated enough prisoners to run the precursor rare task, thus getting marks for the AD tasks.
Even so, I netted a grand total of 4800 rAD, so I won't be crying to see the tasks go.
few of the people that posted here are speakin of someth that they do not even know
its not that the tasks are goin and it's affecting you directly, whats wrong with this change it's the preassumtion that bots were doing it and they weren't. While this change it's not affecting you, you don't care about it, yet again you post here thinkin that it's a good thing, well we will wait for you until a change will affect you directly maybe that moment you will open your eyes.
there are higher issues with the botting itself and that is the rank 5 and peridots from skill nodes, yet again you dont farm those, but why are those still not bound to account ?
I've been affected by plenty of changes - I have 11 characters with level 25 Leadership, so I definitely felt the pain of losing AD from LS.
But I'm able to take the long view and see how a more stable economy is better for the game in the long run.
I'd like to explain why these tasks were thought unbottable (and why there needs to be some additional incentive for regular humans to even bother taking the trouble to do them, because even with the AD, they're kind of horrible).
Each of the above requires 3 of the resource Mark of Gratitude, as well as one of a rare resource you can make with common Leadership tasks. We'll ignore those other resources.
To obtain 1 Mark of Gratitude, you have to get it as a random resource drop or a reward for the rare task Build Shelters.
Build Shelters (12 hours) requires 15 Refugees. You get 3 of them for common task Rescue Prisoners (8 hours) or rare Help the Needy (6 hours). They can also drop from opening boxes with profession resources.
So, 1 Mark of Gratitude produced by Leadership takes approximately 52 hours with no speed boosts. Multiplied by 3, that is 156 profession hours to get enough MoG to earn... 1600 rough AD!!!!
This is why your players are largely underwhelmed by this announcement. Why should we care? We weren't running these as a significant source of AD anyway.
Ok let take the 156 hours and break it up, we will say instead that it takes 150 man/hours to generate 1600 AD. I'm going to round down to 150 just to make the numbers a little easier. So now if we have 150 people working on this 1 task, it will take 1 hour of work to complete it. So now I just made 1600 AD in 1 hour with 150 people.
Now lets substitute man with 1 program running 150 bots. Obviously 1600 AD/Hour is not right because one would have to take into account that the tasks that produce AD and MoG's are rare and not always available. However, the task for build the shelters is not rare. So while waiting for the rare tasks to pop they build a stock pile of Refugees. With enough time (bots can be viewed time wise as equaling infinity in this case) they take these refugees and build a stockpile of MoG's. Ok, now all they need to wait on is for the rare AD task to pop. Is there a problem here? I'm not sure yet.
Lets throw some conservative estimates at the rare task's and see how much AD they can make in 6 months. Lets say that each rare task has a 2% chance to pop for the 150 bots per day. That means that 3 bots will pop the MoG rare task and 3 will pop the AD rare task. So that means that for 1 bot it will be able to process 4800 AD per/day guaranteed. Moving along lets see what happens in 6 months, 4800*30*6 =864,000 AD. I guess it really isn't that much unless we move the number of bots is move up, I mean if a they programmed for a 150 bots why not make it more, I like 1500. Well lets just take 864,000 and multiply that by 100, thats 86,400,000 AD.
Is this a problem? Yep, they just created 86,400,000 AD out of thin air!
Before I get flamed I want people to understand that the numbers I used were just random numbers, well other than the 1600 AD. I wanted to illustrate what time and programming can do a relatively small number. My assumption is Cryptic has the real number and that number still has an impact on the game economy and thus the nerf. This what @ironzerg79 said and @beckylunatic are basically saying.
IMHO the rare task should have been nerfed with the rest of leadership and overall this nerf has very little impact on us gamer's. I think I only managed to get this rare about 10 times since the leadership nerf, but to be honest I never actively looked for the rare task's either. Obliviously Cryptic could have done this without the big announcement and most of us would not have noticed or even cared. With that said, I know that there would be a few that would have noticed and then accused Cryptic of changing the game without letting the players know and they would have got flamed for that. So with that I will say thanks for the communications and I will get back to playing the game!
Well, the tasks are gone now, but if the botting of leadership really would stop it would take, as someone mentioned, to make all you gain from it BtA. Yeah, hurts like a h3ll, when this would take effect, at least for those who have several alts with LS at 25.
Also the botting of nodes is out of control and that would in my opinion be the priority target of starting cleaning this game from bots, stick a BtA sticker to anything that pops from nodes.
Make dungeons the place to get best profits, most people are running them with premades anyways, it would totally kill the pug que tho, cos then the chance to get a bot in there would skyrocket.
Cook up a random pin/word access, basicaly every time a party hits a campfire or is entering a boss u have to enter a random pin/word to get forward. Or even before you can even que to a dungeon.
Ok, I will concede that they are not saying the same exact thing (maybe I skimmed to fast) but the point remains as far as time is concerned it doesn't have to be a perfect scenario for the bots to make AD out of basically nothing. From a player perspective I wholeheartedly agree these task have no incentive.
I'm not a programmer so I don't know how hard it would be for a bot to be programmed to look every 60 minutes to see what a rare tasks are available and then to preform said task if there was a match. My assumption was that if the tasks are already automated (as far as doing the tasks and collecting the results) it would only be a little bit more code to have them look to see if the rare tasks are available.
The thing I do know about programs is that once they got the program right, it becomes quite simple to loop the routine. Who's to say at the same time they don't have the very same bots gathering from some unprotected node while having gateway for that same bot on a different screen doing leadership tasks. Also, lets not forget that completing task such as Collect Taxes, Destroy Enemy Camps, Resell Goods, Deliver Metals all give a Large Chest of Good's that drops a bunch of sell-able RP and chance to get some MoG's, Seige Engines, and refugee's (which also help them complete a rare AD task).
I think the biggest point for me was that people where complaining about this blog because it was pointless. I just wanted to point out that if Cryptic had nerfed this without formally informing the community they was have been flamed. I also wanted to point out that comparing time from a player perspective and a bot perspective are in fact not the same. Players have to live outside the game, bots don't and are capable of doing the same task over and over again without concern of time. That's it.
strumslinger, wow, that is low cut taking out from leadership.
Leadership really need a complete full overhaul format. it is a mess, some chain of linear tasks get broken up and made the rest useless. i am not interested to get some vouchers, but the voucher for diamonds, i dont mind.
personally, the insignia would be perfect for "Artifact profession", not in leadership, it is waste of task slots.
leadership is all about finding or getting the maps, chests, or a new concepts */see below.
*Companion tokens, weapons/armor shards, or any purple refine items.
Zone chat in xbox seem to suffer same spamming by BOTs as pc version. So it seems that there is bot's in both systems. I'm sure that devs can detect bots and take actions to prevent botting -> It's good for us all.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
yes its possible to bot script on xbox.
its just not possible to bot gateway.. as it doesnt exist as a tie in.
Zone chat in xbox seem to suffer same spamming by BOTs as pc version. So it seems that there is bot's in both systems. I'm sure that devs can detect bots and take actions to prevent botting -> It's good for us all.
Really? So when I see someone spamming the chat they are actually botting? I thought they just had way too much time on their hands. . .
No, generally it's an automated script of some sort.
My opinions are my own. I do not work for PWE or Cryptic. - Forum Rules - Protector's Enclave Discord - I play on Xbox Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official. Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
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shanawdithitMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 50Arc User
no, not in leadership, it isnt made for that profession, insignia goes to artifacter professions, that how they made glyphs. leadership is all about maps, treasure chests, specific item prizes, various marks, and leadership devices, they should added companion tokens (bounded).
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
For serious, slap a voucher for 1600 Influence on these tasks in place of the AD and it's still a ludicrous amount of profession hours to actively pursue running them, but I wouldn't say no to if they come up and I happen to have the stuff available.
Comments
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
From our perspective, if garbage profession task we don't bother doing becomes even more garbage, net loss is diddly squat.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Because a few PC players spoil everything by bottong. I hope you never choose to cross platforms.
So that being said, maybe that's why people should care. If Cryptic is still seeing "traffic" generated by this type of botting, even if the impact to the game economy is small or a non-factor, that's still traffic they have to handle. Every log in request, every request to the Gateway server, and every transaction takes server resources. And it might be possible it was enough to cause degradation in quality for the actual players.
Granted, that's a lot of assumptions...but if removing a "garbage" task from Leadership reduces server resources, then I would imagine this is a good change, right?
That effectively reduced AD in economy.
With wards in bar store i think i had best moments of economy.
Now player has all AD for himself and can salvage all purple gear.
Wards expensive again.
Vouchers for AD and Surplus Boxes - almost cost free, can be done from browser without logging into game. What was the reason to remove AD from Leadership? "Progress without playing the game".
— (The unwritten rule)
At least take the time to remove the rare task "Diamond Shipment" too...
And you do know that upgrade costs for companions are still beyond good and evil?
Or that the drop rate of 30 companion tokens from any companion pack from lockboxes is practically non existend?
And while we're on the crafting/professions topic, why are there still profession tasks around that require AD as "resource"?
But now, I'm farming RP.
Daddy needs an orange sword.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
The only time I've run these rare tasks since the Great Leadership Change is in the last few days -- I've been running Rescue Prisoners when it's one of the Heroic Tasks of Heroism in the Portobello campaign, so a few of my guys accidentally accumulated enough prisoners to run the precursor rare task, thus getting marks for the AD tasks.
Even so, I netted a grand total of 4800 rAD, so I won't be crying to see the tasks go.
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
But I'm able to take the long view and see how a more stable economy is better for the game in the long run.
Now lets substitute man with 1 program running 150 bots. Obviously 1600 AD/Hour is not right because one would have to take into account that the tasks that produce AD and MoG's are rare and not always available. However, the task for build the shelters is not rare. So while waiting for the rare tasks to pop they build a stock pile of Refugees. With enough time (bots can be viewed time wise as equaling infinity in this case) they take these refugees and build a stockpile of MoG's. Ok, now all they need to wait on is for the rare AD task to pop. Is there a problem here? I'm not sure yet.
Lets throw some conservative estimates at the rare task's and see how much AD they can make in 6 months. Lets say that each rare task has a 2% chance to pop for the 150 bots per day. That means that 3 bots will pop the MoG rare task and 3 will pop the AD rare task. So that means that for 1 bot it will be able to process 4800 AD per/day guaranteed. Moving along lets see what happens in 6 months, 4800*30*6 =864,000 AD. I guess it really isn't that much unless we move the number of bots is move up, I mean if a they programmed for a 150 bots why not make it more, I like 1500. Well lets just take 864,000 and multiply that by 100, thats 86,400,000 AD.
Is this a problem? Yep, they just created 86,400,000 AD out of thin air!
Before I get flamed I want people to understand that the numbers I used were just random numbers, well other than the 1600 AD. I wanted to illustrate what time and programming can do a relatively small number. My assumption is Cryptic has the real number and that number still has an impact on the game economy and thus the nerf. This what @ironzerg79 said and @beckylunatic are basically saying.
IMHO the rare task should have been nerfed with the rest of leadership and overall this nerf has very little impact on us gamer's. I think I only managed to get this rare about 10 times since the leadership nerf, but to be honest I never actively looked for the rare task's either. Obliviously Cryptic could have done this without the big announcement and most of us would not have noticed or even cared. With that said, I know that there would be a few that would have noticed and then accused Cryptic of changing the game without letting the players know and they would have got flamed for that. So with that I will say thanks for the communications and I will get back to playing the game!
Also the botting of nodes is out of control and that would in my opinion be the priority target of starting cleaning this game from bots, stick a BtA sticker to anything that pops from nodes.
Make dungeons the place to get best profits, most people are running them with premades anyways, it would totally kill the pug que tho, cos then the chance to get a bot in there would skyrocket.
Cook up a random pin/word access, basicaly every time a party hits a campfire or is entering a boss u have to enter a random pin/word to get forward. Or even before you can even que to a dungeon.
I'm not a programmer so I don't know how hard it would be for a bot to be programmed to look every 60 minutes to see what a rare tasks are available and then to preform said task if there was a match. My assumption was that if the tasks are already automated (as far as doing the tasks and collecting the results) it would only be a little bit more code to have them look to see if the rare tasks are available.
The thing I do know about programs is that once they got the program right, it becomes quite simple to loop the routine. Who's to say at the same time they don't have the very same bots gathering from some unprotected node while having gateway for that same bot on a different screen doing leadership tasks. Also, lets not forget that completing task such as Collect Taxes, Destroy Enemy Camps, Resell Goods, Deliver Metals all give a Large Chest of Good's that drops a bunch of sell-able RP and chance to get some MoG's, Seige Engines, and refugee's (which also help them complete a rare AD task).
I think the biggest point for me was that people where complaining about this blog because it was pointless. I just wanted to point out that if Cryptic had nerfed this without formally informing the community they was have been flamed. I also wanted to point out that comparing time from a player perspective and a bot perspective are in fact not the same. Players have to live outside the game, bots don't and are capable of doing the same task over and over again without concern of time. That's it.
Leadership really need a complete full overhaul format. it is a mess, some chain of linear tasks get broken up and made the rest useless.
i am not interested to get some vouchers, but the voucher for diamonds, i dont mind.
personally, the insignia would be perfect for "Artifact profession", not in leadership, it is waste of task slots.
leadership is all about finding or getting the maps, chests, or a new concepts */see below.
*Companion tokens, weapons/armor shards, or any purple refine items.
its just not possible to bot gateway.. as it doesnt exist as a tie in.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
leadership is all about maps, treasure chests, specific item prizes, various marks, and leadership devices, they should added companion tokens (bounded).
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia