Follow-Bots

roughbearmattach · June 2016

Anyone else notice more of these lately: you go into an Alert, especially one with a nice rare reward, like Harmon Labs or FATAL ERROR: RAID ARRAY (Cybermind), and one hero does very little but provide an aura, use energy builder, maybe summon pets and then just move a little erratically.

These are follow-bots: characters created using a second account, set to follow a player who is dual-boxing. As computer processors have improved, it has become easier for more and more players to run two accounts at the same time. People do it to double the chances for a rare drop, or to complete Vigilance special alerts twice as fast. Sadly, if the rest of the team can't handle dead weight like this, the special alert becomes a real drag, since the follow-bot nearly always dies and gets locked out.

Anyone else seeing this?

avianos · June 2016

Yes, and there is a very infamous player who is exploiting with his Bot account(s)

BOTs are illegal in every MMO, if you find one please report it

roughbearmattach · June 2016

I believe there are more people doing it now. It is super-annoying, to be sure.

embracemysword · June 2016

Neverwinter is full of the very same bots, especially the PvP portion of the game. Goldsellers also use them to farm specific items from nodes. They're one of the reasons why NW is as dead as a dodo, after such a short lifespan. However, i first noticed the bots in CO, by observing a player in VB. He's / she's been in the same area for over a week, by now. He / she does not respond to PM, always runs / moves in the same pattern, always uses the exact same powers in the exact same place and against the exact same mobs, etc. I reported him / her multiple times, but nothing has been done about it, so far.

I despise such behavior... and i have no clue why people are botting, at all, since everything in CO can easily be obtained, by just playing the game.. (all it takes is some effort and time).

#edit:

The person i am referring to must be reading the forums, because as soon as i typed the above, he / she immediatly logged out of the game.

jennymachx · June 2016

I guess a workable counter to this is to prevent two player accounts using the same computer name from queuing up for the exact same alert, whether they're teamed up or not. The account guard system does take the computer name of the PC the game's being run on into consideration, so the tech should already be there to work with.

pwestolemyname · June 2016

Does everyone report them when they see them? I have noticed a significant lack of reporting in this game.

themightyzenith · June 2016

pwestolemyname said:
Does everyone report them when they see them? I have noticed a significant lack of reporting in this game.

Lack of action from GMs =/= lack of reporting.

qawsada · June 2016

I though dual-boxing is not allow.

lezard21 · June 2016

themightyzenith said:

pwestolemyname said:
Does everyone report them when they see them? I have noticed a significant lack of reporting in this game.
Lack of action from GMs =/= lack of reporting.

It's actually more of a lack of an actual ingame feature to report. You only have the option to Report Spam which only amounts for said player to be added to your ignore list and if enough people use it, mute.

I dunno if it still works, but a long time ago Golds could file report tickets ingame. Haven't had a reason to use them since I came back, but my guess is they dont work anymore with the low staff.

avianos · June 2016

lezard21 wrote: »

It's actually more of a lack of an actual ingame feature to report. You only have the option to Report Spam which only amounts for said player to be added to your ignore list and if enough people use it, mute.

I dunno if it still works, but a long time ago Golds could file report tickets ingame. Haven't had a reason to use them since I came back, but my guess is they dont work anymore with the low staff.

Mini Map HUB -> Game Support -> Request GM Help -> this propably goes in Behavior, Character or Others category,
Most likely in Others

roughbearmattach · June 2016

I file reports frequently. Usually, they are followed up and dealt with, actually.

For the follow-bots, I have not reported because I can't prove anything: it seems like one toon is set to follow another and use some simple macro, but I can't say for certain.

spinnytop · June 2016

Can't be sure if what you're looking at is a bot, or just someone who's not contributing much. Not sure a CS rep would be able to tell the difference either.

aesica · June 2016

The "follow-bots" people are talking about here aren't actually bots. They're usually 2 accounts owned by the same person who just has one character set to follow the other. They may use energy builders because you can set the energy builder key's behavior under Options -> Controls -> Auto Attack to "Toggle, never cancels." This allows them to spam it unattended.

This isn't against any terms of service as far as I know, and because of this, I'm going to say that yes, I do it for certain things, but always lower-tier stuff like smashes, grabs (fighting city hall, day at the mall), and radiation rumble. AND! I do this as a courtesy to my team actually, since the character I control is typically capable of solo-running those alerts. Meanwhile, the one following is usually a crappy AT with poor gear who really wouldn't contribute much.

So it's really not a big deal as long as those doing it use common sense, and I'd never do it in any content more advanced than what I listed. Think of it this way, would you rather be on a team with 4 low-level, undergeared ATs who can't complete the objective? Or on a team where at least one other is a solid level 40?

nacito · June 2016

aesica said:
The "follow-bots" people are talking about here aren't actually bots. They're usually 2 accounts owned by the same person who just has one character set to follow the other. They may use energy builders because you can set the energy builder key's behavior under Options -> Controls -> Auto Attack to "Toggle, never cancels." This allows them to spam it unattended.

This isn't against any terms of service as far as I know, and because of this, I'm going to say that yes, I do it for certain things, but always lower-tier stuff like smashes, grabs (fighting city hall, day at the mall), and radiation rumble. AND! I do this as a courtesy to my team actually, since the character I control is typically capable of solo-running those alerts. Meanwhile, the one following is usually a crappy AT with poor gear who really wouldn't contribute much.

So it's really not a big deal as long as those doing it use common sense, and I'd never do it in any content more advanced than what I listed. Think of it this way, would you rather be on a team with 4 low-level, undergeared ATs who can't complete the objective? Or on a team where at least one other is a solid level 40?

when you are too pro that even you can duo solo yourself

no offense thats OP

ninjapiff · June 2016

@aesica This certainly is a gray area, and while I don't particularly condemn you for doing this (you seem like a relatively reasonable person... well, as internet users go, at the very least, and would hate to see you get in trouble for something like this), I could see how this sort of thing could be looked down on. It can be exploited, and while you might not use it in such a manner, it's still something that I feel should be prevented. Some non-scummy people might be affected, but "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one."

Huh... this argument would've been a lot better if this were the STO forums.

aesica · June 2016

naciiito said:
when you are too pro that even you can duo solo yourself

no offense thats OP

It just means that the game's scaling is trash. Those alerts are too hard for most fresh level 10-15 characters (especially when all 5 are squishy ATs) but they're utterly trivial for even modestly-geared 40s, despite the fact that everyone is set to level 30. I blame specializations as well as the fact that the queue system just takes the first set of warm bodies it finds and lumps them together, roles be damned.

spinnytop · June 2016

naciiito said:

when you are too pro that even you can duo solo yourself

no offense thats OP

wait...are you saying you couldn't solo alerts? That's a surprise o.o

aesica · June 2016

ninjapiff said:
@aesica This certainly is a gray area, and while I don't particularly condemn you for doing this (you seem like a relatively reasonable person... well, as internet users go, at the very least, and would hate to see you get in trouble for something like this), I could see how this sort of thing could be looked down on. It can be exploited, and while you might not use it in such a manner, it's still something that I feel should be prevented. Some non-scummy people might be affected, but "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one."

Huh... this argument would've been a lot better if this were the STO forums.

Oops I missed this one.

Anyhow, the problem is that you can't truly prevent people from doing this and there would be drawbacks to implementing any sort of "anti-multiboxer" mechanics.

1) Multiple instances running on the same PC: Nothing stops a person from using a second PC for account #2.

2) Preventing same-IP users from queuing: Two legitimate people playing via the same network can no longer team up. This would be a huge deal.

3) Participation thresholds: This might sound good, but someone who is level 10 really doesn't do a whole lot of damage compared to someone who is 40 and properly geared. A level 40 auto-following and spamming an energy builder will probably do more damage than a level 10 playing legit. Same with a level 30 using aura of ebon destruction, but does nothing at all.

Edit - 4) True multiboxers. Do they exist on CO? If so, this kind of change would screw them over, and typically these people are paying for and maintaining multiple accounts instead of just 1.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against them preventing this type of play, but I'm not exactly for it either--partially because I make use of it, but not only that. I worry that, for reasons stated above, it could do more harm than good if done poorly.

embracemysword · June 2016

Multiboxing isn't really a 'gray area', but rather an exploit. You are gaining an unfair advantage over others by doubling / tripling your chances of obtaining something of worth. This is prohibited by CO's terms of service and is considered a bannable offense. (abuse of a game mechanic to gain an unfair advantage over others)

Anyways, multiboxing is not really what i was referring to, in my initial post. I cannot name the script, but one can easily find it, just by googling for 5 minutes. It's a well known plague in all Cryptic games and people in CO are using it.

And it can be detected if a player is pushing keys or is letting a script run and do the work..

jennymachx · June 2016

If you want to multi-box on your solo missions or in a pre-made team in which the rest of the team members have no problem with your multi-boxing, go crazy.

If you're bringing your "drone" account into an alert PUG and all it does is auto-follow and has its energy builder on auto-fire, it's no different from any other player just spamming their energy builders. That kind of behavior is obviously frowned upon for obvious reasons, because they don't care to put in their 100% as the rest of the group and are letting them do the majority of the work. That's exactly what your follow-drone of a toon is doing. The only insignificant difference is that it doesn't directly have a human controlling it.

Now, if this were some other reality where alerts are made of nothing but hostile combat dummies that at the very most have energy builders as their sole attacks, then this wouldn't be that much of an issue. However alerts aren't structured like that at all, and furthermore all of them have at least one boss-level villain to deal with. Exactly how is it even remotely fair that someone in the group who just spams their energy builder on a villain like Ao or Jack Fool is entitled to the same rewards as everyone else?

I don't care if you have a level 40 build that can solo everything the game can throw at you that the drone account toon is padding off from. As far as I'm concerned it isn't just padding off your level 40's efforts, but the others' in the group as well. Having a solo-capable build != you solo'ing the game. I'd rather be involved in an alert team that has everyone perform at their best regardless of levels and build, and that involves actually playing the game.

aesica · June 2016

embracemysword said:
Multiboxing isn't really a 'gray area', but rather an exploit. You are gaining an unfair advantage over others by doubling / tripling your chances of obtaining something of worth. This is prohibited by CO's terms of service and is considered a bannable offense. (abuse of a game mechanic to gain an unfair advantage over others)

That's referring to:

1) Bug abuse. Let's say there was an obscure power combination capable of killing GCR bosses in only a few hits and a guild used it every single time. That's abusing a bug.

2) Game mechanics. This is something of a gray area, actually. During the nightmare invasion, another player made a thread detailing a trick for killing portals with long-range attacks (>100 yards) in a way that prevents the nearby mobs from being able to retaliate. While I find this to be very clever and see no problem with it, someone could argue that it's technically using the mechanics in an unintended way that conveys an unfair advantage. The thing is, anyone can multiclient, but silvers using ATs can't swap powers out to get access to Sniper Rifle, or any other >100 yard attack unless it's part of their limited AT kit. Cryptic & PWE are really the only party here allowed to be judge/jury/executioner.

In all the other PWE games I've played, multiclienting is allowed. Looking over the terms of service, there's really nothing saying you can't run more than one account at the same time as long as you aren't using some third party program to control them. Rightclick-follow and setting an energy builder to toggle on/off instead of spam/maintain mode is all available within the game for anyone.

jennymachx said:
Now, if this were some other reality where alerts are made of nothing but hostile combat dummies that at the very most have energy builders as their sole attacks, then this wouldn't be that much of an issue. However alerts aren't structured like that at all, and furthermore all of them have at least one boss-level villain to deal with. Exactly how is it even remotely fair that someone in the group who just spams their energy builder on a villain like Ao or Jack Fool is entitled to the same rewards as everyone else?

I don't care if you have a level 40 build that can solo everything the game can throw at you that the drone account toon is padding off from. As far as I'm concerned it isn't just padding off your level 40's efforts, but the others' in the group as well. Having a solo-capable build != you solo'ing the game. I'd rather be involved in an alert team that has everyone perform at their best regardless of levels and build, and that involves actually playing the game.

I only run mine through the easiest of the basic alerts, and for even a mediocre-geared level 40, that those pretty much are dummies. And maybe this part is a matter of opinion, but I never really cared if I was "carrying" afk or really weak players through, even before I started 2-at-a-timing them. If anything, I find it a lot more enjoyable to run alerts with really weak or afk players since things actually get to put up a fight instead. It's no fun at all when everything just falls over and dies instantly.

roughbearmattach · June 2016

In a standard, easy Alert, like Radiation Rumble, I doubt I would even notice.

This is really annoying, and often hindering, in Cybermind and Warlord. The auto-follow character does not contribute enough and reduces DPS against the boss, which has a lockout mechanic. In Cybermind, it was maddening.

Mechanics and TOS aside, I really dislike auto-follow toons. Imagine if it caught on, and what nonsense it could bring to things like open missions and Cosmics that scale with the number of players that show up. Another issue with auto-follow toons is that when someone says something in chat to the auto-follow toon, there is no response, and the toon's actual controller never responds, either. In a co-op game, non-responsive players bother me to no end.

Keep your follow-bots to solo content. Keep them out of team-content unless you ask everyone in advance.

jennymachx · June 2016

aesica said:
I only run mine through the easiest of the basic alerts, and for even a mediocre-geared level 40, that those pretty much are dummies. And maybe this part is a matter of opinion, but I never really cared if I was "carrying" afk or really weak players through, even before I started 2-at-a-timing them. If anything, I find it a lot more enjoyable to run alerts with really weak or afk players since things actually get to put up a fight instead. It's no fun at all when everything just falls over and dies instantly.

So what if it's the "easiest" of alerts? There was never the consensus ahead of time within the PUG you've joined along with your follow-drone that they're okay with you bringing an auto-follow, energy-builder spammer that ranks rock bottom when it comes to team contribution. Whether or not your build qualifies as more than able to carry "weak" players is really out of the point. The group spot that drone takes up could have been better used by an actual player worth their salt.

Your drone didn't earn its reward with any real participation or effort. It did it by proxy. It piggy-backed on your main toon and most certainly the other group players who've put in the best effort as expected of them during alerts.

If it's Radiation Rumble, whatever. It gets a pass because of how incredibly hard it is to lose that alert. Anything else though? I don't see a problem hitting record on my Shadowplay and submitting it along with a support ticket.

And since we're bringing up Terms of Service:

23. Official Service and Beta Testing

23.1The Games are designed for play only as offered through our Service. You agree not to access, create or provide any other means through which the game may be played by others, such as through server emulators. You agree not to use any hardware or software, including but not limited to third party tools, or any other method of support which may in any way influence or give you an advantage in the use of the Services which is not authorized by us, including but not limited to the use of ‘bots’ and/or any other method by which the Service may be played automatically without human input. You acknowledge that you do not have the right to create, publish, distribute, create derivative works from or use any software programs, utilities, applications, emulators or tools derived from or created for the games, except that you may use the Software to the extent expressly permitted by these Terms and the applicable EULA. You may not take any action which imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure. You do not have ownership of and may not sell, transfer, trade or auction any Accounts, characters, items, coin, Zen or Proprietary Materials, nor may you assist others in doing so, except as expressly authorized by us. We do not recognize any transfers occurring outside of the Service of anything related to the Service.

The "follow-bot" might not be from a third party software, but "follow-bots" do not require human input all throughout the alert through an alternative method. No human input = as good as a bot.

kamokami · June 2016

It's not about it being easy vs. not. It reduces the chances of a drop going to an actual player character, while increasing your own. It's a #$%@ move. Don't do it.

The Terms of Service are specifically written in a way where they don't have to expressly cite anything exact with regards to wrongdoing in order to ban you. That's because they can't list out all the ways that someone might screw with the game.

If you even have to talk about them or go read them, then you are probably doing something wrong and should stop.

aesica · June 2016

Let me just clarify, I totally agree that auto-follow characters shouldn't be a thing in alerts like Cybermind, where everybody needs to be semi-decent in order to succeed. But for people getting bent out of shape over an autofollowing character in fighting city hall, a day at the mall, radiation rumble, or any of the smash alerts, there really are worse things to worry about. You'll still get your alert done, you'll still get your reward at the end of the alert, and life will go on. Stop making mountains out of molehills.

Sure, I could just queue the weak level 12 void AT I made a few days ago solo, but what guarantee do you have that the other 4 slots won't also have similar characters? It's easy for people to say on a forum that "I'd rather have everyone try and fail!" but that's not how it actually plays out ingame. Wipe in a smash and people start bailing, rarely with a nasty comment on their way out. Queuing that weak alt along with a strong level 40 to do the heavy lifting helps everyone out.

jennymachx said:
And since we're bringing up Terms of Service:

[terms of service]

Setting it to follow me requires input. Toggling its energy builder requires input. Running it back when/if it dies requires input. Making it go through doors requires input. Moving it to a safe spot on the boss, so that it doesn't get wrecked by splash damage requires input. Counting that as "bot play" or whatever is silly, because it's not. Would it be better to just leave it at the loading screen, then head in toward the end to collect the loot circle? Of course not. Energy builders may be weak, but some damage is better than none.

kamokami said:
If you even have to talk about them or go read them, then you are probably doing something wrong and should stop.

That's a horribly untrue generalization. Sure, you may just click agree and skip off to play the game without ever wondering if something you're doing may conflict with the terms of service, but there's plenty of perfectly legit activities which require carefully combing through it, line by line. Ever set up a fansite? Ever build an app designed to help out the community, such as a skill calculator? People who do these things have to check the terms of service to make sure they even can, or to know what methods are allowed vs which ones aren't. For example, the guy who made the Powerhouse could manually enter data for all the powers, but he couldn't create a program to mine the data by accessing memory addresses while the program was running.

Maybe we need a Cryptic staffer to come forward and say whether or not it's okay, because multiclienting is perfectly fine in other PWE games. Botting is obviously not fine and should be punished, but setting an alt to follow and spam its energy builder uses tools readily available to everyone within the game. If they wanted to stop it, all they really need to do is remove the "follow" command. But then, I suppose people could just park their alts at the beginning of the alert and accomplish the same thing, only with even less contribution. (energy builder damage > no damage at all)

roughbearmattach · June 2016

aesica said:
But then, I suppose people could just park their alts at the beginning of the alert and accomplish the same thing, only with even less contribution. (energy builder damage > no damage at all)

Wow.
Dare to dream.

hasukurobi · June 2016

naciiito said:

aesica said:
The "follow-bots" people are talking about here aren't actually bots. They're usually 2 accounts owned by the same person who just has one character set to follow the other. They may use energy builders because you can set the energy builder key's behavior under Options -> Controls -> Auto Attack to "Toggle, never cancels." This allows them to spam it unattended.

This isn't against any terms of service as far as I know, and because of this, I'm going to say that yes, I do it for certain things, but always lower-tier stuff like smashes, grabs (fighting city hall, day at the mall), and radiation rumble. AND! I do this as a courtesy to my team actually, since the character I control is typically capable of solo-running those alerts. Meanwhile, the one following is usually a crappy AT with poor gear who really wouldn't contribute much.

So it's really not a big deal as long as those doing it use common sense, and I'd never do it in any content more advanced than what I listed. Think of it this way, would you rather be on a team with 4 low-level, undergeared ATs who can't complete the objective? Or on a team where at least one other is a solid level 40?
when you are too pro that even you can duo solo yourself

no offense thats OP

Give me a break... Most of my toons can solo Alerts even before they reach 40 and that is without all that fancy high-end gear everyone drives themselves crazy to get. Alerts are not hard. It would just take me a tiny bit longer. I have had to do it on occasion when my team mates did little of value or left for whatever reason.

nepht · June 2016

spinnytop said:
Can't be sure if what you're looking at is a bot, or just someone who's not contributing much. Not sure a CS rep would be able to tell the difference either.

If the character is following the other one and not doing anything its a blinking follow bot. I am pretty sure I seen one during cosmic fights of all things. There was a player the same color as Pinkie Pie that was a serious contender :I

hasukurobi · June 2016

jennymachx said:
If you want to multi-box on your solo missions or in a pre-made team in which the rest of the team members have no problem with your multi-boxing, go crazy.

If you're bringing your "drone" account into an alert PUG and all it does is auto-follow and has its energy builder on auto-fire, it's no different from any other player just spamming their energy builders. That kind of behavior is obviously frowned upon for obvious reasons, because they don't care to put in their 100% as the rest of the group and are letting them do the majority of the work. That's exactly what your follow-drone of a toon is doing. The only insignificant difference is that it doesn't directly have a human controlling it.

Funny you put it that way. I have a healing toon who I am leveling up and sometimes the team is strong enough that basically all I really get to do is spam my energy builder. It was not designed use much in the way of actual attacks and if I have nothing to heal then I am mostly there as passive resistance and passive healing lol. It was even worse when the toon was low level and really had very little to offer in the way of even pretending to damage things.

hasukurobi · June 2016

roughbearmattach said:
In a standard, easy Alert, like Radiation Rumble, I doubt I would even notice.

This is really annoying, and often hindering, in Cybermind and Warlord. The auto-follow character does not contribute enough and reduces DPS against the boss, which has a lockout mechanic. In Cybermind, it was maddening.

Mechanics and TOS aside, I really dislike auto-follow toons. Imagine if it caught on, and what nonsense it could bring to things like open missions and Cosmics that scale with the number of players that show up. Another issue with auto-follow toons is that when someone says something in chat to the auto-follow toon, there is no response, and the toon's actual controller never responds, either. In a co-op game, non-responsive players bother me to no end.

Keep your follow-bots to solo content. Keep them out of team-content unless you ask everyone in advance.

Um... A good 98% of the people in this game never respond to anything in chat. I KNOW most of them cannot be bots. They just do not want to talk, have chat turned off, or cannot be bothered to type in the middle of FIGHTING. Whatever the reason for it finding someone who does not talk to you is pretty common really. If folks not responding bothers you then you must be bothered a LOT in this game.

Do not get me wrong, I'd love a bit more banter now and then too but it just seems to rarely happen.

jennymachx · June 2016

aesica said:
Let me just clarify, I totally agree that auto-follow characters shouldn't be a thing in alerts like Cybermind, where everybody needs to be semi-decent in order to succeed. But for people getting bent out of shape over an autofollowing character in fighting city hall, a day at the mall, radiation rumble, or any of the smash alerts, there really are worse things to worry about. You'll still get your alert done, you'll still get your reward at the end of the alert, and life will go on. Stop making mountains out of molehills.

aesica said:
Sure, I could just queue the weak level 12 void AT I made a few days ago solo, but what guarantee do you have that the other 4 slots won't also have similar characters? It's easy for people to say on a forum that "I'd rather have everyone try and fail!" but that's not how it actually plays out ingame. Wipe in a smash and people start bailing, rarely with a nasty comment on their way out. Queuing that weak alt along with a strong level 40 to do the heavy lifting helps everyone out.

Once again, it doesn't matter how easy or hard the alert is. It doesn't matter what the group setup is like in terms of levels. What matters is the toon actually tries, and that involves player input.

Sure, I'll get my reward at the end of a successful alert. Everyone else who's played their toon to their full potential rightfully gets their reward. That follow-bot that just spent the whole alert brainlessly spamming its energy builder on the other hand? It doesn't deserve jack, because it never put in any real effort like the rest of the group.

aesica said:
Setting it to follow me requires input. Toggling its energy builder requires input. Running it back when/if it dies requires input. Making it go through doors requires input. Moving it to a safe spot on the boss, so that it doesn't get wrecked by splash damage requires input. Counting that as "bot play" or whatever is silly, because it's not. Would it be better to just leave it at the loading screen, then head in toward the end to collect the loot circle? Of course not. Energy builders may be weak, but some damage is better than none.

That's like saying if the automatic robot vacuum I'm using runs into a problem getting stuck in a corner of the house requiring me to reset it, it doesn't make it what it does automatically without human input, at all.

Your intention from the start is to put the toon on auto-pilot without human input while focusing gameplay on your main toon. All you're doing when it dies or gets stuck in a doorway is resetting it in some manner. Setting it to follow you and toggling its energy builder on is just what you do to initialize the automatic functions without further human input. It's still considered a form of botting.

If anything else, consider that what you're doing is effectively hogging two player spots just for yourself, considering that your follow-bot really does ****-all in the alert if it spends all its time just spamming its energy builder. Don't need a staffer to explain how that's a **** move and how it's inconsiderate to the other players in the PUG.

hasukurobi said:
Funny you put it that way. I have a healing toon who I am leveling up and sometimes the team is strong enough that basically all I really get to do is spam my energy builder. It was not designed use much in the way of actual attacks and if I have nothing to heal then I am mostly there as passive resistance and passive healing lol. It was even worse when the toon was low level and really had very little to offer in the way of even pretending to damage things.

Which is all well and good, if you're actually playing the toon. A follow-bot is still a follow-bot regardless of what build or AT is involved.

aesica · June 2016

jennymachx said:
Once again, it doesn't matter how easy or hard the alert is. It doesn't matter what the group setup is like in terms of levels. What matters is the toon actually tries, and that involves player input.

Sure, I'll get my reward at the end of a successful alert. Everyone else who's played their toon to their full potential rightfully gets their reward. That follow-bot that just spent the whole alert brainlessly spamming its energy builder on the other hand? It doesn't deserve jack, because it never put in any real effort like the rest of the group.

There's a lot of personal opinions flying around here. Let's approach this from a philosophical standpoint:

Let's pretend for a moment you have a fully-geared ultra-badass GCR-geared DPS character. Maybe you do, I don't actually know. Either way, your character is the type that can target groups of mobs and melt them within seconds. In contrast, the random lowbies in your group rarely get off a charge before everything is dead and the healer doesn't even need to heal you due to everything dying so fast and your absurdly-good self healing. All the group can really do is just follow you around while you roll out 5k per second compared to their lousy 100s. They didn't contribute much, so when the alert is done, do they deserve anything even though you literally did nearly all of the work?

There are some who would say no, but I'm not one of them. I bring my stronger characters along to help everyone involved (not just myself) get the reward they queued for more easily. I (and I suspect more people than you realize) would rather be in a group with as many as 2 different players carrying their follow alts that succeeded, vs an alert where everyone is too low-level and too squishy to complete it successfully.

jennymachx said:
Your intention from the start is to put the toon on auto-pilot without human input while focusing gameplay on your main toon. All you're doing when it dies or gets stuck in a doorway is resetting it in some manner. Setting it to follow you and toggling its energy builder on is just what you do to initialize the automatic functions without further human input. It's still considered a form of botting.

According to who's dictionary? Yours? Putting a character on follow and toggling an energy builder is just a clever use of existing ingame mechanics. Bots make basic logic-driven decisions such as "move to this location" or "if hostiles nearby or attacking, kill them" or "if not in an alert, queue for and enter an alert" and then manipulate the game in order to carry out these objectives. They're not at all the same thing.

jennymachx said:
If anything else, consider that what you're doing is effectively hogging two player spots just for yourself, considering that your follow-bot really does ****-all in the alert if it spends all its time just spamming its energy builder. Don't need a staffer to explain how that's a **** move and how it's inconsiderate to the other players in the PUG.

Half empty vs half full. Late at night when queues are slow and you're in a queue stuck at only 3 people, if I entered alone, we'd be stuck at 4, waiting even longer until either it popped or people dropped out. Meanwhile, if I enter on both my main and a follow alt, that pushes the count straight to 5 and the queue pops. To claim that it's "hogging player spots" implies that things like a day at the mall are limited-edition and will get removed from the game forever after X runs have been completed.

That's silly.

kamokami · June 2016

aesica said:
That's a horribly untrue generalization. Sure, you may just click agree and skip off to play the game without ever wondering if something you're doing may conflict with the terms of service, but there's plenty of perfectly legit activities which require carefully combing through it, line by line. Ever set up a fansite? Ever build an app designed to help out the community, such as a skill calculator? People who do these things have to check the terms of service to make sure they even can, or to know what methods are allowed vs which ones aren't.

It's a horribly true generalization. Especially when it comes to dual-boxing. Let's not lump that in with "helping the community". If you think that "it's all good" then there's no need to even talk about it. We don't say, "hey guys I went in the tailor and got myself a hat....maybe a staffer can come here confirm that this is ok" because of course it's ok. You're the one making a big deal by asking staffers to show up.

I'd go find the paragraph in the terms that states that you can be banned for any or no reason....but since you've carefully read them line by line I'm sure you can find that paragraph yourself.

In any case, I personally do NOT want this to become a thing.....where I show up in Alerts with my characters and everyone else shows up with theirs + their tag-along energy builder bot. So no it's not ok.

jennymachx · June 2016

aesica said:
Let's pretend for a moment you have a fully-geared ultra-badass GCR-geared DPS character. Maybe you do, I don't actually know. Either way, your character is the type that can target groups of mobs and melt them within seconds. In contrast, the random lowbies in your group rarely get off a charge before everything is dead and the healer doesn't even need to heal you due to everything dying so fast and your absurdly-good self healing. All the group can really do is just follow you around while you roll out 5k per second compared to their lousy 100s. They didn't contribute much, so when the alert is done, do they deserve anything even though you literally did nearly all of the work?

If the level 40 build I'm using is capable of carrying a group of lowbies, I'm more than happy to if every single one of those lowbies put whatever they have in their power tray and build in general to their fullest potential. It shows during combat. The minimum entry level for those alerts is 10. If the system decides that it's the bare minimum needed to participate, so be it. Compare that kind of player behavior with someone who does nothing but stay in the back while firing off only their energy builder, follow-bot or otherwise, the whole alert? It's a no-brainer who I think is actually deserving of the rewards.

aesica said:
There are some who would say no, but I'm not one of them. I bring my stronger characters along to help everyone involved (not just myself) get the reward they queued for more easily. I (and I suspect more people than you realize) would rather be in a group with as many as 2 different players carrying their follow alts that succeeded, vs an alert where everyone is too low-level and too squishy to complete it successfully.

Well obviously there are going to be other like-minded players like yourself who think it's okay to bring follow-bots to alerts. It doesn't make it come off any less as inconsiderate **** behavior.

aesica said:
Putting a character on follow and toggling an energy builder is just a clever use of existing ingame mechanics. Bots make basic logic-driven decisions such as "move to this location" or "if hostiles nearby or attacking, kill them" or "if not in an alert, queue for and enter an alert" and then manipulate the game in order to carry out these objectives. They're not at all the same thing.

Yeah sure, it's real "clever use" of game mechanics to do nothing but toggle on your energy builder and go into auto-pilot mode using auto-follow on an actual player actually putting in any real gameplay initiative. I'm going to go with the more accurate term instead, like "exploitative".

The auto energy builder feature was put there so that people didn't feel bummed-out by having to quickly mash their energy builder key / button all the time. The follow command's usage most certainly doesn't involve combat, because in combat you're supposed to be doing...I don't know...combat things other than following someone around like an obsessive stalker, and actual combat relevant to the power framework system does not involve exclusively using nothing other than your energy builder.

aesica said:
Half empty vs half full. Late at night when queues are slow and you're in a queue stuck at only 3 people, if I entered alone, we'd be stuck at 4, waiting even longer until either it popped or people dropped out. Meanwhile, if I enter on both my main and a follow alt, that pushes the count straight to 5 and the queue pops. To claim that it's "hogging player spots" implies that things like a day at the mall are limited-edition and will get removed from the game forever after X runs have been completed.

That's silly.

Whatever convenient excuses you need to cook up justifying bringing exploitative follow-bots to PUG alerts, I guess.

roughbearmattach · June 2016

hasukurobi said:

Um... A good 98% of the people in this game never respond to anything in chat. I KNOW most of them cannot be bots. They just do not want to talk, have chat turned off, or cannot be bothered to type in the middle of FIGHTING. Whatever the reason for it finding someone who does not talk to you is pretty common really. If folks not responding bothers you then you must be bothered a LOT in this game.

Do not get me wrong, I'd love a bit more banter now and then too but it just seems to rarely happen.

Oh, I understand that. This particular one (and another the previous day) did not respond to zone, team up, or PM. Even that isn't enough to bother me--it bothers me when coupled by odd, stuttering movement and spamming EB. Any one of those wouldn't trip my radar alone, but all together, it's a problem.

spinnytop · June 2016

aesica said:
Half empty vs half full. Late at night when queues are slow and you're in a queue stuck at only 3 people, if I entered alone, we'd be stuck at 4, waiting even longer until either it popped or people dropped out. Meanwhile, if I enter on both my main and a follow alt, that pushes the count straight to 5 and the queue pops. To claim that it's "hogging player spots" implies that things like a day at the mall are limited-edition and will get removed from the game forever after X runs have been completed.

That's silly.

So what if there are 5 people on, and there were 3 in the que, and then you come along with your eb-buddy and take up spots 4 and 5... and then real player number five comes to join a few seconds after that, and is now cheated out of the only run that's happening at the time they're on. You are now denying one player a spot each and every time you run an alert in this scenario, all so you can bring your eb-buddy.

Your rationalization falls apart pretty quick once we throw just one extra player into the mix, and it instead turns into a glaring example of why what you are doing is wrong. Stop it.

I can solo entire alerts. I don't go around thinking that entitles me to take up extra spots on the team to get my hands on more rewards. For all you know, your eb-buddy is taking up a spot that would have been filled by someone just as strong, or even stronger than you.

jaazaniah1 · June 2016

Gotta say I'm a little surprised that no dev has stepped in on this thread, which has been going a few days now. One word from one of them would settle the matter.

friezaliveson · June 2016

I find this whole conversation silly but for amusement I'll put in my word.

And if that was a case and we go by that logic of ToC, then someone like me would've been banned along time ago for having/buyinh a Corsair or Steele Series Keyboard with programmable options/settings for use of Macros and any of the Razer Mice Products(yes that's right I use this too, because why on Earth does doing this the 'balanced' and living-under-a-rock-way make this at all rewarding? Why should I have to trouble myself with nonsense powers manually which I can macro and not have to worry about?)

You may as well ban anyone else for using a Xbox/Gamepad(I personally have one that's Hot Pink oh goodness I love that 360 controller on my desktop lmao)

Hell you could even ban me for having two monitors to double stream the game for lulz. One @60hz and another at @144hz cuz I know over on Battlefield 4 if you play on a Hardcore server and you have two monitors all you have to do is activate Battlescreen on the second monitor which is a pseudo mini map. :^)

Or even better! Why not ban everyone for using an SSD to load to their games faster because ain't nobody gat tiem fer loading screens that take forever to input my characters, even on an HDD + an arbitrary movie/cut scene prompt which can't be skipped via Space Bar or even exited via the Warp To Rencen anymore(thanks for that worthless change btw, that thing is sitting on my alts and I'm wondering how/why is this here.)

Though I think by the time one of my next builds get screwed up, I'll simply just stop playing game and go back twitch shooting or lovely "Zou Zou" Jump in some awesome First Person Shooter. Because at least there, my Razer Naga 2014 MMO Edition and my Corsair Keyboard with beautiful rainbow color lights won't be gimped because of this.

jennymachx · June 2016

friezaliveson said:
I find this whole conversation silly.

If that was a case, then someone like me would've been banned along time ago for having a Corsair or Steele Series Keyboard with programmable options/settings for use of Macros and any of the Razer Mice Products(yes that's right I use this too, because why on Earth does doing this the 'balanced' and living-under-a-rock-way make this at all rewarding? Why should I have to trouble myself with nonsense powers manually which I can macro and not have to worry about?)

You may as well ban anyone else for using a Xbox/Gamepad(I personally have one that's Hot Pink oh goodness I love that 360 controller on my desktop lmao)

Hell you could even ban me for having two monitors to double stream the game for lulz. One @60hz and another at @144hz cuz I know over on Battlefield 4 if you play on a Hardcore server and you have two monitors all you have to do is activate Battlescreen on the second monitor which is a pseudo mini map. :^)

Or even better! Why not ban everyone for using an SSD to load to their games faster because ain't nobody gat tiem fer loading screens that take forever to input my characters, even on an HDD + an arbitrary movie/cut scene prompt which can't be skipped via Space Bar or even exited via the Warp To Rencen anymore(thanks for that worthless change btw, that thing is sitting on my alts and I'm wondering how/why is this here.)

Though I think by the time one of my next builds get screwed up, I'll simply just stop playing game and go back twitch shooting or lovely "Zou Zou" Jump in some awesome First Person Shooter. Because at least there, my Razer Naga 2014 MMO Edition and my Corsair Keyboard with beautiful rainbow color lights won't be gimped because of this.

This is the first time I've seen someone completely miss the point in so many words.

jennymachx · June 2016

friezaliveson said:
And if that was a case and we go by that logic of ToC, then someone like me would've been banned along time ago for having/buyinh a Corsair or Steele Series Keyboard with programmable options/settings for use of Macros and any of the Razer Mice Products(yes that's right I use this too, because why on Earth does doing this the 'balanced' and living-under-a-rock-way make this at all rewarding? Why should I have to trouble myself with nonsense powers manually which I can macro and not have to worry about?)

Unless you're using your macro keyboard with the intention of making your toon automated enough that it can run through and complete the whole alert on its own while you sit back and watch (read: Botting), then there's no reason why you should be banned.

beezeeze · June 2016

Please don't leech in pug alerts, it is selfish and inconsiderate to other players. You are reaping rewards for non contribution, or even if you are multiboxing and steam rolling everything with your lvl 40 you are still denying a spot to a willing participant and selfishly doubling up on all the rewards you gain. It is exploitative no matter how you wish to justify it, so if you're going to do this at least have the courtesy to do it in a private team and be upfront about what you are doing.

aesica · June 2016

spinnytop said:
I can solo entire alerts. I don't go around thinking that entitles me to take up extra spots on the team to get my hands on more rewards. For all you know, your eb-buddy is taking up a spot that would have been filled by someone just as strong, or even stronger than you.

It's still about random chance vs a guaranteed thing. A "chance for someone weaker or stronger" isn't as reliable as "a guaranteed level 40 coming along to make sure the alert succeeds."

beezeeze said:
if you're going to do this at least have the courtesy to do it in a private team and be upfront about what you are doing.

If we could start queues with < 5 people on a team, I'd do it. However, let's assume Cryptic went ahead and did this for those of us who like to leech our alts through alerts while saying "don't do it in public queues, we'll ban for it." Everybody in this thread wins, right? Not necessarily, since we have fewer people engaging in the public queues, meaning longer wait times for everyone...besides us alt-leechers, of course. We're getting in instantly, after all. Then, due to increased wait times, you'll get guilds/SGs/etc queuing up together in pairs or threes to get them done quickly. That just leaves players who lack these resources--they're getting royally screwed out of queue access.

In the end, that's not a desirable outcome.

- - -

I get that most of you will never see how someone using an auto-follow alt can be beneficial as long as the person doing it brings along a strong character as well.

1) It increases the chance that the queue (provided it's a basic alert, and not something like Cybermind) will succeed, as it guarantees 1 slot will have a solid character in it who can defeat the end boss with or without support.

2) It pushes more people through the queue per minute than normal, causing them to pop faster. It's equal to being able to start a queue with only 4 people instead of the normal 5.

3) It helps out the little guys. Dying sucks, especially when you're a lowbie who has little for survival and nobody on the team heals and the tank (if any) is mediocre. A stronger person coming along greatly reduces that chance.

In the end, once people put their pride aside, all that really matters is that the alert gets finished. Right?

Look, I'm not trying to be some greedy a-hole like some of you are trying to make me out to be. I'm actually pretty altruistic in this game when I can be. Leeching lowbie alts through alerts really isn't that big of a deal. It's really just a matter of cutting down the time wasted on the daily treadmill. It's nice to be able to have time for things that actually sound fun without making it feel like I'm cheating myself out of "proper" progression for, say, exploring a new area, trying an adventure pack, etc instead of hopping into the daily grind.

I probably won't respond much more in this thread because I feel like I'm just going around in circles with people who would rather see an alert fail as long as all 5 people were pushing buttons than one which succeeded even though 1 or more characters were auto-following alts. In the end, succeeding in your daily 3 alerts is logically all that should matter.

jaazaniah1 said:
Gotta say I'm a little surprised that no dev has stepped in on this thread, which has been going a few days now. One word from one of them would settle the matter.

Same here actually. Theirs is the only word that really matters in the end, after all. I've said it before and I'll say it again by just laying out all the tools needed, provided the devs actually see this as some sort of problem:

1) Remove the "right click target -> follow" option. It's not really useful for anything other than dragging along alts anyway.

2) Remove the "Toggle, never cancels" option for the energy builder. This still leaves 2 toggles and a maintain option for those who want them.

Now, anyone who is following and spamming an energy builder is an actual bot, and therefore bannable. But then, people will just park their alts at the beginning of the alert and do nothing, so in comes participation thresholds which hopefully everyone can meet.. And so the arms race continues.

embracemysword · June 2016

friezaliveson said:
I find this whole conversation silly but for amusement I'll put in my word.

And if that was a case and we go by that logic of ToC, then someone like me would've been banned along time ago for having/buyinh a Corsair or Steele Series Keyboard with programmable options/settings for use of Macros and any of the Razer Mice Products(yes that's right I use this too, because why on Earth does doing this the 'balanced' and living-under-a-rock-way make this at all rewarding? Why should I have to trouble myself with nonsense powers manually which I can macro and not have to worry about?)

You may as well ban anyone else for using a Xbox/Gamepad(I personally have one that's Hot Pink oh goodness I love that 360 controller on my desktop lmao)

Hell you could even ban me for having two monitors to double stream the game for lulz. One @60hz and another at @144hz cuz I know over on Battlefield 4 if you play on a Hardcore server and you have two monitors all you have to do is activate Battlescreen on the second monitor which is a pseudo mini map. :^)

Or even better! Why not ban everyone for using an SSD to load to their games faster because ain't nobody gat tiem fer loading screens that take forever to input my characters, even on an HDD + an arbitrary movie/cut scene prompt which can't be skipped via Space Bar or even exited via the Warp To Rencen anymore(thanks for that worthless change btw, that thing is sitting on my alts and I'm wondering how/why is this here.)

Though I think by the time one of my next builds get screwed up, I'll simply just stop playing game and go back twitch shooting or lovely "Zou Zou" Jump in some awesome First Person Shooter. Because at least there, my Razer Naga 2014 MMO Edition and my Corsair Keyboard with beautiful rainbow color lights won't be gimped because of this.

And what's the point of this post? As another poster already mentioned, if you program your peripherals in a way that they can automatically run missions / alerts then yes, that's considered a bannable offense (as stated in the ToS). I even believe using macros in duels is a bannable offense, since you automatically do what others have to input manually, thus you're gaining an unfair advantage.

Take care.

kamokami · June 2016

aesica said:
I get that most of you will never see how someone using an auto-follow alt can be beneficial as long as the person doing it brings along a strong character as well.

I get that since you think of yourself as being altruistic, you will never see how what you are doing is a totally @#$% move and how arguing for it has consequences beyond yourself. Not to mention that it may even be against ToS. And given your own explicitly expressed uncertainty regarding whether it's actually ok + a bunch of people saying that it's not, you should probably stop.

aesica said:
In the end, succeeding in your daily 3 alerts is logically all that should matter.

Not when it's at the expense of denying others their spot in the queue. Stop thinking about just yourself doing this and imagine it becoming the norm.

A lot of people starting to have follow-bots queuing up for alerts. Is this a desirable intended outcome? Do the people in this thread and in the game want that? I sure do not want to be playing with a bunch of bots....regardless of their level.

aesica said:
Theirs is the only word that really matters in the end, after all. I've said it before and I'll say it again by just laying out all the tools needed, provided the devs actually see this as some sort of problem:

1) Remove the "right click target -> follow" option. It's not really useful for anything other than dragging along alts anyway.

2) Remove the "Toggle, never cancels" option for the energy builder. This still leaves 2 toggles and a maintain option for those who want them.

You forgot #3 which is to ban someone reported for doing it. They didn't make the tailor worse or reduce its capabilities because you could do bannable things with it.

beezeeze · June 2016

aesica said:

1) Remove the "right click target -> follow" option. It's not really useful for anything other than dragging along alts anyway.

2) Remove the "Toggle, never cancels" option for the energy builder. This still leaves 2 toggles and a maintain option for those who want them.

Now, anyone who is following and spamming an energy builder is an actual bot, and therefore bannable. But then, people will just park their alts at the beginning of the alert and do nothing, so in comes participation thresholds which hopefully everyone can meet.. And so the arms race continues.

The follow command comes in real handy using a ranged character doing escort missions, so it does have its uses outside of leeching and I would not want to see it removed, but as for the other thing..I've never messed around much with my EB settings save for one character who has their eb set as a maintain in an attempt to avoid breaking holds accidently.

Now for the most part I run missions to level up and when I do alerts they very rarely fail, when they do fail it is almost always because of two things..either half the team rage quits after a bad pull very early on, or because there are a couple characters just waiting around the spawn point the entire time(leeching) Most of the time when I am doing alerts it is because I am doing a daily thing on one of my lvl40 characters and there are no problems what so ever, I may not even notice someone on auto follow using only their eb because the run goes by quickly and smoothly for everyone, but I still do not approve of leeching, I would rather have a team of 4 lvl10s at my side than run an alert with a single leech.

capspectacular · June 2016

This is a problem I have not noticed. I have noticed toons acting erratically, but I have usually chalked it up to newbies. I know I was a bit erratic when I first started playing and can still be on occasion. As far as using bots or drones in alerts, I think it would only be cool if everyone on the team is cool with it, but since most teams for alerts are random draws, as far as I know, I think it is dirty pool whether the rules are against it or not. Personally, whether I walk all over the bad guys or have my rear handed to me in an alert, I like knowing that everyone was playing fairly to the best of their ability.

spinnytop · June 2016

It takes someone who's really up their own butt to try to argue that botting is actually a good deed. I notice you completely avoided responding to this:

spinnytop said:

So what if there are 5 people on, and there were 3 in the que, and then you come along with your eb-buddy and take up spots 4 and 5... and then real player number five comes to join a few seconds after that, and is now cheated out of the only run that's happening at the time they're on. You are now denying one player a spot each and every time you run an alert in this scenario, all so you can bring your eb-buddy.

Your rationalization falls apart pretty quick once we throw just one extra player into the mix, and it instead turns into a glaring example of why what you are doing is wrong. Stop it.

You know... the part where your good deed immediately becomes you denying someone else a spot, and your "Don't worry I'm carrying you" turns into "I don't care that I'm shutting you out, I think I deserve your spot".

pantagruel01 · June 2016

aesica said:
I get that most of you will never see how someone using an auto-follow alt can be beneficial as long as the person doing it brings along a strong character as well.

That's because it's not. If you take your level 40 and solo queue for three alerts to complete your daily, you will on average assist 12 other players (4 open slots per alert, 3 alerts), though of course some of them may not need the assist. If you instead queue your level 40 and your autofollow alt, you will on average assist 9 other players (3 open slots per alert, 3 alerts). 9 is less than 12.

aesica · June 2016

pantagruel01 said:

aesica said:
I get that most of you will never see how someone using an auto-follow alt can be beneficial as long as the person doing it brings along a strong character as well.
That's because it's not. If you take your level 40 and solo queue for three alerts to complete your daily, you will on average assist 12 other players (4 open slots per alert, 3 alerts), though of course some of them may not need the assist. If you instead queue your level 40 and your autofollow alt, you will on average assist 9 other players (3 open slots per alert, 3 alerts). 9 is less than 12.

While that's true, there's also the flipside to contend with: If I take a cruddy low-level AT and queue it solo, I'm either hindering or getting carried by 12 other players. If I queue it with a strong 40, that AT is only hindering 9 other players and that 40 is allowing me to at least contribute something of value. I actually feel guilty when I solo-queue weak characters for things like Cybermind, because unless a few other decent characters end up joining, it's going to be one of those group that disbands during the firewall.

biffsmackwell · June 2016

(I haven't read through this whole thread so if I'm repeating anything anyone has said, just pretend I'm a terrible person and hate me forever.)

Are we talking XP alerts? Because a strong 40 can take a 15 minute Alert and bring it down to like 5 minutes or whatever. It kinda balances out, probably. Unless it's XP Alert Daily day, you're not gonna get an overwhelming amount of 40s carrying teams.

Technically, I think this behavior is allowed (and I think it's been confirmed by a Community Manager (TrailTurtle, but again, take this with a grain of salt because I'm going on my own memory here)). It doesn't break any rules.

If you guys think manually setting a character to follow another one with their energy builder is on, think about this. I can do the same thing while at my keyboard and let someone else, someone I don't even know, without them even knowing it. And that's not botting, because I did all that manually. Botting is having a program continuously gaining you XP by grinding or whatever, something that can be done overnight while you're asleep. That's what's against the rules. Judging by what some people have said, it seems like you guys think that as long as no one is actively controlling a character at all times, then it's botting. Like if I go to shave my butt for 15 minutes and keep my character idle and I get back and my character had been attacked by an enemy, and I killed it back with my auto attack, that's botting. And that's not right.

As far as the morality of the issue, I'd say it's pretty messed up, especially if you're in content that gives out rare rewards. It's not unlike those guys that screwed over a lot of people in the Warlord mission.

hasukurobi · June 2016

jennymachx said:

If the level 40 build I'm using is capable of carrying a group of lowbies, I'm more than happy to if every single one of those lowbies put whatever they have in their power tray and build in general to their fullest potential. It shows during combat. The minimum entry level for those alerts is 10. If the system decides that it's the bare minimum needed to participate, so be it. Compare that kind of player behavior with someone who does nothing but stay in the back while firing off only their energy builder, follow-bot or otherwise, the whole alert? It's a no-brainer who I think is actually deserving of the rewards.

Just to point out a little flaw in your requirements here. I have been both the lowbie and the lvl 40 uber in this scenario. The lvl 40 does EVERYTHING. They often run ahead of the 'team' and just annihilate their enemies. The lowbie does not get a CHANCE to contribute because before they even REACH their target they are long dead. I am not joking here. Seriously, you use your low powered travel power trying to catch up to Mr. Uber to get a chance to shoot something but all you find is dead bodies or nothing at all. Then the boss comes around. If you are lucky you get to take a shot at it... Maybe one if you are quick. Then it is dead and a lot of time Mr. Uber vanishes before the cut-scene is even over.

I will admit when you are Mr. Uber it feels pretty badass but when you are the lowbie it often feels either sort of awestriking or just a bit disappointing.

Follow-Bots

Comments