treesclimberMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,161Arc User
This is completly unecessary. The sword coast adventures getting botted? I dont think so, it requires a certain level of inteligence to recognize wich companion to use and when, now obviously professions were being botted, that i aprove.
It's always a resources battle. You can't keep just throwing resources and time at a problem indefinitely. Sometimes you can't continue to put the resources into a losing battle, and a wise commander knows when to concede the field and call a tactical retreat--or cut off something that's costing more in resources than they can well afford.
In this case, at least two highly skilled software professionals offered to provide free resources to help solve this issue in a player-friendly manner. I am one of them. Nobody took the time to reach out and discuss other solutions before pulling the plug. There are very good solutions, some of which are easy to implement compared to the very real monetary cost of alienating so many players. @panderus@strumslinger the offer still stands. Why not spend twenty minutes on Skype to get a fresh perspective?
It wasn't an issue of not knowing if we COULD solve the issue, it was more about how much time have we already spent and how much more time will we need to continually put into it. Botting cannot be 'solved' in some ways, you can really only setup more and different roadblocks but at an increasing cost to development each time.
We have quite a bit of experience in keeping the botters at bay at this point and it wasn't a decision that was come upon lightly at all. The meeting we had went over a long agenda and recounted things we have already tried to resolve this issue as well as weigh all the pros and cons. We even went through the scenario of just keeping up the non botted features of Gateway but there were still some costs that still incurred with little gains (keeping the additional specialized servers up and the fact few people used them).
So you will leave the rewards in professions so that now ONLY botters can do it efficiently? This just raised their rate of return (watch prices of refinement stones in the next 2 months). It is hard to understand the reasoning. Do you have plans to make it easier for real players to use professions? aka queues?
"we all love this game and want it to thrive"
0
plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,214Arc User
We have quite a bit of experience in keeping the botters at bay at this point and it wasn't a decision that was come upon lightly at all. The meeting we had went over a long agenda and recounted things we have already tried to resolve this issue as well as weigh all the pros and cons. We even went through the scenario of just keeping up the non botted features of Gateway but there were still some costs that still incurred with little gains (keeping the additional specialized servers up and the fact few people used them).
That is the real reason which is the cost of maintaining Gateway. Bots?
How do you determine there are few people used the non-botted features? Read only AH, Profession, inventory, character, etc all help. These are QoL stuff.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
I think whatever solution is put in for the companions and companion gear from SCA shouldn't be just in lockboxes or trade bars. There was no cost associated with getting these in SCA other than your time. It should be the same when they put them in game. Something that you could randomly get doing something...I was initially thinking something with events but even something as simple as adding to loot tables to drop on dungeon chests or skirmish chests.
poor botters will need to rise they prices and hack more accounts couse so many ppl will now use there sites too buy ADs
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andorrabellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 437Arc User
Can we please get the companion gear account bound until we have an answer to where it's going. People will not buy or try new companions if we cannot gear them correctly. @panderus@strumslinger
It's always a resources battle. You can't keep just throwing resources and time at a problem indefinitely. Sometimes you can't continue to put the resources into a losing battle, and a wise commander knows when to concede the field and call a tactical retreat--or cut off something that's costing more in resources than they can well afford.
In this case, at least two highly skilled software professionals offered to provide free resources to help solve this issue in a player-friendly manner. I am one of them. Nobody took the time to reach out and discuss other solutions before pulling the plug. There are very good solutions, some of which are easy to implement compared to the very real monetary cost of alienating so many players. @panderus@strumslinger the offer still stands. Why not spend twenty minutes on Skype to get a fresh perspective?
It wasn't an issue of not knowing if we COULD solve the issue, it was more about how much time have we already spent and how much more time will we need to continually put into it. Botting cannot be 'solved' in some ways, you can really only setup more and different roadblocks but at an increasing cost to development each time.
We have quite a bit of experience in keeping the botters at bay at this point and it wasn't a decision that was come upon lightly at all. The meeting we had went over a long agenda and recounted things we have already tried to resolve this issue as well as weigh all the pros and cons. We even went through the scenario of just keeping up the non botted features of Gateway but there were still some costs that still incurred with little gains (keeping the additional specialized servers up and the fact few people used them).
Why is it that every MAJOR change you guys have done recently.. SUPPOSEDLY for the Player's benefit is done in a way to increase Time Cost to the player and increase the need to Deposit (instead of earning ad... since you nerf all good paths of that). Obviously, you people believe you can get away with such changes because you have a constant supply of new players... and yeah.. that's true.. new players will never know what was taken away.... or how hard the game is now relative to previously. Maybe you DO want us old timers to leave so we don't negatively effect the new players and warn them to avoid trusting you guys... or teaching them legit ways to play for free (those ways are becoming less and less).
You guys are becoming really Abusive and Exploitative....
Please stop pretending this is about anything more than money. It's not about lag, SNR, DC's... they have actually increased since gateway has been down. You say the amount of time needed to combat botters or w/e is a main factor in the decision to remove Gateway... guess what.. that's a money issue too. More Manhours = More Cost and less profit for a company.
It would be a HUGE offense if you dared to put the used-to-be earnable stuff from Gateway onto the Zen Store.. please don't be so foolish. Trade bar store or ingame method to EARN it is best.
I swear.. the more you Monetize the Free element of the game.. the more I see greed and Deception and Abuse.
It's shameful that i now feel I have to PROTECT my guild from the Game Company... it used to be just other players.. but NOW... I feel I have to worry about the Game Company too...
“Improvise, Adapt and Overcome!”
― Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge
Guild Leader of Ardent Justice HQ: Always recruiting People not Pixels.
Guild management was another game feature that was much facilitated by Gateway. Not just the ability to sort your roster by login date, but I would regularly inspect players to see how they were progressing (I make care packages). I can no longer inspect anyone who isn't online at the same time as me.
Guild: Roster: Show Offine Members: right click on a name: Inspect
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
That is the real reason. How do you determine there are few people used the non-botted features?
They would be able to tell how many unique Gateway users were accessing professions, SCA, AH, inventory, character sheets, guild interface, and so forth.
That is the real reason. How do you determine there are few people used the non-botted features?
They would be able to tell how many unique Gateway users were accessing professions, SCA, AH, inventory, character sheets, guild interface, and so forth.
Just a matter of tracking traffic.
Frankly, I don't believe they did that at all. Of course, what I believe does not matter. If they indeed did that before they shutdown Gateway, it means they planned this all along and gather all the data to make that decision.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
We have quite a bit of experience in keeping the botters at bay at this point and it wasn't a decision that was come upon lightly at all. The meeting we had went over a long agenda and recounted things we have already tried to resolve this issue as well as weigh all the pros and cons. We even went through the scenario of just keeping up the non botted features of Gateway but there were still some costs that still incurred with little gains (keeping the additional specialized servers up and the fact few people used them).
That is the real reason which is the cost of maintaining Gateway. Bots?
How do you determine there are few people used the non-botted features? Read only AH, Profession, inventory, character, etc all help. These are QoL stuff.
I wonder a bit about this too. I mean, satellite-game functionality that doesn't directly give a competitive advantage and is more QoL should still be maintained imo, and even if its operating at a 'loss'. There's more there than the simple number of legit accounts using it, but a trust w/ the players that use those features (even intermittently) and their overall satisfaction at having something else to do w/ the game that is outside of the core game.
Now, maybe we will get people playing and earning things within the game fairly instead of seeing 50,0000 of their alts logging in and out all day.
I'll give you 10:1 odds that the botting issue is driven by real money traders that "play" the game entirely to sell AD and items for $$$, and not by real players that also run bot scripts. (plus the folks at a certain banned website that pull AH transaction history).
They would be able to tell how many unique Gateway users were accessing professions, SCA, AH, inventory, character sheets, guild interface, and so forth.
Just a matter of tracking traffic.
Hopefully they cross-referenced that check against the spend history of the players that use the features to understand if they are KITTENING off valuable customers. A very large fraction of players in the game presumably don't spend a dime. The more dedicated players that stick around long enough and take the game seriously enough to discover and value those other gateway features are likely to skew toward the paying side.
@panderus While I am trying to understand and cope with the decisions, I would like to please ask that you PLEASE do not put the Loyal gear in a lockbox. I would prefer it to be more readily available rather than have it in a lockbox. Trade bar store comes to mind, that way people still have to buy keys to get it, but are pretty much guaranteed to get the pieces they want/need.
Lockbox is not likely where we would put them, no.
Personally, I would like to see the Lightfoot Thief come from some gameplay related activity.
Maybe an epic level leadership profession task??
That is an interesting and flavorful place to put them.
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,214Arc User
It was so hard for the devs to think about remove ALL but SCA on Gateway? And BTW, with this and premade toon I think you will have a lvl 70 BOT army in game very soon.
They are already in game. If they can run dungeon, how hard for them to run profession or AH in game?
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
@panderus While I am trying to understand and cope with the decisions, I would like to please ask that you PLEASE do not put the Loyal gear in a lockbox. I would prefer it to be more readily available rather than have it in a lockbox. Trade bar store comes to mind, that way people still have to buy keys to get it, but are pretty much guaranteed to get the pieces they want/need.
Lockbox is not likely where we would put them, no.
Personally, I would like to see the Lightfoot Thief come from some gameplay related activity.
Maybe an epic level leadership profession task??
That is an interesting and flavorful place to put them.
Which leads to other ideas: Tiered companion gear crafted from the appropriate profession, companions available from each profession tiered based on quality, maybe a new profession "Beastmaster".
I'm not sure why, but I'm not really upset over this. I guess it's because I only casually used the Gateway, more or less quit Leadership a year ago, and Panderus let it slip when he said he was tasked with putting the SCA rewards elsewhere. I didn't want to plant a flag on it since I realized it was an accidental slip-up and no one else seemed to latch on. It made it obvious to me though that, at the very least, SCA was going away forever, if not the whole Gateway.
Also, since the release for Xbox, I figured the Gateway's days were numbered, and with PS4, it's fate was sealed. I'm not saying the botting was a smokescreen, but the other platforms made the decision much easier. Without botting, it would have likely happened eventually anyway though.
Putting the SCA rewards in the Tbar or Seal store would work, but I agree it would be nicer if it was a direct gameplay reward. It could be put in dungeon loot tables (sweetening the pot for Fangbreaker!?), but my favorite idea is companion gear as a foundry reward (LF Thief could be a rare reward)! So it isn't too crazy, could just be the first game per day per character, and could even be BtA to prevent botting.
Sadly though, it seems like the foundry is on a slow roll to the graveyard as well...
We have quite a bit of experience in keeping the botters at bay at this point and it wasn't a decision that was come upon lightly at all. The meeting we had went over a long agenda and recounted things we have already tried to resolve this issue as well as weigh all the pros and cons. We even went through the scenario of just keeping up the non botted features of Gateway but there were still some costs that still incurred with little gains (keeping the additional specialized servers up and the fact few people used them).
That is the real reason which is the cost of maintaining Gateway. Bots?
How do you determine there are few people used the non-botted features? Read only AH, Profession, inventory, character, etc all help. These are QoL stuff.
It was certainly one of the costs, yes. There was also the extra dev costs of keeping a feature, the extra servers and knowledge needed to maintain them as well.
How did we determine what people used in gateway? It was a website, those are very easy to track what players are doing. Also, when we are being 'aggressively botted' we could see what processes the servers were doing that was taking up the most CPU cycles.
@willwilco 'Recently logged in' is actually anyone who has logged into gateway within the last year if I recall correctly.
@tripsofthrymr Regarding professional botters vs actual players, we believe that what was hurting the servers were professional botters simply because large influxes of them would start up all in parallel suggested a coordinated effort. Player activities are much more organic and ebb and flow with the normal game traffic and behaviors.
@strumslinger@panderus@kreatyve gateway is gone now. ok thank you for the notice. i can stop complaining about what is happening to it.
" option for companion gear - make a merchant we can spend our gold on to buy companion gear. lightfoot thief - a sort of game to get it would be fun i like your idea - try to do a simple one though like... lore collection - make 10 lore spots that give us a feeling of the dead gateway (have this be unlocked when you put on your forth epic companion). like a signpost through protector enclave that gives us the lore behind gateway... make this once per character and allow the companion to still be sold on ah. "
i wonder how things will go for the stuff... i don't want to have to spend what little tbars i have on companion gear... making a new merchant we can buy it from for gold it better... cause right now gold is trash and we don't have a lot to spend it on... make the items cost like 50-200 gold depending on rarity of getting it in gateway to also the item themselves... like how rings salvage for less now and chest pieces salvage for ore.
the main reason i am gonna miss gateway is cause i was making easy 200k ad a day and i could do professions on it. since you are taking away gateway can ad be re-added to it? since removing ad from leadership it has become trash to actually do for time spent lvling it. rp stones don't really cut it; unless we get purples which we don't.
if i find more things to talk about here i will thing about it; but so far thanks guys for the notice.
Just so everyone knows... I happen to know EXACTLY what they are talking about. I had first hand (vague?) experience with the gateway botting. it was rampant, all you have to do is look at the auction house silly! All those nice refining stones being sold by the thousands... you think what, we... they all got those INGAME?? no... they set up scripts on gateway and made bajillions of stones and the resulting millions of AD. I'm sorry if you were farming the Loyal gear on SCA, they all ruined it for ya : C
... a bot for the botters... lololol
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Comments
(yes, that was just a joke- don't kill me, mods, plz)
<CO docs> .: Petco :. // Base DPS Sheet (needs revision) // PSA on Power Activation Delay
- Themed Tanks // Misc Build Dump // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (stat data)
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
How do you determine there are few people used the non-botted features?
Read only AH, Profession, inventory, character, etc all help. These are QoL stuff.
People will not buy or try new companions if we cannot gear them correctly.
@panderus @strumslinger
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
Why is it that every MAJOR change you guys have done recently.. SUPPOSEDLY for the Player's benefit is done in a way to increase Time Cost to the player and increase the need to Deposit (instead of earning ad... since you nerf all good paths of that). Obviously, you people believe you can get away with such changes because you have a constant supply of new players... and yeah.. that's true.. new players will never know what was taken away.... or how hard the game is now relative to previously. Maybe you DO want us old timers to leave so we don't negatively effect the new players and warn them to avoid trusting you guys... or teaching them legit ways to play for free (those ways are becoming less and less).
You guys are becoming really Abusive and Exploitative....
Please stop pretending this is about anything more than money. It's not about lag, SNR, DC's... they have actually increased since gateway has been down. You say the amount of time needed to combat botters or w/e is a main factor in the decision to remove Gateway... guess what.. that's a money issue too. More Manhours = More Cost and less profit for a company.
It would be a HUGE offense if you dared to put the used-to-be earnable stuff from Gateway onto the Zen Store.. please don't be so foolish. Trade bar store or ingame method to EARN it is best.
I swear.. the more you Monetize the Free element of the game.. the more I see greed and Deception and Abuse.
It's shameful that i now feel I have to PROTECT my guild from the Game Company... it used to be just other players.. but NOW... I feel I have to worry about the Game Company too...
― Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge
Guild Leader of Ardent Justice HQ: Always recruiting People not Pixels.
FOUNDER and OWNER of the SKT3K Channel: SKT Only Content 3k+. http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1228278/skt-content-for-the-non-elite-video-links-provided
Now, maybe we will get people playing and earning things within the game fairly instead of seeing 50,0000 of their alts logging in and out all day.
-Kymos
Just a matter of tracking traffic.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
If they indeed did that before they shutdown Gateway, it means they planned this all along and gather all the data to make that decision.
<CO docs> .: Petco :. // Base DPS Sheet (needs revision) // PSA on Power Activation Delay
- Themed Tanks // Misc Build Dump // Ayonachan's Gift Horse (stat data)
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
/ExportGuildMemberList C:\Temp\myList.csv
Thanks to @kvet for that one.
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
Also, since the release for Xbox, I figured the Gateway's days were numbered, and with PS4, it's fate was sealed. I'm not saying the botting was a smokescreen, but the other platforms made the decision much easier. Without botting, it would have likely happened eventually anyway though.
Putting the SCA rewards in the Tbar or Seal store would work, but I agree it would be nicer if it was a direct gameplay reward. It could be put in dungeon loot tables (sweetening the pot for Fangbreaker!?), but my favorite idea is companion gear as a foundry reward (LF Thief could be a rare reward)! So it isn't too crazy, could just be the first game per day per character, and could even be BtA to prevent botting.
Sadly though, it seems like the foundry is on a slow roll to the graveyard as well...
How did we determine what people used in gateway? It was a website, those are very easy to track what players are doing. Also, when we are being 'aggressively botted' we could see what processes the servers were doing that was taking up the most CPU cycles.
@willwilco 'Recently logged in' is actually anyone who has logged into gateway within the last year if I recall correctly.
@tripsofthrymr Regarding professional botters vs actual players, we believe that what was hurting the servers were professional botters simply because large influxes of them would start up all in parallel suggested a coordinated effort. Player activities are much more organic and ebb and flow with the normal game traffic and behaviors.
gateway is gone now. ok thank you for the notice. i can stop complaining about what is happening to it.
" option for companion gear - make a merchant we can spend our gold on to buy companion gear. lightfoot thief - a sort of game to get it would be fun i like your idea - try to do a simple one though like... lore collection - make 10 lore spots that give us a feeling of the dead gateway (have this be unlocked when you put on your forth epic companion). like a signpost through protector enclave that gives us the lore behind gateway... make this once per character and allow the companion to still be sold on ah. "
i wonder how things will go for the stuff... i don't want to have to spend what little tbars i have on companion gear... making a new merchant we can buy it from for gold it better... cause right now gold is trash and we don't have a lot to spend it on... make the items cost like 50-200 gold depending on rarity of getting it in gateway to also the item themselves... like how rings salvage for less now and chest pieces salvage for ore.
the main reason i am gonna miss gateway is cause i was making easy 200k ad a day and i could do professions on it.
since you are taking away gateway can ad be re-added to it?
since removing ad from leadership it has become trash to actually do for time spent lvling it. rp stones don't really cut it; unless we get purples which we don't.
if i find more things to talk about here i will thing about it; but so far thanks guys for the notice.
... a bot for the botters... lololol
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia