Removing AD from Rare Leadership Tasks

strumslinger · April 2016

Last year, we made a choice to remove AD from Leadership to combat botting, which helped to further stabilize the economy.

Due to this, we implemented additional ways to gain AD including a 50% increase in AD earned from in-game content, increasing the daily refinement cap, decreasing companion upgrade costs, decreasing stronghold coffer costs and removing the need for Mount Training Manuals.

In this process, we made a decision to keep AD in Rare Leadership tasks as we thought they weren't going to be an issue, but as time went on, it was clear that these tasks were still a target for botting.

Hence, we'll be removing AD from the following three Rare Leadership Tasks:
- Assault Enemy Stronghold
- Follow Map to an Unknown Location
- Recover Large Mineral Claim

To be clear, we're not removing the tasks; just the AD you get from them.

These changes will hit Preview as soon as tomorrow and will go live in the near future afterwards.

strumslinger · April 2016

I understand this may be upsetting to some of you, but please refrain from flaming or insults. It's fine to be critical, but not fine to be disrespectful. *swings away*

Unknown · April 2016

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ironzerg79 · April 2016

metalldjt said:
well , can i ask the reason on why are they getting removed?

strumslinger said:
it was clear that these tasks were still a target for botting.

urabask · April 2016

So now that you've gutted all the rare tasks are you going to put anything worth getting in them?

Unknown · April 2016

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Unknown · April 2016

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urabask · April 2016

metalldjt said:

ironzerg79 said:

metalldjt said:
well , can i ask the reason on why are they getting removed?

strumslinger said:
it was clear that these tasks were still a target for botting.

yea, any proof ?

it's hard to comprehend that they were botted since all of them required mark of gratitude and they are more expensive on AH then the task itself, not to mention that it requires you to do other tasks to obtain them.

and since the rank5 are still farmed from skill nodes that it should be a higher priority , nothing was taken against it.

Their data is probably about as relevant as the data that caused the bans during the winter festival.

loboguild · April 2016

I didn't even know there were still tasks with ADs on it. Leadership is a hot mess ever since the removal of AD, because the profession never received a full rework. It's way too hard to level given its benefits and only a few tasks are worth doing. Although the latter can be applied to any profession.

fdsakhfduewhfiuf · April 2016

I'm more interessted in knowing whether you are finished with your AD changes? Will there be any more changes to things like armor kits? They are quite expensive still.

Also, will we ever see a double AD event again? I think I read that after the AD changes settle in you will bring it back, someday.

scathias · April 2016

I would like to see a double AD event as well. I very much recall being told that there would be more of them in the future, but we still have not seen any sign of one

hmdq · April 2016

@strumslinger it's past time to take the AD of chanters with X million accounts you add to it! you have data on this?

Unknown · April 2016

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josephskyrim · April 2016

The double AD event probably has a "good chance" of occurring, much like getting an apparatus of Gond, in "rare instances" where you can definitely maybe find Beholder Tanks. But it hasn't been confirmed

beckylunatic · April 2016

I also find it very surprising that these tasks were in any way bottable because obtaining the materials for them was a multi-stage process involving a different rare task.

To be frank, I felt they weren't worth doing and had been saving my marks of gratitude in hope of a 2xAD event to maybe make it worth using them. Now it looks like I'll be selling the materials if I can find a sucker?

All of these tasks are less worthwhile than higher tier common leadership tasks that give decent RP. I'm not wasting profession slots or expensive components for a box of absolute garbage.

Take out the AD if you gotta, but for the love of Pete put something actually decent in its place (not just more character XP on these ones) or you really might as well dump the tasks altogether.

dfnce · April 2016

Well, do you remember what that person said?

thefabricant · April 2016

I find this amusing, I really doubt anyone is botting leadership for AD and so thus doubt that taking out those rewards changes anything. More realistically, leadership is being botted for RP. This change isn't effecting anyone and it certainly isn't effecting bots.

two30 · April 2016

Put account-bound mount insignia in leadership boxes.

kreatyve · April 2016

two30 said:
Put account-bound mount insignia in leadership boxes.

I like this suggestion. +1

namrekca · April 2016

Unknown · April 2016

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mightyeriksson · April 2016

I dont have the energy to dig them up, but at one point you made a (selling) point of the additional RAD that VIP would give to professions, and I always thought you kept the rare ones to not be caught flat out lying about that.
Guess that's not the case then?

Unknown · April 2016

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silverkelt · April 2016

Well none of us are upset really.. because it was a duboius task to make money from this process..

as long as they dont make RP btc.. I dont care what else they do.. they could throw a bone out and make leadership about 50% faster to level though.. as its by far the longest process in game to do and it has zero value really until rank 24.. and if they made these items bta.. I would be ok with that.. as long as they speed up leadership a little..

maybe some bots had millions of marks saved up and was making ad that way? seems like a odd chance of doing that though.

Most of us never even saw it come up for us in the last 6 months.

Unknown · April 2016

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adinosii · April 2016

I used to have 5 characters that did little but Leadership tasks, but after the removal of AD, I stopped logging them in - it simply wasn't worth my time. I still do professions on my main - 3 slots making Unified Elements, one making leadership vouchers for stronghold donations (getting the equivalent of 15K AD per day), one doing black ice refining, and the remainder doing a mix of whatever I feel I need - fut it all feels a bit pointless.

What I would like to see for professions in general:

More leadership tasks that give vouchers for stronghold coffer donation.

Crafting tasks that are actually profitable. Yes, I know there are a few, but prices have been dropping (Just look at the AH prices of Unified Elements for example) and it is hard to do better than break-even. You can sell stuff that people need for mastercrafting, shirts and pants and a few more items, but overall, crafting is pretty pointless.

(something which did not stop me from getting rank 25 in every craft, though, but that's just me....)

What I would love to see would be a mastercraft-level insignia crafting task - or even better, a way for crafting to create something that cannot be obtained at a lower price and with less effort otherwise.

Unknown · April 2016

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Unknown · April 2016

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beckylunatic · April 2016

strumslinger said:
In this process, we made a decision to keep AD in Rare Leadership tasks as we thought they weren't going to be an issue, but as time went on, it was clear that these tasks were still a target for botting.

Hence, we'll be removing AD from the following three Rare Leadership Tasks:
- Assault Enemy Stronghold
- Follow Map to an Unknown Location
- Recover Large Mineral Claim

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.

kievitz · April 2016

Seems the posters are baffled by the logic used to define these tasks as source of botting and just slamming a tag "these were used for botting" ive seen what these kind of blunt announcements do inside the playerbase and its not good. Especially when the logic does not fit the action.

We just have to take this as it comes and blindly trust the given statement that botting, nothing else was behind this removal.

If it really lowers the botting potential its good.

Sorry, but im not gonna take anything as provided anymore, until concrete evidence or experience tells me to embrace the information as the truth.

since there is no evidence and with my prior experince i remain sceptical about the motives.

ghoulz66 · April 2016

That's hilarious. I haven't even gotten the resources for these tasks since the AD was removed from the normal tasks. May as well grind a dungeon instead of micro this mess.

Removing AD from Rare Leadership Tasks

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