After just getting back, it is my understanding that Gateway was brought down due to extreme botting activity. There was no set date on when it would be back and we still don't have a set date. We're currently in discussions to see what can be done before bringing it back.
that's no excuse for keeping everybody in the dark for so long. if this is your understanding after getting back as you say, it suggests to me that it was known in advance.
if that's the case, then someone from within should have taken a few minutes out of their time to make an emergency announcement stating these exact reasons.
there is next to no respect for the player base, and that is shocking.
I visit several forums operated by game developers to support their games, and they keep their members better clued up than this place does.
this is not a slight at you, if you were out of town and unavailable & couldn't post, it's understandable. I just can't believe every other person involved with the operation & functioning of NW decided to leave and not come back until you did.
After just getting back, it is my understanding that Gateway was brought down due to extreme botting activity. There was no set date on when it would be back and we still don't have a set date. We're currently in discussions to see what can be done before bringing it back.
This is pretty ridiculous, guys.
When you disabled Leadership on Gateway to combat AD farming, you discovered a few weeks later that the botters had simply moved to using in-game profession scripts, and removing it from Gateway accomplished nothing but to inconvenience your human players.
Panderus said that unbound RP from Leadership was not showing as big an impact on the game as people were thinking, so... it's very baffling as to what could be the big whooping deal, because - shockingly - pretty much nothing else is valuable.
Still, I am glad to know that I should resume a set-and-forget once-a-day profession regime because it's not coming back any time soon.
Also, lack of SCA makes people sad pandas, and it was *very* poor form for it to be disabled without someone making an announcement (even though Strum was unavailable).
micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
edited September 2016
I'm a chat bot !
Can we get EU2 proxy back then, I can't swap chars, barely can login and sometimes swap map instance somewhere, can't do anything, no profession, no invoking.....
LoL. There are sooooo many bot's ingame, why don't you just shut it down too? This is gonna be so good, if r4/r5 stacks price went up like 800% same will happen to reso prices. GG for new players, enjoy the ride
After just getting back, it is my understanding that Gateway was brought down due to extreme botting activity. There was no set date on when it would be back and we still don't have a set date. We're currently in discussions to see what can be done before bringing it back.
@strumslinger - thanks for the update. I agree with tripsofthrymr - If you design it such that it will work better if automated, it will be automated. The only way to prevent that under the current design is to remove all valuable loot from professions or, at least, making it account bound. That would be really unfortunate since it would have immediate and drastic effects on the game's economy.
Instead, a design that IS automated, but that doesn't allow for rapid outpouring of valuable loot, would be a great idea. Simply allow us to do exactly what the you're trying to "prevent" - but change the stuff such that it's not so fast. Allow each professions ONCE instead of THREE times, but allow us to click a box to instantly repeat it until cancelled, and make the tasks a base 24-hour timer.
If you think about the UX that's driving most people to use bots, it's pretty clear that yes, it's profit motive, but in large part it's also that the experience mostly sucks when done legit day in and day out. Perhaps instead of fully automated, you can require a single in-game click, or perhaps tie the reset of professions to the first invoke or something like that. Who knows - but the point is, don't destroy one of the major differentiators of the game because people are automating it. Instead, take the opportunity to consider how the PLAYERS (your customers) would want to this system to work and find a compromise that mitigates bots while still delivering a useful and important system.
On another note: The surprise and non-communication was absolutely uncalled for. I get you (strumslinger) were out of town, but you're not the only person with fingers and a keyboard at Cryptic. This sort of thing should not be pulled on your customers. It's no joke that if I decided that sap.com needed to come down right now, and just... did it... without any sort of comms, I'd lose my job and possibly so would my entire department regardless of whether the reasons were 100% valid or not. It shows, yet again, a major lack of customer-focus on the part of Cryptic and, frankly, your company owes us (the customers) a VERY complete explanation along with an apology.
BOTS...again! Start banning the accounts permanently. If you see the activity it can be monitored...and if it is monitored, you can tell who and what is doing it. BAN them and stop punishing legit players. Some of us have lives and have to work, we can not spend 8 hours in the game playing...those that due work and then log in for a couple hours of gameplay find it is no longer gameplay, we find it is just more work to keep up or progress. It is no longer an escape from Reality or Real Life, it is no longer a game, it becomes a second job. Some of us cannot play in-game all the time and this Gateway helps to relieve the monotonous time constraint of the professions let alone the grind introduced lately just to progress on their 4 characters. This will deter me even further from creating other characters, 1 for each class which was my original goal.
Plus, to get those items like "Pet Jewelry" and the "Lightfoot Thief" that are available from the Gateway (SCA) you must level and invest in your pets. We spend time/money and AD to invest in our pets and you take it away. Punish the Legit players and just send the bots elsewhere (because they will adapt) to destroy more mechanics of the game that are being removed in the name of combating bots (if that is really the cause), all it does is basically reward the bots and dampens the play of legit players. But then again, maybe the casual player like myself that may spend $200.00 now and then is not who you are after or catering to.
PLEASE DO NOT DO SOMETHING THAT ALIENATES THE LEGIT PLAYERS EVEN FURTHER!! YOU KNOW WHO IS DOING THE BOTTING ACTIVITY (if you are TRUELY monitoring it) BAN THE BOTS ACCOUNT WIDE!
0
andorrabellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 437Arc User
After just getting back, it is my understanding that Gateway was brought down due to extreme botting activity. There was no set date on when it would be back and we still don't have a set date. We're currently in discussions to see what can be done before bringing it back.
Anyone sitting on companion gear from the gateway is going to make out like a bandit. Rings of the Loyal Avenger are already going for around 1 million AD.
wondering what they were botting if not the RP????
I'd suspect AH bots, always ensuring that they're the LowPriceLeader(tm). I've seen things where I post something that's a bit under, and within a minute, the previous cheapest has undercut again.
Just floating another idea out there: maybe it wasn't the professions that are the problem with the Gateway.
Perhaps someone found an exploit in the AH, ZaX, or Zen Store? Or perhaps the botters were using the gateway for those informational mails I keep getting and the volume got too big?
It's a little strange that they would take it off line suddenly unless there was a sudden uptick in activity (some hack shop released a new package, or someone discovered and shared a new exploit) or a sudden discovery of an existing exploit (kind of unlikely on the long weekend).
My last conspiracy theory is that it has to do with polling scripts. I noticed recently that some of the buy times on RP posted below threshold (I was playing around posting a couple refining stones at a time) are almost instant. I know it's always been fast but subjectively it's more immediate than say a year ago. Perhaps with the attention that the PS4 launch got more people got into AH-high-frequency-trading and it's stressing the servers.
Don't Cryptic see that they are ripping apart their game more and more? What will this end up as when this just keeps going like that?
0
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
I mean, if concerns about botting professions, there's no reason they can't just remove professions from the gateway.
Honestly, I'm more into the gateway for easy management of selling my goods through the AH than anything else. Switching to a daily loadout from professions is admittedly a pain, though.
0
ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
Feel sorry for people who don't have the companion gear yet.....
If they are going to remove the RP from leadership then please give us some other incentive for having multiple alts.
I cannot gear up 7 or 8 alts, it took intense focus during the last two 2xRP events in order to gear up one character up to an I-level of 3.4k, in anticipation of Fangbreaker's Island dungeon. There is no way I can gear up 3 or 4 alts to this level in any reasonable amount of time. I have alts right now for the leadership profession and for storage. Take away the RP from leadership profession and it only leaves storage, and I don't need all *that* much storage.
I think it's pretty obvious for the non-announcement. They didn't want ppl to hoard their RP. They wanted them to use up their RP items from Leadership during the double RP event... believing they could easily replenish it. Then they communicate that gateway will be kept down post event. Who knows what kind of stores some folks might have... just means if ppl do have considerable stores hoarded... then RP items will sell for significantly more in the future.
Also Companion Gear, is and will continue to rise in price. Hope everyone got all their Avenger/Striker Companion Gear.
Awesome, I used most of my RP during this event. So everyone who had loads to begin with will be in the major advantage after this and only the newer and less wealthy players will get to bite the bullet. AGAIN. This is not fun any more.
0
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Just floating another idea out there: maybe it wasn't the professions that are the problem with the Gateway.
My last conspiracy theory is that it has to do with polling scripts. I noticed recently that some of the buy times on RP posted below threshold (I was playing around posting a couple refining stones at a time) are almost instant. I know it's always been fast but subjectively it's more immediate than say a year ago.
It is possible that it was some form of auction exploit, I suppose.
Good grief selling stackable items is painful from in-game though. I hate not being able to specify quantities without manually splitting the stacks.
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
Even if they cant bring the darn thing back, can we get sword coast adventures seperate please.. the loyal gear is part of our economy and I would find it sad it was removed due to scripting on the gateway
Honestly, some of you sound a little bit... well, not right in the noggin. Sure, the Gateway being down is a VAST Arc-Wing CONspiracy! They are attempting to corner the market place on... well, EVERYTHING! That way, they can cause imbalance and make millions! Cuz... Anarchy!
So, you are saying that there is no chance that this was noticed after everyone who was either (away for the long HOLIDAY weekend, or going to the large EVENT in another state, or busy working on premade chars/CTA/Solo Queuing), and rather than call everyone back, they just decided 'Turn off access to it for now'??? Does it HAVE to be a plan to take over the NW world?
Frankie says 'Relax and start thinking critically'.
P.S. Those who are saying that this is poor decision/bad judgement, you are exempt. I'm only balking at the fecalites who insist on assigning motive where none is clear.
and they have put up a news post for the cta starting this weekend saying about getting medallions from the sca. They are really pushing the community to the limit
Just started playing Saturday (and thus this is my first post). Unlocked professions, got the message about the gateway, and tried to use it only to find it under maintenance. Tried again this morning to use it, found it was still down for maintenance, so did some searching trying to figure if I just had bad timing, or if it's been down for some time, and ended up here. (Note: Yes, my search did find a forum apparently dedicated to creating profession scripts)
The real solution to exploitation is to adjust how professions work so that a human player and a bot will have about the same benefit (e.g. worthwhile tasks that take 24 hours, not 4 hours), allow limited task queuing, and make sure the total resources granted per day from crafting are reasonable.
I highly doubt the devs care if "normal" players are running profession scripts on characters on their "main" account they actually play in order to give themselves queue functionality. I would assume the game is already balanced under the assumption that active players will be optimizing their time, even if it's by setting alarms and running tasks over the web. Presumably the real issue is RMT farms running hundreds if not thousands of bots to generate currency/level characters that they can then turn around and sell, and nothing in your solution addresses that.
However, I'm not sure that there is anything that can be done on the gateway side to fix this problem, other than remove most of what makes it useful to "honest" players. The fix really has to be a more systematic approach to get rid of RMTer's entirely regardless of how they make the money they are selling.
Comments
Sci-fi author: The Gods We Make, The Gods We Seek, and Ji-min
if that's the case, then someone from within should have taken a few minutes out of their time to make an emergency announcement stating these exact reasons.
there is next to no respect for the player base, and that is shocking.
I visit several forums operated by game developers to support their games, and they keep their members better clued up than this place does.
this is not a slight at you, if you were out of town and unavailable & couldn't post, it's understandable. I just can't believe every other person involved with the operation & functioning of NW decided to leave and not come back until you did.
When you disabled Leadership on Gateway to combat AD farming, you discovered a few weeks later that the botters had simply moved to using in-game profession scripts, and removing it from Gateway accomplished nothing but to inconvenience your human players.
Panderus said that unbound RP from Leadership was not showing as big an impact on the game as people were thinking, so... it's very baffling as to what could be the big whooping deal, because - shockingly - pretty much nothing else is valuable.
Still, I am glad to know that I should resume a set-and-forget once-a-day profession regime because it's not coming back any time soon.
Also, lack of SCA makes people sad pandas, and it was *very* poor form for it to be disabled without someone making an announcement (even though Strum was unavailable).
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Can we get EU2 proxy back then, I can't swap chars, barely can login and sometimes swap map instance somewhere, can't do anything, no profession, no invoking.....
And btw, the command is from here:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/comment/12823956
first page last comment.
GG for new players, enjoy the ride
So, how is the Open Communication policy working out for you? I'd wager a guess that it needs a little work.
Murphster - SS CW | Jennsen Rahl - MoF CW
Taarna - GWF
Eowyn - Protector OP | Leela - Devoted OP
Mara Jade - TR
Leeloo - Tempt SW | Kahlan Amnell - Fury SW | Galadriel - Damnation SW
Sturm Nightblade - GF
Instead, a design that IS automated, but that doesn't allow for rapid outpouring of valuable loot, would be a great idea. Simply allow us to do exactly what the you're trying to "prevent" - but change the stuff such that it's not so fast. Allow each professions ONCE instead of THREE times, but allow us to click a box to instantly repeat it until cancelled, and make the tasks a base 24-hour timer.
If you think about the UX that's driving most people to use bots, it's pretty clear that yes, it's profit motive, but in large part it's also that the experience mostly sucks when done legit day in and day out. Perhaps instead of fully automated, you can require a single in-game click, or perhaps tie the reset of professions to the first invoke or something like that. Who knows - but the point is, don't destroy one of the major differentiators of the game because people are automating it. Instead, take the opportunity to consider how the PLAYERS (your customers) would want to this system to work and find a compromise that mitigates bots while still delivering a useful and important system.
On another note: The surprise and non-communication was absolutely uncalled for. I get you (strumslinger) were out of town, but you're not the only person with fingers and a keyboard at Cryptic. This sort of thing should not be pulled on your customers. It's no joke that if I decided that sap.com needed to come down right now, and just... did it... without any sort of comms, I'd lose my job and possibly so would my entire department regardless of whether the reasons were 100% valid or not. It shows, yet again, a major lack of customer-focus on the part of Cryptic and, frankly, your company owes us (the customers) a VERY complete explanation along with an apology.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Plus, to get those items like "Pet Jewelry" and the "Lightfoot Thief" that are available from the Gateway (SCA) you must level and invest in your pets. We spend time/money and AD to invest in our pets and you take it away. Punish the Legit players and just send the bots elsewhere (because they will adapt) to destroy more mechanics of the game that are being removed in the name of combating bots (if that is really the cause), all it does is basically reward the bots and dampens the play of legit players. But then again, maybe the casual player like myself that may spend $200.00 now and then is not who you are after or catering to.
PLEASE DO NOT DO SOMETHING THAT ALIENATES THE LEGIT PLAYERS EVEN FURTHER!!
YOU KNOW WHO IS DOING THE BOTTING ACTIVITY (if you are TRUELY monitoring it) BAN THE BOTS ACCOUNT WIDE!
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1218289/storm-kings-thunder-preview-patch-notes-nw-65-20160705a-3/p5
wondering what they were botting if not the RP????
I'd suspect AH bots, always ensuring that they're the LowPriceLeader(tm). I've seen things where I post something that's a bit under, and within a minute, the previous cheapest has undercut again.
Perhaps someone found an exploit in the AH, ZaX, or Zen Store? Or perhaps the botters were using the gateway for those informational mails I keep getting and the volume got too big?
It's a little strange that they would take it off line suddenly unless there was a sudden uptick in activity (some hack shop released a new package, or someone discovered and shared a new exploit) or a sudden discovery of an existing exploit (kind of unlikely on the long weekend).
My last conspiracy theory is that it has to do with polling scripts. I noticed recently that some of the buy times on RP posted below threshold (I was playing around posting a couple refining stones at a time) are almost instant. I know it's always been fast but subjectively it's more immediate than say a year ago. Perhaps with the attention that the PS4 launch got more people got into AH-high-frequency-trading and it's stressing the servers.
Honestly, I'm more into the gateway for easy management of selling my goods through the AH than anything else. Switching to a daily loadout from professions is admittedly a pain, though.
If they are going to remove the RP from leadership then please give us some other incentive for having multiple alts.
I cannot gear up 7 or 8 alts, it took intense focus during the last two 2xRP events in order to gear up one character up to an I-level of 3.4k, in anticipation of Fangbreaker's Island dungeon. There is no way I can gear up 3 or 4 alts to this level in any reasonable amount of time. I have alts right now for the leadership profession and for storage. Take away the RP from leadership profession and it only leaves storage, and I don't need all *that* much storage.
Also Companion Gear, is and will continue to rise in price. Hope everyone got all their Avenger/Striker Companion Gear.
I'm fairly certain that was the intention here.
- Forge (GF)
- Apocalypse - (DC)
- Sadus (OP)
- Fireball (GWF)
- Ixian (CW)
Thank you Loadouts for allowing my toons to be all the things... they ever wanted to be....
Good grief selling stackable items is painful from in-game though. I hate not being able to specify quantities without manually splitting the stacks.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
So, you are saying that there is no chance that this was noticed after everyone who was either (away for the long HOLIDAY weekend, or going to the large EVENT in another state, or busy working on premade chars/CTA/Solo Queuing), and rather than call everyone back, they just decided 'Turn off access to it for now'??? Does it HAVE to be a plan to take over the NW world?
Frankie says 'Relax and start thinking critically'.
P.S. Those who are saying that this is poor decision/bad judgement, you are exempt. I'm only balking at the fecalites who insist on assigning motive where none is clear.
BALK, I say! BAAAAALK!
However, I'm not sure that there is anything that can be done on the gateway side to fix this problem, other than remove most of what makes it useful to "honest" players. The fix really has to be a more systematic approach to get rid of RMTer's entirely regardless of how they make the money they are selling.