Closing the last few botting cashcows.

Evryn - Morai · December 2014

Even though I'm a heavy autoculti-for-cash player myself, I'm pleased to hear that the DQ items are going to be worthless come next patch. It seems that PWI is trying to close ways of using multiple accounts to grab cash fast. However, I've observed a trend by certain cheaters, who are switching their tactics now.

I've observed players using dozens of accounts to log in, I'm assuming automatically since the player in question is doing it very fast (dozens of toons with an unintelligable name like IIlIlI or such), take the Jolly Jones quest to get 7 tokens and free money, and then log out again. While the individual cash rewards from Jolly Jones per character aren't much, if you use 100 toons to do it, you get a free 15 million a day. And the player I've observed is doing at least that.

Suggestion to fix: Eliminate the free money grant on receiving the Bounty Tokens from Jolly Jones, but increase the quest completion money reward for actually doing a quest by 20%.

Another observation is that some players who previously used a -snip- even in times before autocultivation was introduced, have now started to use bots to automatically mine resources (Metal/Coal/Stone/Wood, and various herbs). These players are using third party automation, but since reporting them has no effect, I suggest a change on the developer side:
Limit the amount of resources any one character can mine in one day to 100 gatherings. Kinda like the earning time limit.

These changes should reduce the income of cheaters to amounts that won't affect the game a lot anymore, without the need for admin intervention.

DEMHEALSMAN - Dreamweaver · December 2014

Evryn - Morai wrote: »

Even though I'm a heavy autoculti-for-cash player myself, I'm pleased to hear that the DQ items are going to be worthless come next patch. It seems that PWI is trying to close ways of using multiple accounts to grab cash fast. However, I've observed a trend by certain cheaters, who are switching their tactics now.

I've observed players using dozens of accounts to log in, I'm assuming automatically since the player in question is doing it very fast (dozens of toons with an unintelligable name like IIlIlI or such), take the Jolly Jones quest to get 7 tokens and free money, and then log out again. While the individual cash rewards from Jolly Jones per character aren't much, if you use 100 toons to do it, you get a free 15 million a day. And the player I've observed is doing at least that.

Suggestion to fix: Eliminate the free money grant on receiving the Bounty Tokens from Jolly Jones, but increase the quest completion money reward for actually doing a quest by 20%.

Another observation is that some players who previously used a -snip- even in times before autocultivation was introduced, have now started to use bots to automatically mine resources (Metal/Coal/Stone/Wood, and various herbs). These players are using third party automation, but since reporting them has no effect, I suggest a change on the developer side:
Limit the amount of resources any one character can mine in one day to 100 gatherings. Kinda like the earning time limit.

These changes should reduce the income of cheaters to amounts that won't affect the game a lot anymore, without the need for admin intervention.

The first point, maybe.
The last point, no. That would also restrict regular players a lot.
Besides, what would stop people from logging in/out the next bot to mine resources?

Evryn - Morai · December 2014

The necessity to manage it would prevent it. The player using the mining bot in question barely manages it's accounts - the damn bot often fills up it's inventory and then keeps mining, causing resources to go onto the worldmap (and into the inventory of my autoculti toon - that's what caused me to pick up on this).

NPCing a stack of 100 mineables is 100k coin. Would be negligable. If you want to go through the hassle of switching accounts for 100k every now and then, have at it - but you won't be mining day in, day out, 24/7.

mroadknight · December 2014

Do people really do this? Where do they find the time? The amount of effort it must take to create these toons, then log them all in on a daily basis, wow. If they really have that much free time to log after after alt then let them lol. I assume a large portion of the player base have lives and jobs so I doubt that a majority of the player base is doing this. I personally hardly log anymore aside from boting for lvls on my RB toons, BH the odd time and PV. Sometimes even do a little Primal! Honestly it is kind of disturbing some of the things people do in game.. Like for example some people have 5-6-7-8 alts that they use to farm FSP with.. I struggle to do FSP on 1 toon anymore! It's sad tat PWI has to punish all players for the few people that live on the game 8 hours a day like a job.

bloodedone87 · December 2014

Who the **** has 100 toons?b:shutup And who the **** got that amount of time to log them.
Seriously. I m doing JOJ and never seen toons apearing and dissaperaing there every minute.
Leave JOJ as it is. b:bye

Molniya - Dreamweaver · December 2014

Leave things as they are. It's ridiculously hard to earn money as it is, losing the DQ items means I'm losing most of my earnings from my quests (selling a 3k item, usually 10 of them at once, gets me more than the quest reward AND the coin drops from an 80 mob quest, stupidly enough). Don't limit some of the few ways to actually make cash, especially the resources when they're one of the few ways to get money for mob-drop resources...

Evryn - Morai · December 2014

mroadknight wrote: »

Do people really do this? Where do they find the time? The amount of effort it must take to create these toons, then log them all in on a daily basis, wow. If they really have that much free time to log after after alt then let them lol. I assume a large portion of the player base have lives and jobs so I doubt that a majority of the player base is doing this. I personally hardly log anymore aside from boting for lvls on my RB toons, BH the odd time and PV. Sometimes even do a little Primal! Honestly it is kind of disturbing some of the things people do in game.. Like for example some people have 5-6-7-8 alts that they use to farm FSP with.. I struggle to do FSP on 1 toon anymore! It's sad tat PWI has to punish all players for the few people that live on the game 8 hours a day like a job.

From experience:
Create archer. Quest until level 40 (takes less then a day). Dreamchaser pack, +5 the weapon. Equip daily Woyn charms. Plop char on autoculti in the Dragon Wilderness. Takes a week or so to get one to lvl 60 that way. If that. From then on just use the sign-in quest to slowly level it to 71. Jolly alt established with minimum effort.

And if people want to actually play this game 8 hours a day and benefit from it that way, I don't see anything wrong with that. Some people work RL instead and cash up instead of farming for that amount of time. It's fine if the player is working for their resources. But automagic free money is a bad thing in MMOs like this.

And Bloode: I said that the player in question is likely doing it with a botting program or script of some sort. Logging 3 accounts simultaneously every 3 seconds for over an hour is not something humanly possible I think. I know I'd not have the stamina for it. Because it's being botted, it needs to go, simple as that.

If the initial cash gift is dropped but the rewards for doing the Jolly quests are bumped up so that it evens out, it kills the ability to grab free money while maintaining Jolly as a source of income for players who want to trade time for coins.

bloodedone87 · December 2014

Evryn - Morai wrote: »

From experience:
Create archer. Quest until level 40 (takes less then a day). Dreamchaser pack, +5 the weapon. Equip daily Woyn charms. Plop char on autoculti in the Dragon Wilderness. Takes a week or so to get one to lvl 60 that way. If that. From then on just use the sign-in quest to slowly level it to 71. Jolly alt established with minimum effort.

And if people want to actually play this game 8 hours a day and benefit from it that way, I don't see anything wrong with that. Some people work RL instead and cash up instead of farming for that amount of time. It's fine if the player is working for their resources. But automagic free money is a bad thing in MMOs like this.

And Bloode: I said that the player in question is likely doing it with a botting program or script of some sort. Logging 3 accounts simultaneously every 3 seconds for over an hour is not something humanly possible I think. I know I'd not have the stamina for it. Because it's being botted, it needs to go, simple as that.

If the initial cash gift is dropped but the rewards for doing the Jolly quests are bumped up so that it evens out, it kills the ability to grab free money while maintaining Jolly as a source of income for players who want to trade time for coins.

So are you saying people have 100 lvl 71+ toons to do jolly
that means some people have 100 acounts.

i dont agree with your method even if the reward is bumped.
I do JOJ but i skip the mob killing quests( and i think many others do that too) so teh money i may get depends on how many ''Drive the demons away'' i get from the 7 orders .
Some days I get those quest 3 or 4 times so less money. thats when cash gift helps.
other days I get like 1 or 2 time so more money.

About the 3rd part bott system( even if I didnt see many, 1or 2 on RT server) i agree that PW must do something to stop them.

Evryn - Morai · December 2014

And you've not read the point I am making.

PWI has a history of not letting their GMs step in to get rid of cheaters. It's my assumption that they'd rather do this by changing the game mechanics to make automated exploits impossible or irrelevant (as was demonstrated by combating 3rd party bots with autocultivation) - probably to save having to pay a bunch of GMs to play cop. I'm signalling 2 problems that will give cheaters an unfair advantage over other players in the next patch. I'm proposing solutions for them that do not rely on GM activity. If you have another idea, please elaborate, but "must do something" isn't a solution, just an acknowledgement that there is a problem.

And for the record - I trash the fight quests too. Takes too long to get to those damned snakes...

bloodedone87 · December 2014

Evryn - Morai wrote: »

And you've not read the point I am making.

PWI has a history of not letting their GMs step in to get rid of cheaters. It's my assumption that they'd rather do this by changing the game mechanics to make automated exploits impossible or irrelevant (as was demonstrated by combating 3rd party bots with autocultivation) - probably to save having to pay a bunch of GMs to play cop. I'm signalling 2 problems that will give cheaters an unfair advantage over other players in the next patch. I'm proposing solutions for them that do not rely on GM activity. If you have another idea, please elaborate, but "must do something" isn't a solution, just an acknowledgement that there is a problem.

And for the record - I trash the fight quests too. Takes too long to get to those damned snakes...

Im not here to give them solutions. I am here jsut to play the game and make comments on forum when I feel the need too. If i see something that i dont like about teh game I tell about it on the forum or on the Facebook page. I dont try to find and give them solution how to fix that. If they want to fix the problem YAY If not all is ok The devs or I dont know who is in charge of this must find a solution. that why they are payed for.But again , if they dont want to its ok.
If you want to give them solution you are free to do so. But please dont ask me to do that too.b:bye

opkossy · December 2014

Evryn - Morai wrote: »

And you've not read the point I am making.

PWI has a history of not letting their GMs step in to get rid of cheaters. It's my assumption that they'd rather do this by changing the game mechanics to make automated exploits impossible or irrelevant (as was demonstrated by combating 3rd party bots with autocultivation) - probably to save having to pay a bunch of GMs to play cop. I'm signalling 2 problems that will give cheaters an unfair advantage over other players in the next patch. I'm proposing solutions for them that do not rely on GM activity. If you have another idea, please elaborate, but "must do something" isn't a solution, just an acknowledgement that there is a problem.

And for the record - I trash the fight quests too. Takes too long to get to those damned snakes...

Auto-culti was a PWCN thing caused by their bot issues that make ours look like next to nothing. We didn't even get it over here until half a year or so later and ours wasn't the full thing since we didn't have earning time initially. PWE does have a nasty habit lately of not enforcing their rules or giving bans, though. It's been a company choice though and that's all I can really say on the matter. Let's just say if you knew the full story you'd be pissed off too.

I completely disagree with only allowing someone to farm 100 herbs per day. That's absurdly restrictive to anyone spending the time to farm herbs without a bot of some sort. The idea of removing the initial coin for picking up Jollies but increasing the coin gained for doing them is a nice one, though. I can see a lot of people complaining about having to actually do the quests (kinda like people complain about it bing fixed to the way it was originally just 7 orders a day that could be done) but the change would be something for the better, IMO.

Evryn - Morai · December 2014

Alternate suggestion on mining then: Add a random chance for the pickaxe to "break" (be consumed) on mining.
0.001% on T1 mineables (pig iron, salvia root etc)
0.01% on T2 mineables
0.1% on T3 mineables
1% on T4 mineables
2% on T5 mineables

That should still put a stop to nonstop botting, but allows players to mine whatever they wish - if a pickaxe breaks, simply get a new one from any Merchant npc.

Aubree - Dreamweaver · December 2014

I think some players will only ever be happy when every way to make coin will be severely limited or removed completely. Where does it end with the limitations? I know, let's next make all hp/mp pots and gears worth 1 coin npc value too. That will fix us all up. Coin drops cut in half..... better yet 1/4th the current value.

It's stupid and they need to find a better way to thwart people doing it wrong. Too bad they will probably implement things like this down the road. Punish the masses for the flaws of the few.

I have no input about the JJ thing as I have never participated but limiting mine-ables is bad.

Toddloveleah - Harshlands · December 2014

Aubree - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I think some players will only ever be happy when every way to make coin will be severely limited or removed completely. Where does it end with the limitations? I know, let's next make all hp/mp pots and gears worth 1 coin npc value too. That will fix us all up. Coin drops cut in half..... better yet 1/4th the current value.

It's stupid and they need to find a better way to thwart people doing it wrong. Too bad they will probably implement things like this down the road. Punish the masses for the flaws of the few.

I have no input about the JJ thing as I have never participated but limiting mine-ables is bad.

This times ten.

@OP I highly, highly doubt someone has 100 toon they log a day. If they really do than tbh they have earned the r9rr or whatever they end up with because 85% of the other r9rrs paid for their stuff and never put over a few months of effort into their gears.

Now on the quoted topic,

TT- is just about worthless now, yeah if you get lucky you made 10 mil in the instance and this is after you already get OP enough gear to do 3-3 solo.

FC- no hypers anymore not relevant

BHs- once again you MIGHT get a ecstasy card worth 5m big whoop you go get some crab meats and repair your gears and you are broke again.

Quests or jolly jones- Lol.

So above is pretty much a good majority of ways you make coin now what do you need for full r9rr...a couple billion? and thats not even refined or sharded. Still need a tome. Still need a 3rd cast cube neck and rings.

So yeah compared to like 5 billion 5 million isnt anything. 15 millon isnt anything. Lol.

Evryn - Morai · December 2014

It is a pity I can't name and shame here Todd, or I'd FRAPs the next time I spot that botfarm doing Jolly Jones. Then you could see for yourself that the estimate of 100 toons is on the low side.

And I do not want to close every moneymaker in the game. I do want to close every way of moneymaking in the game that does not include player attention. Stuff that cheaters can bot with non-autocultivation apps. Because that gives cheaters an edge over fair players, and diminishes the value of coins made by fair players. Hence my suggestion to change Jollies to only give coin on completing a mission -> It requires players with brain engaged to do that. Same with mining.

vias9x8 · December 2014

Evryn - Morai wrote: »

The necessity to manage it would prevent it. The player using the mining bot in question barely manages it's accounts - the damn bot often fills up it's inventory and then keeps mining, causing resources to go onto the worldmap (and into the inventory of my autoculti toon - that's what caused me to pick up on this).

NPCing a stack of 100 mineables is 100k coin. Would be negligable. If you want to go through the hassle of switching accounts for 100k every now and then, have at it - but you won't be mining day in, day out, 24/7.

waitwaitwait lol i spent 3hrs farming on my veno, now u tell me theres a mineing bot too? lol how?

Fail_BM - Raging Tide · December 2014

bloodedone87 wrote: »

Who the **** has 100 toons?b:shutup And who the **** got that amount of time to log them.
Seriously. I m doing JOJ and never seen toons apearing and dissaperaing there every minute.
Leave JOJ as it is. b:bye

If you have never seen that happen, you should pay more attention. It is something common @ RT, and I have seen others complaining in forums about this practice.

Evryn - Morai wrote: »

Alternate suggestion on mining then: Add a random chance for the pickaxe to "break" (be consumed) on mining.
0.001% on T1 mineables (pig iron, salvia root etc)
0.01% on T2 mineables
0.1% on T3 mineables
1% on T4 mineables
2% on T5 mineables

That should still put a stop to nonstop botting, but allows players to mine whatever they wish - if a pickaxe breaks, simply get a new one from any Merchant npc.

In certain very very old game, years ago (I don't know how it is now) mining was very profitable, and you had a random chance to summon a mob some lvls higher than you. If you didn't kill it, you couldn't mine that node. Something easy to do for any online player.

As for your suggestions, I don't like anything that affects everyone because a few are abusing something (like what happened with DQ items value and bots), what they should do is enforce the 2 accounts per IP, which have never happened here.

bloodedone87 · December 2014

Evryn - Morai wrote: »

It is a pity I can't name and shame here Todd, or I'd FRAPs the next time I spot that botfarm doing Jolly Jones. Then you could see for yourself that the estimate of 100 toons is on the low side.

And I do not want to close every moneymaker in the game. I do want to close every way of moneymaking in the game that does not include player attention. Stuff that cheaters can bot with non-autocultivation apps. Because that gives cheaters an edge over fair players, and diminishes the value of coins made by fair players. Hence my suggestion to change Jollies to only give coin on completing a mission -> It requires players with brain engaged to do that. Same with mining.

It requires player with a brain engaged to do jolly quests? really?
What kinda of brain you need to complet those simple missions?
Like: Visit that npc, visit the other npc, come back to jolly, get reward.

Go to a certain place. dig 5 cultured root, come back to jolly , get reward

Dig a machine, get 3 fruits, report to jolly, get reward

go to a lake, dive in it, sink untill it says, quest completed, be carefull to not be killed by a dragon, get back to jolly , get reward.

Does it really requires a brain to do those quests? Even the dumbest person on earth can do something simple as that.

Livetopaddle - Archosaur · December 2014

JJ quests are fine the way that they are . . I CS and I farm (instances and resources) the game is hard enuf to make coin in without making it harder for lower end toons to get some revenue stream. The Loss of DQ is gonna suck for everyone not just the higher lvl's. (tho those will be hurt most) I Pick everything coin/DQ/rdm mats etc and sell em removing this is going to make crafting the only way to make coin in the game which will drive up Gear costs pushing more ppl to the purchase in boutique type gear. As you can see there is a method to their madness . . . it means more cash in the their coffers and less in your wallet.

I like this game and i chip away slowly at my gear but PWI is systematically removing any way to play that does not include high Cash shop options . . . am seriously considering returning to WOW.

Ms_Mystic - Heavens Tear · December 2014

Why not get rid of all the DQ items since they are both worthless and have no use in the game.

opkossy · December 2014

Ms_Mystic - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Why not get rid of all the DQ items since they are both worthless and have no use in the game.

Because you're wrong on both parts of that statement. Way to show your bias.

Molniya - Dreamweaver · December 2014

DQ items are still used in the quests that they're named for... <_<;;

I actually kinda like the idea of the mine-ables able to spawn a mob rarely. Something that you can easily kill, but will kill you if you're botting resources. Maybe it has some sort of 'enrage' timer on it *taps chin* That way anyone who's paying attention knows to kill 'em, but a bot who doesn't pay attention gets a mob will eventually be one-shot because they don't kill them.

Toddloveleah - Harshlands · December 2014

Evryn - Morai wrote: »

It is a pity I can't name and shame here Todd, or I'd FRAPs the next time I spot that botfarm doing Jolly Jones. Then you could see for yourself that the estimate of 100 toons is on the low side.

And I do not want to close every moneymaker in the game. I do want to close every way of moneymaking in the game that does not include player attention. Stuff that cheaters can bot with non-autocultivation apps. Because that gives cheaters an edge over fair players, and diminishes the value of coins made by fair players. Hence my suggestion to change Jollies to only give coin on completing a mission -> It requires players with brain engaged to do that. Same with mining.

Why would I care if you did name and shame? Did you read the part about how if someone really has a 100 different accounts that they would have to log themselves unless they developed a bot that could seamlessly trade toons, go back relog in different accounts...which I'd would think would be pretty hard. If someone really does all that work hey I don't encourage botting but it's not like you could say the cash shoppers worked nearly as hard for their r9rr.b:chuckle

Plus this is obviously a rare case, the system will catch a good majority of people but to catch them all....in a game that actually allows botting just not for good money making [another example of hypocrisy] is a bit ridiculous to say the least.

Closing the last few botting cashcows.

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