No more chaser items please, and here's why

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Uxtalzon, Oct 1, 2013.

  1. Uxtalzon Augur

    I do not condone cheating or hacking. While it may seem obvious enough, I've had a post removed before for "advertising" such practices, so I guess I have to make it clear from the get-go.

    Since the beginning of Hardcore Heritage, I began seeing the bot groups rolling into the two zones and setting up, so I decided to keep track of everything and compile it into easy-to-read numbers and my dissatisfaction towards the whole process. The realization that actions taken against these accounts is extremely slow-going (if any taken at all) and I wanted to make a point about it all.

    - For a period of 20 days, I watched, reported, and petitioned a total of 27 botters, from 9/1 to 9/21.

    - Of those 27 players, I had reported/petitioned approximately (to the best of my knowledge) 11 of them before in the past before Hardcore Heritage since the beginning of the year.

    - Of those 27 players, I reported/petitioned at least 17 of them more than once during HH.

    - Most of the cheaters were from raiding guilds, too. I informed some guilds of the offenders - none cared, at least the officers of the guilds anyway.

    As a bonus, I watched general chat and kept track of the names I've reported that were selling the cloak or ring. Nearly 35% (Yes, over one third) of all "WTS Ancient Cloak of Flames" were from the alleged botters I had reported. I wasn't in general chat all the time, and I'm not on all day, but that's the statistic of when I was. Less than 15% of sellers were anonymous or newbie bazaar vendors, the rest legitimate players with level and guild plainly shown in /who <name>.

    I made three petitions with multiple additions to add names of other cheaters I came across, took screenshots, /reported players, the whole yard. The responses were (summarized):

    - Automated response suggesting to use /report and include screenshots.
    - Thanks for reporting, but we can't tell you what may or may not happen to the offenders.
    - Can't verify anything because the players are now offline.
    - Can't take action unless verified they are cheating, but they'll get caught if they are.

    At one point after a report/petition, a GM came into the zone and wiped out the two groups I had reported. It was cool. But guess what? They were back after three days, every one of them. One group the GM had wiped I had reported since the beginning of this year. Unrelated but noteworthy, I had been reported a past guildmate for cheating (I was in a different guild at the time) for months, and watched him go from 3 players at level 80 with few AAs to 100 on all toons with over 4000 AAs each. I don't know if he was either banned or just quit, but he stopped logging in eventually.

    The point of it all is that whatever detections this game has for finding out cheaters, it's woefully inadequate. Furthermore, when witnessing a GM destroy a group (proving more or less they were cheating), how can there be no action taken? How is it that they have to be witnessed in real-time for anything to be done? These ill-gotten cloaks and rings obtained by cheaters were being sold for high amounts of platinum or kronos, which just allows them to continue on cheating. I had stopped reporting after the 21st because I know my efforts will most likely result in nothing. I found it very ironic that during this period, the thread "Wrongfully banned" comes up. Hah!

    TL;DR for the players who hate reading: Unless the cheating detection improves, or until more action is taken against hackers in a reasonable manner, I strongly advise against chaser items in the future. They know which mobs have them, they can kill and loot mobs while they sleep, and they they pretty much got away with it.
    Andarriel and Leerah like this.
  2. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    I have no objection to chase items, but I would prefer they were no drop and not in temporary content.
  3. Audigy Elder

    Here Is one thought. Has one to think the items were put in the first place just to draw out theses types of players so we could track them and report them?

    I know SoE wants them gone as much as we do and by reading your efforts alone I know your not alone in this crusade, so only one could only think cheating or hacking being exposed got them removed making the rest the game a better place for us.
    Elricvonclief likes this.
  4. Recnarp Augur

    I don't think its fair to condemn chase items because of bots. There are problems with the chase items that could be fixed to combat overly aggressive farming.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  5. Kurayami Augur

    I thought chase items was a nice way of making them accessible to everyone. Is unfortunate the plat farmers took full advantage of it though.

    I wouldn't mind the Red Dragon Scales or items like it being the chase loot in the future though, I tell you what.
  6. Gnar Augur

    Uxt your on Povar right? or i could be confusing you with someone else, but i spent alot of hours boxing in Solb and didnt notice any botters most people were communicating in ooc that i saw, i wouldnt know how to spot that stuff anyhow.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  7. Atvar Augur

    Since when is boxing and gaining levels/aa cheating?
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  8. Kurayami Augur

    Pretty sure he is more referring to toons set to autokill/loot while the user is completely afk. We'd all have Uxtalzon on our otherwise...
  9. Atvar Augur

    If that's the case, I have to wonder how these people stay alive with nobody at the controls.
    Leerah likes this.
  10. Retrievil Elder

    I think some of you are confusing afk merc groups with real bot groups. AFK merc groups seem to be ok. You can gain some xp but you aren't there to loot, and you cant really do much more than low blues, so there is a trade off.

    Bot groups are what Uxt are complaining about. They are fully automated, nearly as good as a real player (better in some cases), and can autoloot, autopull, etc. I'm not going to go into the details about how it's done. Most people know, although a lot seem to feign ignorance. I'm not sure if its meant to be funny, or because if you know how it's done, you might be guilty by association. Regardless, it's a real problem and due to the lack of CS, very little is done to stop them.
    Son of a... likes this.
  11. Tobynn Augur

    OP's Methodology
    1. Witness activity.
    2. Become confused.
    3. Deduce hacking as only possible explanation.
    4. Commence stalking protocol.
    5. Mad.
    TheQxx and noclue like this.
  12. Atvar Augur

    And do they auto rez and run back every time a train kills them?
    TheQxx likes this.
  13. Tobynn Augur

    Clue: CSR doesn't divulge any actions taken against other players. You have no clue what happened, much less why.
  14. Cone head Augur

    Lets be sure to define the difference between botting and boxing.

    Botting: From what I understand is using a 3rd party program to send commands to a character based of event logs. This is illegal.

    Boxing: Using two or more accounts and said account is waiting on end user / human input.

    The only legal bot is the in game mercenary.

    I box 5 accounts and have been accused of botting. I have yet to have nay of my accounts suspended.

    I do use a program that takes the place of having to alt-tab.

    I do use the in game macro and hot key ability.

    I do have an in game macros that let me break out of any in game macro and start a new one.
  15. grrrrrrrf Elder

    you ve got way too much time on your hand, and it s kinda creepy you stalk people like this.
  16. Drathus Augur

    Developers will not, and should not, make design decisions based solely around groups of people that cheat.

    Chase items were a very welcome change to the game and ended up giving myself and a group of friends many hours of enjoyment. I've heard a great deal of negativity about the HH's in general and maybe people should take a deep breath and appreciate what was delivered . . .

    Level 90 Rec / 95 Req gear with level 100 stats and focuses: In many cases the gear was on par with the equivalent level raid gear in AC and focus effects. That is, VoA tier 2 raid gear. The gear is not prestige and can be worn by FTP accounts. With the release of VoA to the FTP model, the level limit is being increased to 95, allowing FTP accounts the maximize the usefulness of the gear.

    Augmentations with no prestige tag: We know augmentations are hard to come by, non-prestige augmentations are even more rare.

    Chase items: Two very rare RoF T4 raid quality items. There was no way these items could have been placed on named as they would have been perma. camped. By allowing them to drop as a rare from any mob, any individual had a chance at the drop simply by killing in the zone. This made camps with no named just as desirable as named camps, maximizing the capacity of the entire zone.

    I am not denying you may have seen botters . . . however, altering this model because of them would negatively impact everyone else. A game should not be designed to negatively impact botters, when that design will impact everyone else. If botters are a problem, they should be dealt with.
  17. Edrick Augur

    Hunting down suspected hackers/cheaters is a good thing for Everquest, in my opinion. If he hadn't stalked them and just submitted a petition upon first glance, he would get a lot of false positives and irritate customer service.
    Lily likes this.
  18. grrrrrrrf Elder

    No, it just means you care too much about silly stuff, and have way too much time on your hands.
    I would seek help.
  19. Brosa Augur

    First off I see no problem with the OP spending some of his online time (hopefully casually) tracking these cases while doing his farming.
    Secondly I like the chase item idea but agree that it should not be tradable. Should be no trade but heirloom. The only reason for SOE to make these items tradable is for people to want to spend krono on them which for them turns into real $. Simply having the items no trade would have cut down on the bot groups or even hard core plat farmers monopolizing the zones.
    Son of a... and beryon like this.
  20. Langya Augur

    LOL, you think taking out chase items will stop people from cheating? Really? o_O That is like saying the police can stop bank robberies by lobbying the government to do away with cash money. It will work but would be utterly stupid. Drinking bleach cures AIDS too. Same principle.

    There was absolutely nothing wrong with the chase items and their implementation. It was not meant for everyone to get one but at least you can save up and buy one if you don't get lucky from a drop. Along the lines of the rare drop trade-able big bags.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and Doktor like this.