The Next Antonious Bale!

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Zulan, May 25, 2020.

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  1. Zulan Lorekeeper

    Bristlebane is slowing becoming the next Antonious Bale!

    The exact same group has been sitting in Sathirs Tomb for 7 weeks straight now, post multiple reports and the GM responding "he'll look into it" - the guy is still there.

    GM's, I ask you, can you please make a PLAYER tribunal against other players that needs a final approval of a GM to say yes or no the punishment fits, to fix some of these things. It's one thing to afk bot for a day, it's another to do it for 7 weeks straight (obviously a day is bad, but 7 weeks of blocking peoples progression because you're too busy, which i understand, is not okay.

    We get it, the game is slowly declining, and bots make up a majority of the player base. Most people are boxing 3 or 4 toons and fine, okay, it's the state of a 20 year old game.

    Give us a way to fix the people who are abusing this!
    Zapford, Vumad, Yinla and 6 others like this.
  2. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Targeted AoC to circumvent the bottlenecks is my suggestion.

    This problem is only going to get worse.
  3. Zulan Lorekeeper

  4. dreadlord Augur

    Greetings and sympathy from AB!
    We've had our usual guy at his usual camp in GD non-stop since about 4 hours after servers came up last week. He's either automating that or there's some serious drugs involved....
    He's ramping up his harrassment. I watched a guildie's group try and play near him (they were there when he arrived). Instead of just stealing any nameds they got,as usual, they took most of the trash too. Friend's group would pull to camp and start dps and then their pets and casters would just out-dps friend's group and kill pretty much everything. Petition and report done. She tells me she got a stock answer and clearly no action as several days later the group is still there
    What's especially bad is during the few hours my friend had the camp, which was not at peak UK playtime, she got 6/7 tells from different guilds/individuals asking to share any named kills as they'd been needing it for months for progression and had been unable to get it because of this guy.
    cadres, Magneress and Skuz like this.
  5. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    Are you asking what AOC is or are you suggesting AOC is the answer?
  6. Zamiam Augur

    you know im sure no one wants to hear this (and Im against bot groups that sit at camps for days on end) but if enough peeps voted with their wallet than coming to these boards then maybe the DPG would actually do something .. cause we know that petitioning and or posting on these boards does nothing..

    alot of you guys are in some top guilds or at least mid lvl raid guilds .. if you all coordinated together and enough guilds on every server did it and cancelled subs then something might actually get done ..

    It must not be a very big issue or not one that pisses enough of you guys off to do anything about it ..

    if you want something done you gotta hit em where it hurts , the pocket book ..

    just my 2cp .. does not bother me one iota anymore as I'm on test now ..
    Coagagin and Magneress like this.
  7. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    He was asking what it is.

    AoC = Agent of Change. A mechanism to spawn alternate copies of zones. Only offered on TLP servers.

    Not sure how that differs from pick zones, which are available on Live servers, or why pick zones don't solve it.

    Overall, shame on DPG for not coming up with SOME way to solve this. Yes, we understand the $h!th3@d$ buy lots of subs. So do the people they piss off.
  8. Magneress Augur

    How is Zek these days for bots?

    Anyway, GMs should just mercilessly nuke anyone with more than 3 boxes. Could a monk help? And a big part of the problem is that the game is free to play and email accounts are ubiquitous. We should require more than an email for any account.

    Do they really sub though? They just float off platinum farming and Kronos. When that is targeted it hurts the casuals. If I wasn't a professional video game player myself I would have quit already as it's really hard for a new player to get established unless they engage in botting etc. It's awful but it's the truth. That said my naked rogue on mangler is now 36 with an FBSS and a 13 dmg Ldon peircer. It wasn't that hard and I don't have a problem with people monopolizing content but not just for feeding bot armies. And auto destroying no drop they can't use. Unattended game play shouldn't be tolerated. Encouraged, or enabled.
    Duder likes this.
  9. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    Thanks for helping him. I didn't want to type all that this early lol
  10. Zamiam Augur

    they can block IP addresses ..

    pick zone requires a minimum amount of peeps in zone before it will let you /pick to another instance I believe it varies depending on the expansion but think it ranges from 20 to 50 peeps in a zone . usually automated bot groups are in zones of old expansions most the time so not to many peeps in those zones usually at least not enough to /pick a new instance ..
    Magneress likes this.
  11. Magneress Augur

    Suggestions in order of effectiveness adjusted for simplicity of implimentation for combating botting,
    • Limit free to play account level to the base game, lvl 50, or 60.
    • Make it so that once a player is reported X times or petitioned X times it becomes a priority for CSR staff to investigate this player, 3 strikes, and you're OUTA here. Botters will make alts and powerlvl standby characters, so you have to constantly keep up with this.
    • Limit active F2P accounts to 1 per person. So no botting 6 or more F2P accounts.
    • Create referees for the game. See below***
    • Discourage botting for platinium farming for Krono. Make people use the subscription. The Krono shouldn't be there for someone to run a crew of like 12 characters.
    • Make a few servers with no transfers, no Krono, standard rules sets. Payed monthly subscription only. If someone uses Kronos on that account it doesn't give them access to those servers.
    *** Hire some min wage CSR *referees only* to remotely login, telecommute, enforce unattended gameplay, botting rules, assign them one or two each a server. I know a lot of die hard EQ fans and gamers that don't have jobs that would absolutely love to do this each and every day for 8 hrs a day, you only need 1 to 2 per server. Or maybe do server groups so you can have 1 person referee several servers. You can vet and certify them and only give them suspension permission, with an escalation to ban later for multiple infractions, that can be overseen by a full time CSR. The referees cannot kill mobs, spawn items, or interact with the game world in any way beyond suspending offending players. They don't have access to cheat commands and the big boss GMs can check up on them. For example, player referees can suspend for 1 day, next suspension on an account becomes 5 days, then 14, then a ban and referred to a lead GM. Don't be afraid to fire them and get new ones if there are issues.They should become invaluable members of the team, which you will appreciate having on staff and free full time CSR to persue bigger issues, bugs, and technical issues. Players can report these referees for abuse if they feel the need. Don't let the Referees have invis, or other GM commands, if they show up visible in camp it should be enough to put the fear of Gates of Discord into the suspected botters.

    I am available if you want to set up this referee system. I don't require much food and I already have a place to sleep :p LMK and PM me if you are interested in an uberhamster. :p

    Feel free to copypaste this, edit it, update it, make a new thread out of it, put it in any thread about botting.
    Coagagin likes this.
  12. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    EVE online does this. You can box entire fleets if you want, but they all have to be paid. If you have a F2P account logged in, no other account (paid or not) can be logged in from that IP.
    Honestly, if we wind up finding out that these monoplizing a-holes are running F2P accounts, then I for one will be totally mystified at DPG's stance and lack of action. If they're freeloaders, why let them monopolize, grief, and block paying accounts? Just wouldn't make any sense.
    lockjaws and Magneress like this.
  13. cadres Augur

    I don't know much about FTP accs, but aren't they very limited (gear/AAs etc?) If so, the AB bot groups are not FTP, given their dps and so on
    The trouble is that people are indeed voting with their wallets; but not in any co-ordinated way. They just don't renew their subs and so it looks like natural attrition. I can think of at least a dozen players who have quit over this and probably the same number talking about doing so, plus many many more complaining about not being able to enjoy the game. It's not the big guilds who are affected. A endgame raiding guild group of 6 can easily out dps these bots. It's the family guild and more casual types who are most affected
    Re Pick Zones: There is no pick for Great Divide, which is one of their favourites. Plus, in other zones, when people see they are there, other players avoid the zone, so often there aren't the numbers needed. In EW, if there is a pick zone in operation, very often the 2 groups of bots will log to try & force the pick zone to close (I was semi-regularly using a pick zone until the bots started doing this)
    Magneress likes this.
  14. Magneress Augur

    I suggest keeping this thread at the top of the forum till DBG and others organize then. It's sad, this is however 2020. I think the landscape of these games is going to change a lot and maybe only a few dedicated free services will invest the time and effort into policing their worlds properly.

    I can speak a little from experience with wow but it took them several years to clamp down on this kind of behavior and it created a game were 90% of everything grindable was instanced, and No Drop, quest reward (not even like actual items in game, just checkboxes for completing a task X number of times as an individual). Such as endgame tradeskills, which were nerfed into oblivion... :(

    I suppose some of these bot armies are subsidized by several F2P farmin armies. So the F2P accounts farm the plat, buy the krono, which then gets used to run the higher tier bot armies.

    Wow limits the amount of money F2P players can make to 20 gold pieces which is like the equivalent of 200 platinum in EQ. It would take a massive undertaking in order to really produce currency with F2P wow accounts. I believe this is definitely a problem on EQ servers.

    As far as my credentials, I've literally been playing MMOs since I was 18, and 1999 ;p I feel like I should have an honorary doctorate here.
  15. bigpapa Augur

    AFK bot can get much more plats than other players who play 3 to 6 hours a day (since they kill non stop ).
    i am pretty sure they pay their subs with kronos they get from other players ( DB could see easily ) , same for the expansion (you can buy TOV expansion from other players ), not many sell them anymore tho .
    so i wouldn't be surprise at all that they play EQ for free while cheating .
    i box 5 , i don't cheat , i don't even use is_boxer who is ** legal ** , and when you know what you are doing you can get a lot of plats ( legally ), enough to buy some kronos, and can be use to pay for subs.

    the problem is the afk killing bots who kill 24 hours a day non stop , why punish the players who play eq the right way ( not cheating ) ,DB ( GM ) could see fast enough who is cheating , could be from going to check and with a huge illusion that we can't miss, if they ignore the gm with a big illusion and continue to kill , good chance they are cheating ....
    cadres and Magneress like this.
  16. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Completely beside the point. DPG gets X dollars for every paying account, whether it's a sub, a Krono the user buys, or a Krono obtained in game.

    My point was, the griefers pay for accounts (somehow), which DPG is loathe to interrupt, but if enough other users stop playing, then DPG still loses.

    As to the comment above about people leaving in trickles, so DPG doesn't know why.... I have turned my subs on and off many, many times over the years, and every time I turn it off, I get a survey asking why. If people have an issue with this and turn off their subs because of it, there is definitely a way to let DPG know the reason why.
    Magneress likes this.
  17. Zulan Lorekeeper

    I mean honestly, I could care less about Macaroni being used in EQ, it's literally Part of the game it's so widely used.

    The issue is, when people abuse it and start afking for hours on end (almost 2 months on end at this point) keeping people from being able to complete missions.

    I also understand this game is 20 years old, and devs have way to much to work on and fix, to run around and play police all the time.

    That's why I'm asking, please, give the players a way to deal with others players abusing the ability to cheat in this game.

    Acknowledge the fact that is there and probably isn't going anywhere, and figure out a way to deal with the people abusing it.

    Let players vote to force a pick for a zone?
    Magneress, Skuz and Tatanka like this.
  18. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Pick zones are more resource intensive than AoC instances due to how the AoC instances RAM can be much more easily recovered by the server, has been posted by a dev before.

    I think that all of the methods suggested to deal with players who monopolize areas are going to run against problems while an AoC is a much simpler & far less "political" solution to this problem.

    We have the technology - so lets freaking use it.
    Barton likes this.
  19. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Much as I disliked LDoN, I think the next expansion should be instance mission based, that way no one can AFK kill in an expansion for more than a couple of hours, and not disrupt others game play by setting up a camp on top of them.
  20. dreadlord Augur

    Before we get there, I would really *really* like the 'straightforward' solution to happen. I know the AB bot crew has had many many dozens (if not hundreds) of petitions, including many from long-standing and respected members of the community.
    What is going on that no action is taken? these are not one or 2 spats and the situation can be witnessed by any GM - just go to GD on AB right now and see the group that's been there ever since server up last week
    Surely this number of complaints should prompt some action?
    (especially given that a pal was given a formal warning for afk foraging in a corner of a zone upsetting/disadvantaging precisely no-one)

    I could live with more instances like DoN/LDoN; it's got to be better than this. But it's not how I like to play and I really mind my game being ruined in so many ways by these bots.

    Another suggestion would be to remove the xp penalty on previous zones. Everyone is forced into the new zones and with the bots it's just too overcrowded in there
    Magneress likes this.
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