It's time to demonetize Underfoot

Underfoot is arguably the most profitable expansion for plat farmers that abuse cheat programs to farm platinum for ill gotten gains and RMT transactions. It is high time to demonetize the loot table and remove the incentive to plat farm there. Possibly HoT too.

Sure, the plat farmers may just move somewhere else but those two expansions have some of the highest profit margins in plat / hour and ease of mobs to kill. The farmers will have less incentive to do so if their energy and input outweighs what they're bringing in.

Underfoot has platinum farmers in it on every single live server. Some servers have SEVERAL bots running through zones in this expansion. At one time Emarr had 8 farmers. Cazic had 9. Luclin server had 6. Povar 4. You get the idea. You want to go after "cheaters" then here is a GREAT start. Instead of taking police actions and investigation into each character which is inefficient just scrap the loot table to a bare minimum. Look at TBL for instance, I don't remember there being any merchant fodder except for - what 25 platinum or so a kill?

Underfoot is literally PROMOTING cheating.

This is part of the game I don't understand. You need to go back 12 expansions for plat farming to be viable.

For people who have been active for a few years platinum isn't much of an issue as there isn't a ton of new plat sinks per xpac and they likely have millions of plat from playing over the years.

For new/returning players it takes an insane amount of platinum to keep your spells/gear up to date as you level. Speaking from experience I bought at least 5 Krono to sell for plat in my 1.5 year leveling journey from 1-120. This directly benefits plat farming bot groups and DPG, and the alternative is me farming the platinum which isn't worth the time considering a KR is worth less than an hour of my time.

But if they nerf plat drops from all previous expansions, where should we farm plat then? Catching up financially is hard enough already(if you don't have a headstart, and I refuse to engage in RMT). The grounds was my farm-place if I needed some quick plat.

There need to be some place to farm plat(keeping gear up-to-date does have platsinks), especially since playing modern expansions, doesn't give a lot of plat drops.

If it is to reduce afk-farming, then I think DBG is already on the right track, with all their suspensions. Changing old zones is not the solution.

Pffft Live server Plat Issues are nothing compared to TLP plat issue where we get less than 25% of the amount of time live servers get to recoup/build up plat between plat-sink gear costs in the later era expansions.

SoF ends up being a go-to expansion for plat farming to finance gear expenses, namely Mechamatic Guardian & the other zones connected to Mechanotus like S.H.I.P.

Underfoot is not the problem anyway, automated BoT Crews are, de-monetozing any zone is an admission you are not able to fix the probelm and you just end up hurting legit players to get back at cheaters.

I thought people played on TLP because they enjoyed tediousness and pointless suffering. Just fix live cause I can't afford anything anymore either.

There is a big difference between nerfing and turning it off. I did not suggest turn it off. The platinum farmers are not getting suspended is part of the problem. During the suspensions, I checked, and they were just humming along like nothing. So their message missed the mark by a wide margin. It gets tiring having to chase down their farmer running all over while trying to video and send petition after petition after petition only to have them return like they did this week for a third time now.

And just because, you, one person, doesn't want to purchase a krono from DB to sell for platinum, the rest of must suffer the artificial outrageous inflation they cause? Got it.

Clearly it is the only problem, and the solution is simple: more suspensions...or maybe even remove plat from suspended characters...
Reducing plat-income options for poor players only benefits those who have a lot of plat already.

Or do you want EQ to be a game where RMT is mandatory?

More suspensions would be great, but I already told you, the plat farmers, the people who are flagrantly cheating, aren't getting hit by them. So yes, more of something that isn't working will surely fix the problem. "The house is on fire, lets throw gasoline on it to put it out."

So if we reduce plat drops, what do you think will happen? How would players be expected to deal with plat sinks? keep in mind, buying a krono does not generate plat.

I would be OK with your suggestion if they also adjusted the platsinks. Plat-values in baz are getting silly...

Lol, Underfoot isn't the most profitable. Most plat farmers are bad at this game.

I can think of better places to get PP.

If they nerf the drops there, they will just move somewhere else, it won't cure the problem just move it. At least while they are there they are out the way.

So... to discourage Plat Farmers you ruin it for the rest of us as well? Not a good idea. Just report them.

What can you report a plat farmer for? Which particular rules are they breaking that they are getting away with? I don't see plat farmers being suspended so they must not be breaking the rules according to Darkpaw.

Plat are often a automated or AFK group.

Otherwise, yea... they are good to go.

Just to answer this.

Your kill rate in older expansions will be 4-5 times higher compared to current content depending on how far back you go. So these guys are in older expansions because they kill faster which equals more plat.

Also they removed diamonds from npc loot tables sometime around TBL.

I think you misunderstood my point. I know why it is viable to go back 12 expansions, I am questioning why that is a design choice. I would think current mobs would drop vendor gems worth over $1k, and drop hundreds of platinum per kill.

Basically the only new platinum that enters the economy is from farming old content, which is a mindless time sink that promotes either RMT via Krono, or Automation to afk farm platinum. Neither of which I think is healthy, but if I am given the option of going back to 2010-2011 expansions to farm 40k pp per hour or spending $17.99 for 3M pp I will spend the money every time. You can always make more money, time is limited.

No matter what you do to "fix" plat going back to older expansions will always be more profitable because of HP inflation and level increases that make your kill rate dramatically higher in older expansions. Even going back to TOV you will farm more plat per kill compared to COV or TOL.

At the end of the day they WANT you to buy that krono. Why do you think diamonds were removed from NPCs after TBL anyway.

Automation does not take time away from your life. LOL.

And you think krono appear from nothing...