Wine xp quest

So will this also impact the other quests that function like this where you can buy a bunch of items of a vendor and hand them in for a material gain or is this quest somehow a special exploit whereas the others are not?

I cant think of any other ones... unless you can

I am not stating them for now, until I hear the actual official response. I know offhand of a dozen or so quests that can be completed the same way but don't necessarily award exp and are used for other factors.

There were some extreme cases where people would do first 20,30,40 levels doing nothing but 100x of stacks.

I think they should put a hard cap at like level 10 and call it done.

Repeating a repeatable quest isn't an exploit.

Maybe get rid of the people using "illegal" programs on your servers if people using those to do the quest faster than your infrastructure could support was what was just creating all the lag in various zones/servers the last few days rather than taking it away from everyone.

I'm very familiar with the red wine quest, as well as how it compares to getting a power level from 2-58 from someone who knows what they are doing. (the TLDR is red wine quest is usually cheaper and more convenient as you are ultimately doing everything yourself) but it almost never faster. Some of this depends on the expansion your server is at, not to mention the server's economy.

So here's a summary of things that I have learned or have been reminded about:

#1 It is obvious it was overwhelmingly being done on Oakwynd. They had just recently experienced the most extreme plat dupe that has probably ever existed in Everquest.

#2 One of Oakwynd's defining server rules is that for every character you have at max level, your other characters get a boost to experience. With SoL being recently unlocked on Oakwynd, it was first learned that bonus didn't work on AA, despite it being confirmed that it would.

#3 Since Oakwynd players did not get their bonus to AA when they should have, which would have coincided with the extralife bonuses, they were given a large exp modifier when the legacy character exp bonus was added.

#4 While there were surely some min-maxers who took the time to max multiple characters on their same account in anticipation of those bonuses working for SoL when it unlocked, Oakwynd's next server unlock is Planes of Power, which is a level increasing expansion. Clearing PoP for the first time also takes a significant amount of time, so a min-maxer or competitive person would definitely consider wanting to level multiple alts to 60.

#5 Quest experience is not increased by things such as lesson of the devoted (which Oakwynd doesn't have yet) or marketplace potions. (Which there has been a growing trend of people no longer wanting to buy items from marketplace because Daybreak has been treating the playerbase poorly lately, so some are not as comfortable with giving them extra money) But server modifiers do increase quest experience.

#6 Apparently it was being done by enough people that it was impacting server performance. Keeping all of the prior points in mind, this is understandable by anyone once it is pointed out.

Ok, so where does that leave us? Even as a person who readily admits I've been dissatisfied with several decisions Daybreak has made recently, and their communication I'll give them some slack for not mapping out most of these 6 points in the announcement. Where I think they absolutely failed is to mention point #6. Why this is something that the players ultimately learned from other players is beyond me. It really should have been included in the announcement, as it would at least give a reasonable explanation for why the NPC's were temporarily removed. Take a look at the announcement again:

Lokar To`Biath and Lady Shae (the red wine NPCs) were removed due to an exploit and will make their return with the next scheduled update. We are still reviewing the logs to take actions against the most severe offenders of the exploit.

The playerbase roasting this announcement and everything it implies is very well deserved. The red wine quest has existed for decades, and the experience from it has been nerfed multiple times. They had even previously nuked the rat ears quest which was identical to how the red wine quest functioned. (other than the rat ears gave more experience) If a game studio makes multiple adjustments to quest rewards and lets years go by, obviously it would be considered by anyone to be absolutely acceptable to do. The announcement message implies that people were using actual exploits to level up their Oakwynd characters. While it is of course possible that there is an actual exploit that most of us are not aware of...we all know that you can buy 100 red wine's at a time, and you can hand in 4,000 red wines at a time. That has been true since tradeskill materials were updated to stack to 1,000.

I personally did this on Vaniki (leveled a character to 60) in 2022 during the extra life bonus, and I did it on Mischief during the 2023 extra life bonus. (leveling a character to 57) I don't remember how long it took to get those characters to 57 and 60, but I was able to get a character from level 1 to 30 in about 20 minutes. Personally it got really boring and extremely tedious once the characters got to about level 50, but it was still within the realm of time where it felt more advantageous to use red wine than anything else.

Some other factors on this point are that they directly threaten "taking action against the most severe offenders of the exploit." What does that even mean? On Oakwynd the max level is 60. The quest doesn't give AA exp, so per character even the most dedicated person would be stopping once their alt reached level 60 with 99% experience banked.

What does the "most severe offenders of the exploit" mean?

If a person handed in 100k red wine over the course of a period of time are they going to "have action taken"? What about just 4,000? You do realize that buying 100 red wines at a time only requires a person to hold left shift, and press their mouse, and that handing in 4,000 red wines only requires a person to put 4 stacks into the trade window with Lokar. That is made simpler just by making a hotkey for /usetarget (Angeliana, this is an in-game command that was added somewhat recently)

TLDR:

The problem is not that people were "exploiting". It's that due to several factors that Daybreak ultimately is responsible for, the red wine quest became more rewarding than it has ever been. Daybreak's response is not to just alter the quest so there's no risk to game performance, but it includes lying to their players again, and threatening to punish the players of their game for a situation that exists 100% because of Daybreak.

Ultimately what they are saying is that a quest that has existed for decades, and has been nerfed multiple times, is now considered an exploit. Is this what they mean by the year of Daybreak?

definitely not an "exploit".. of course botting and or automation programs are an exploit, but entirely different from the red wine quest. I took an alt from 19 to 47 on red wine.. took about 4 hours. If my account catches a suspension it will be bye-bye eq for good.

I don't think they are targeting people who legitimately bought red wine from vendors 100 at a time to hand in.

That is not an exploit. It's gameplay that has existed in the game for 25 years (almost!), something else must have happened where people were able to mass buy bypassing the vendor limits or being able to do mass hand in's bypassing the limit of 4 stacks of 1000. That would be what I call an exploit.

The times I went there to start off a new alt there was not all that many people there, sometimes I would be the only one in the zone, most I ever saw was 5 or 6 others in the zone.

Sometimes I saw him Direcharmed so good races could do hand ins, but I don't know if that would be called a exploit either. However now that i think about it he was Direcharmed when he was despawned (I was there when he poofed) so that could be part of it.

The red wine quest has not existed in this form for decades. For the first 15ish years of EQ you were limited to turning in 4 at a time because stacks of items could not be handed to NPCs. Likewise, at the time stacks were limited to 20 max. No person can legitimately argue it was ever intended to be able to turn in 100k red wine to that guy. It would have taken months or possibly years to do that, not even counting the time it would have taken to amass that much red wine to begin with.

The current state is the result of many unrelated changes, with the two more relevant being: 1) Allowing stacks of items to be given to NPCs, 2) Increasing stack sizes beyond the original limit of 20, (first to 100, then later to 1,000).

As for whether it is an exploit, of course it is. An exploit is taking advantage of a situation that isn't intended that provides an advantage that shouldn't exist. It only requires two things a) knowledge that something is likely not intentional, and b) intent to use that knowledge to your advantage/benefit. It doesn't require more than that.

The quest had already been nerfed 2? 3? times prior to this. It was abundantly clear that it was not intended to be able to use this quest to level in that way, and continuing to knowingly abuse it is certainly grounds for action to be taken against someone.



Trying to rules lawyer it by asking how many is too many doesn't support your cause the way you think it does either.

And what are you doing? You are lawyering the topic just by saying something we all know, and it is a flawed argument. Red wine, being a tradeskill item has been stackable to 1,000 for an extremely long time. The quest works exactly the same way it always has. The only thing that has changed over the years is the amount of the exp it gave, and that red wine stacks to 1,000. These points are obvious, and serve no place in a rebuttal.

If they think it is appropriate to "take action" against accounts just because someone thinks something doesn't work the way Daybreak wants it to, but it is something that has been done for years and they are actually punishing the people for it...they are wrong.

The proper thing for them to do would just have been to prevent the issue from happening in the future by removing the incentive for handing in red wine. Until that could be changed with a patch, the message would be "Lokar and Shea are removed until the next patch, as we do not want players to do the quest any longer. This is primarily because we feel the reward does not match the effort involved, and Oakwynd's ruleset amplified the situation enough to cause a negative impact to game performance."

That's it. Don't suspend people just for playing the game. The only rules lawyering that is happening is by Daybreak, repeating their favorite past time of making their player-base dislike them.

I think it may be jumping to conclusions to interpret the dev response as the repeatable quest itself being the exploit.

Handing in and thus triggering 4000x quest turn-ins put a noticeable extra load on the zone, seemed to be heavy regardless of internet strength. Having multiple people do it simultaneously may have been part of a set up for an unrelated, lag-driven dupe or some such elsewhere in the zone.

I personally wouldn’t be surprised if they came across something while parsing for accounts holding improbably large stacks of platinum bars and jewels after the confirmed recent tradeskill depot dupe.

Guess we’ll find out after next patch when/if we see Lady Shae chuckin it up at the bar again.

You need to look up what rules lawyering is since it sounds like you don't know.

TS items have been stackable to 1k since 2017. That's 6 years. I wouldn't call that "an extremely long time" in a game that is 25 years old.

Before red wine it was rat ears.
Before rat ears it was bone chips.
Before bone chips it was crushbone belts.
Before that it was fire beetle eyes.
(I might have the order of some of those mixed up).

They HAVE taken action, repeatedly, when players have abused those quests, and have made it clear it is not an acceptable behavior. Continuing to knowingly abuse something they have made clear you should not do, is legitimate grounds for action to be taken against you.

Beimeith, other than this conversation, I respect you as a person.

But we just will not agree on this point. Six years is absolutely a long time. You keep trying to justify the unfair response by Daybreak with things that have nothing to do with it.

"Taking action" against their players for buying red wine, and handing it in to an NPC using the default game client is absolutely toxic behavior by Daybreak. They deserve every ounce of flack they get for it. The quest is controlled by Daybreak, and they can fix the quest so it will not be done in the future. That's all they need to do.

Cheers.

I appreciate that, but you're still wrong.

Dropping a task to avoid a lockout was done "using the default game client" and was still an exploit and punished.

Claimgate was done "using the default game client" and was still an exploit and punished. (Sorry Bobby).

Intentionally duping items/plat (this last time) was done "using the default game client" and was still an exploit and punished.

"Using the default game client" is NOT an excuse or a defense against exploiting.

In every one of those cases (and there are many more) there was obvious intent to abuse the game to gain an advantage.

Read this.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...r-xp-in-february’s-patch.230591/#post-3395621

Hmm, its almost like they knew about the red wine quest, decided to adjust it back in 2016 and were fine with people using it to level, because they made it "less effective".

Back in my day we called it "emergent gameplay"

The correct order

Bone chips was botting and 3rd party turn in.

Red wine used to be better on TLP when stacks were only 20. It took less time/money to Red wine toons up on Phinny when stacks were 20, then Fire beetle eyes got all quest XP nerfed because people were botting the eyes. Red Wine is only a "problem" because 100s of plat farming bots and a plat dupe exist. Later stack size was increased to 1000 and made Red Wine ok XP again, but super expensive.

Rat ears was people abusing the lag to do illegal things.

None of the actions were ever taken against those for "abusing the quest". In all of those cases botting or 3rd party were being used for the turn in/farming of said items.

Arguing the exploit hasn't been around forever, but only 6 years is some weird hill to die on.

Don't punish the players for your own inertia. If it is a problem now, it should've been a problem over half a decade ago. Nearly two presidential terms have passed. That's not a long time?

What's next? Banning players for zoning with an ooc timer? Or people preburning in guild halls so they can double their burn abilities after bannering in? That seems exploitly as well. Leveraging in game mechanics to artificially boost your abilities beyond design intent. Or you fine with that one because you and probably every caster you know does it?

Don't forget the Erudin mail run quest for 6 golds!

That was nurfed by making it so you can only do the quest once.