AoM Contested Name AFK merc problem needs fixed

Make them ^^^ non aggro mobs.

Also if you stand in one spot for 5 minutes a giant x4 T-Rex comes in and eats you before despawning.

Back in EQ1, I believe during the 'Luggalds' expansion (was that Ykesha?), there was a mechanic where upon a death blow, there was a random chance on trash mobs for a named to pop out and immediately attack without pause.

I rather liked that mechanic, it kept people on their toes and it made grinding even more worthwhile. Maybe it should be considered here.

Make overland shinies work like in unrest... grabbing one turns it into a powerful monster 1% of the time, then if you manage to kill it, it gives you a gem or fabled item or master as a reward.

Last 2 got my vote. Totally forgot about the EQ1 mechnics, was so awsome.

Again: if you're actually playing the game, it's not going to be a problem. It "improves" things by telling players that they need to be regularly "leading from the front," as opposed to just sitting on their thumb & letting the mercenary do all the work.

But let me stress: it's code that causes your merc to do nothing because YOU were too lazy to be a leader, or because YOU were too thoughtless to find somewhere safe to AFK. & I'm sorry, but I refuse to sympathize with either of those two groups.

And my whole point is if it bugs out you'll be in the middle of combat "leading from the front" as you put it. And the code will have your merc looking at and polishing his fingernails. So no, we've had too many code changes to punish people which end up hurting the innocent instead, we don't need anymore.

IOW, your argument isn't about the proposed change itself, but rather the potential for issues on a change that hasn't happened yet.

While I can certainly agree that the potential for problems needs to be taken into account, I don't think that potential, alone, is a good argument to avoid the change. In fact, I'm pretty sure that somewhere in Logic Land, I'll find that an "argument from bad consequences" is considered a fallacy.

I think that beyond this point, we should probably agree to disagree

My argument is that the devs don't need to change 4 or 5 things to stop one problem. And that the mercs are iffy as is and don't need yet another nerf.

1) can't see them for 2 hours

2) random spawn points

3) non agro when spawned

Is more than enough.

I read this in Tyrion Lannister's voice.

Wait, you think bot-farming is an appropriate way of using "contested" content? How is being AFK botting a contest of any kind, least of all for the person botting?

They should increase the timer to six hours, or hell even a day, for the same mob. That's still 16 mobs a day and you'd have to actually move around to get them.

I think most of us would love to be able to finish the weeklies, but at least on Butcherblock there are the same few people sitting all day every day at the named spawns.

I guess I didn't think about it this way.

Farm overland NPC's for yellows and blues. Charge up yellow and blue gear and use conversions to create green gems.
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I haven't been participating in the overland - farm to get green gems faster - approach but is it faster than 200 Ferrins per green which is ~6 zones with 15 Ferrins and one being the DD on All Access?

Caverns / Cadera / ROM = ~ 30 min +/- 5 min each

HH / YJ / Temple / SF = ~ 45 min +/- 10 min each

Bilgewater / Inner Temple = ~ 60 min +/- 20 min each

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Omitted details of zones, advanced solo, events, etc.
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Loose PUG + soloing in 6 hrs of solid play you can get ~ 150 Ferrins (AA), in a solid static group power smashing zones for Ferrins you can get ~200 Ferrins (AA).

Are people getting better net rates of 'free' greens through overland name farming than 6 hours in PUG/Solo or pure Heroic play?

I heard its about a blue every week or a yellow more than half the days for soloers who look for names as they're doing the overland Ferrin Quests on a daily basis.

Unless there is a SC item that increases loot % drops. Vitality is very important when you're in a hurry and those are solidly priced at $10 for a consumable.

All code like that does it encourage botting. Even simple scripts can keep you active enough to avoid this.

@ smite you still have to run the blue gem zones to get the gear to put the "free" blue gems into.

So most of the people slamming the named are doing it while waiting on zone retimers or for a friend to log in so they can do the zones.

That is what I guessed.

But is it working to get soloers into Heroic Lost Caverns or is it being used as a supplemental green gem path for existing Heroic players?
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What I wouldn't mind is if all those blue/green gear items actually sold for more than the < 1p we get now.

5p per green and 2.5p per blue you sell to the vendor wouldn't bother me in the slightest. I get what... maybe 4-6 pieces a night? 20-30 plat wouldn't be out of line.

I agree.

I hope the merc cost is going to go down then if I have to be a better leader and do more work on my part.

More like lets hope they forget the whole idea and leave the mercs alone.

Good. I'm glad they made these changes. Cheaters shouldn't be catered to ever.

Very satisfied with this change. Also very amused at the number of people who didn't read patch notes and were camping the same locations. I picked up Brigrorf and the Hierophant about two minutes apart and then wandered over to find 2-3 people just idling in each spot.

I thought it'd be obnoxious since I can't track, but it really wasn't. One loop around each zone, just keeping my eyes peeled, got my weekly done.

I saw a lot of that as well, it was kinda funny. I was doing my big loop around all the basic areas and they were there every time I zipped by.

It was still kinda more annoying than I would have liked. There were a lot of people doing the same loop. So if I was running a similar loop, but behind someone else, I got nothing. So I had to dart around wildly for many hours. I could have (should have) easily done several instances in that time for more Fherrin, but people were having a very hard time logging in due to the H1Z1 apocalypse.

But it was Thursday. And everyone seems to want to get their weeklies done on Thursday, even though they have all week, so that's usually a bad day for competition with other non-AFK humans. Will see if it settles down.