AVATARS? Why do they have the best gear?

Harder avatars could lead to more competition in the following situation:

Guild 1: Can field 12 real people 24/7, but can only field 20+ real people for a few hours each day.
Guilds 2-5: Can only field 3 real people 24/7, but can field 20+ real people for a few hours each day.

With that said, any attempt to make casual guilds competitive with hardcore guilds would be folly because 1) the guilds that try harder will still win most of the time and 2) the guilds that try harder should be rewarded for their efforts. The right way to make contesteds more competitive would be to pit more evenly matched guilds against each other. That's why I suggest giving the heavyweights their own mobs and letting the lightweights battle over mobs that no longer appeal to the top guilds.

aren't the guilds that Do log in on off hours to kill avatars as soon as they are up "try harder"??

not when those people are using box'd toons / Botted toons in those hours............. Botting mid-day is hardly a harder trying guild imo, just means they are scared to compete so they resort to logging in bots to kill the mob before anyone else has the chance... (that's not trying harder, that's abusing something that shouldn't be allowed)


The issue is when a guild can form in 30mins to pull it, but the guild botting is forming in 10-15mins... That is throwing competition off because they don't even have a legit raid in the first place.


and i really hope Sony takes a look at this forum, and investigates the guilds that have them perm-camped and they can see first hand whats going on although it wont be admitted here..

you have some weird fetish about botting, I don't know who took your avatar but no 3 people use a combo of bots to kill avatars

WTB evidence of botting or this thread locked. I'd love to see these rumored 2 group pulls that somehow can get around the 20 body requirement.

you misunderstood him, he said it's 2-3 people, but one is 12 accounts, and 2 are 6 accounts. either way it's just some false angry that someone probably took an avatar from him. no 3 people kill avatars from botting

it's already being admitted that its done in this thread, and I've been in the guild that physically does it, 1 being Black Flag - which i was recently in, it's not 3 people playing 3 groups, it's the fact they don't have the people on, but yet they can use a program to fill what they need, which stops competition. I'm not on that server anymore, so it doesn't matter, but its a issue that needs to be fixed because if they're that easy, and can be done like that, then they need be made harder so there is real competition.

Making them harder wouldn't really trip up using bots of any sophistication that aren't just a program spamming macros.

Really its moot, the entire argument of 'this handful of people use bots so drastic changes need to be implemented' never works nor should it. You don't get to straddle this line of not naming names but then be so outraged about bots you want the mechanics and content changed purely to stifle them.

Bots and BOXED toons are completely different btw. No one here admitted to using bots, they used BOXED toons to meet the 'number of players' restriction they put on avatars. When the fight starts they either let them die or kill them purposely. The fact that you read this thread and some how are reading multiple people have admitted to using bots shows me you are using foundational bias at best and are delusional at worst.

FYI naming the programs specifically is a forum violation.

I think the argument of people using bot programs to pull Avatars is somewhat misleading...guilds do have people log on alt accounts to make the 20 man force required to get the avatar to go active if they are short members but I also know they generally call those extra accounts back generally just as the avatar goes active or let them die.....

2 or 3 people using botting programs to trio an avatar does seem bit much...not out of the realm of possibility but extremely unlikely.

What role does server population play into this argument? (If any)

it doesn't, just some think that avatars are somewhat different now than a few years back

Creepster.

You complain about people botting to take down avatars and identify you have knowledge of it being done.

You tell readers you are not here to name names or guilds; however you JUMP ALL OVER anyone who explains in response about how they have dealt with the player number restriction to start the avatar script, naming them and calling on game devs to look at their practices.

At the same time...

You admit you have taken part in avatar take-downs with multi-botted players,

Name the guild and server you were with, and attempt to dissociate yourself from them

Best laugh I have had for a while! Thank you!

20 Person start does nothing but annoy players. It doesn't change a single thing about who can kill what when, it's just a nuisance. I don't understand the purpose. Avatars were fine for 4 years just standing there in the open ready to be attacked. Making some arbitrary 20 person requirement just makes people jump through a hoop, it doesn't stop anyone from killing it, or even remotely impact the ability to kill it.

It's just bad design that had some misleaded sense that it would push competition (lol).

The 20 man raid needed to pop the avatars is wee bit high if not illogical tbh...if the dev's want to make an argument to keep an arbitrary minimum raid number requirement to pop an avatar fine but consideration of the current number being slightly higher than needed must also be taken into consideration. Or they could remove the 20 raiders needed but I very much doubt that's going to happen.

You just have to make avatars harder and remove the 20 man raid needed - its that simple.

If scripts/incoming damage + aoes/ adds etc. are hard enough plus if there is a lets say 6mins timelimit on those you actually cant kill them with an underpowered / boxed raid - it worked years ago and there is no reason why it shouldnt work today as well.

You have to get rid of the idea to offer contested content to everyone - its not working.

- it wont work if its too "hard" because people will moan since they are too bad to kill them
- it wont work if its too easy because people will moan they get killed asap they pop by guilds who actually put effort into it instead of crying a river on forums 24/7.

Arena of the Gods is just another step to shove content down players throats which they dont deserve in the first place - there are fewer and fewer prestige kills in this game, what a shame.

Because Soren as a contested worked so well

Soren had some annoying bugs, and the loot wasn't very appealing (at least not before upgrades)...aside from that, what was the issue?

I often forget he existed as contested until someone else brings it up.

Yeah, but if the loot had been amazing...problem solved? The bugs were bad too, but he's forgettable 'cause the loot had to be upgraded at least twice (and it still ended up pretty meh overall if I remember correctly).

While I'll give you the loot was whatever (even if it was technically best in slot) how many guilds ever called for Soren even once?