Reduce posibilities to grind and exploit like Mode switch!!!

Are you aware of mode switching to farm boss mobs @DarkStarr ?
Are you aware that people (legally) exploit every gamemechanic to grind and skill up?

I don't like it to be thrown into a world where most people are just striving and not immersing (and indirectly accused by them to be "just a danceparty bear" ^^.

What about bosses have really huge respawn timers and are just killable once a day for each other in all modes.
Or do you like people make your artifacts worthless in a few weeks because they farm them and flood the market with them?

What makes them special if people go to a Troll kill him and switch modes for quicker respawn and do this 10-50 times ???

People's attitude to extremely grind and exploit every gamemechanic isnt good for more casual players who in the end have more or less to compete with them.

I cannot believe it's intended to play the game like this. Stop them exploiting!

 

your making to much sense. I agree, these things should be fixed. I also agree the term immersion is pretty much a thing of the past for most players in this game.

 

So you want the majority as you admit yourself to play by the way that you think is better for them...Minority rules....I eat celery, you MUST eat celery...

Casual players as you state...ie: those that do not invest as much time into the game should get the same benefits without working/grinding for them?

When people reach a certain level, Boss's are really the only meaningful content....generally..... at the moment...Want them to just log in once a day for 30 minutes?

While i have done this on the odd occasion myself, it is rare, and people i have grouped with I'm sure can vouch for my unwillingness to do this. I do agree with you here that swapping modes to constantly farm the same boss is not right but if its not intended by the devs then there has been ample opportunity up till now for them to stop it or make a comment on it....Seems to be working as intended by the developers even though i am not for it personally.

 

@Bow Vale it's not about i want everybody play like me and it's also not about minority or majority, it is just about the devs to reduced possibilities to do that.
Because this destroys artifacts are rare and special and if the endgame content is measured by hardcore gamers and gamemechanic exploiters, this game tend to be more and more casual unfriendly and somewhat elitary as it already is from the monetary side. I think it not good to orientate at 24/7 grinders for the game.
And some people still tend to say, Yeah it's all easy you can be everything, be everything, do everything.
But the way the accomplish that was exploiting the system and still doing it with for example mode switching.
The majority votes for Trump, Brexit and maybe more to come, are you ok with the majority about this?
I am critical about what the majority wants.

 

I think the issue here is that optimal gameplay is not immersive. Mode switching increases your chances to get rare loot. Though to be fair, the loot from boss is pathetic if it was supposed to be reward for group effort of entire party.

I wish it was like that. Of course players playing longer should be better. They should have more time to do things, however there is difference between playing casually and doing quests or fighting monsters in forest while chopping trees and hardcore grinding bosses while mode switching or AoE killing everything for absurdly high xp reward.

Yeah, I think the issue here is that devs allowed minmaxers or hardcore grinders use unfinished systems to level up way too quickly. Though I do not know of any solution to this other than adding more tier 5+ scenes or reducing the skills of everyone. Or at least those who outlevelled the content.

Not sure it is intended, they made few measures to make it hard at least for solo players. though the boss respawns are pretty fast without mode switching.

 

I'm split 50/50 on this. The dragon that respawns every 3 minutes is obviously on a fast timer because it's normally a party that takes this one on. The troll on the 10 minute timer is more geared toward solo players I guess - and it gets solo'd - but it also gets farmed by parties that can kill it with skillful efficiency. I actually don't like flip-flopping between modes but when everyone in the party is doing it the choice is - do it or leave the party.

Mode switching is there so people don't have to wait or compete for resources and people use it for just that. They should just put all bosses on a three minute timer.

 

And thats then the "normal" and Intention to play to grind a Boss and kill it every 5 Minutes until everybody has the rare he wants?

Sorry to say that, that Kind of gameplay is boring as hell, is nothing about rpg and immersing, nothing about what the game want to stand for and i doubt this is the way the game is intended to play.

But if a dev or @Lord British say that is the way they want people to play the game, what they sure never will do, we can go on and destroy every chance for casual gamers to seroiusly be a part of the game. They deal with them like second class gamers.

 

Drops are balanced, in particular the rare loot drop rates are closely monitored and controlled by Portalarium. I know I do better than the average player when it comes to finding rare loot, but I also put in the hours and I explore and seek out scenes and mobs that drop artifacts. And it's not always a happy fun grind time! I've farmed 5skull scenes and bosses for hours, days/weeks even, and found nothing but standard loot junk and maybe some potions. Then another avatar comes in right behind me and gets top tier rares inside of 10 minutes.

 

By monitoring and controlling, do you mean they regulate the drop percentage per individual or do the manually choose what drops?

 

Sometimes I think they manually choose - would definitely explain why I have multiple Pax Rings - hahaha
My guess is that they use some sort of algorithm to roll chances based on population and numbers of existing similar artifacts already in game.

 

Have bosses drop depending on how long time since it was killed last?
longer time => better loot

 

Agreed! Get rid of the selective Multiplayer and put more effort into balancing the MP experience... oops won't happen I guess. I think this will forever be one of the flaws of selective MP and we have to learn to live with it unfortunately or scrap it.

 

@Duke Avery if the analyze the rates the grinding majority has the casual gamers wont get 1 item a year i guess.
That is what i mean with measures shouldnt base on "24/7 grinding" players.

What @curt say i found is a good suggestion. and i would prefer it to be more than 24 hours and are going more like 72 hours, so every 72h the timer resets and this schould reduce xp from highlevel Bosses too.

I dont like people grind things over and over to get xp, rare loot etc...
Not because i dont grant a ambitious player the reward, but because they move the measures into high grounds.

 

We live in a Democracy, Just because a vote goes against someone's own vote it doesn't mean it is wrong and it is a little egotistical to then try and change the outcome of that vote, looking at you Sturgeon (Scotland).... Personally i am against Trump, My Dad is for...We both however are totally for Brexit, like the majority of this country and it will happen and be best for us(mine and the majority opinion). However, talking of majority/democracies, i find they have the habit of watering down what actually needs to be done for the good, ( majority votes is rarely good for a long term sustainability/utopia) in politics no politician/party will be elected in a western government by telling the voters what really needs to happen, raise tax's/cut this/boost that, the populace are generally selfish and will vote for whoever gives them an advantage/bonus, even if it means disaster is inevitable. But back to the game and the point......


Here a majority who actually play is the lifeblood of the game, by making it not advantageous for them to play and treating others who engage less in the game the 'advantage' it can only then lower the amount of people who play as the casuals will still be casual and the hardcore will be then at best casual players.

If we try and make the game for a more casual player, where do we draw the line, someone will always feel hard done by..

Bob only plays 2 hrs a day....But then Mary can only play 2 hrs a week...John however only once a month....and Gareth as never logged in yet as he waiting for the game to be officially released....WHere do we draw the line?.....I say with the people who actually PLAY the game and put hours into the game is where.

The content is not in the game to reward higher level players at present, i see the artifacts thing as just that, something to keep people playing and enjoying the game, in truth they are not really overpowered and better can be made by players ( which is good to see ), they are just a hook to keep players in the game imo. And as Net says, the loot from Boss's is generally pathetic, there does need to be a reason to fight them and artifacts are that. They can lower the drop rate of the artifacts to 1 a year if they wanted, the control is in their hands.

But when they release content that higher level players can just play/farm/grind then they can return boss's to what they should be, rare and with good loot...not 3 obsidian chips and 15 gold....

 

Actually we live in a constitutional republic. We use a democratic philosophy within the republic. There is a big difference between a republic and a democracy. A constitutional republic is designed to protect the rights of the individual, where as a democracy is mob rule. Sorry just had to clarify that.

 

@Stundorn @Bow Vale @Net

Ok so this has been brought up a couple of times during the years. Although I think it might have been since R34-35 that it was in a hangout.

The devs (especially @Chris) is very much aware of this issue. They do not like it and would like to prevent it.
However they said that the most cost effective ways would also hurt innocent players and sometimes also those trying to get around bugs.
As such they are right now sometimes doing personal corrective actions towards people who step over the line exploiting this but they are not doing any generic solutions...yet. But Starr mentioned that it is on the shortlist for launch. So I'm guessing that they are waiting for that mythical moment when the game suddenly is stable, i.e. Launch.


(For instance Spoon is always in multiplayer but for me the most frequent reason for switching to single is unresponsive NPCs. Or the deco loading glitching. )

Now if it had been me I would have put in a couple of changes that while not preventing the issue would at least mitigate it. (But note that I'm much more evil when developing games and enforcing rules than our devs).

• When switching Solo/Friends/Multi start the player on overworld
• Per boss add a timed Buff with "Dragonsbane", "demons bane" "magnificent bunny bane" etc having the buff then reduce the XP for that boss type for that player, and reduce damage to that boss type and increase damage From that boss type for that player (but loot remains)
• But then given the buffs above I'd also give a reward if you manage to have X boss buffs at the same time, like if you have them and talk to the oracle you get a choice of reward: title, plaque, gold.
• Later on add a specific number of allowed switches per h. Like 4.

 

Them's fightin' words.

I would agree, at least, it would be nice if game mechanics encouraged immersive gameplay over grindy gameplay. Very difficult to achieve though. Might get better when questing is fully implemented.

 

"personal corrective actions towards people"

Are you talking about the people that get banned for farming with macros and bots? I certainly hope so, because if you're suggesting that the devs take personal corrective actions against highly skilled players for being creative and efficient then I would have a huge problem with that.

 

You never cater a game to the people who play the least. You should always welcome them and they will definitely have a part here and even in their own spaces if they wish! But designing around them just alienates too many people.

That being said we need rules and they should mask the artificial boundaries a game technically needs to function.
So far the boundaries are more or less IN YOUR FACE... that's why most of us I feel are having problems really immersing in this unfinished virtual world.

 

Since I haven't been on the receiving end I wouldn't know the details but I think the standard for minor exploiting is a warning, next a timeout from play for 24h-48h.

Players caught bot farming gets perma-banned.

Being too creative with getting much more efficient returns than intended by the makers of the game is pretty much how most exploits start. If in doubt, report, and all of that jazz.

But since there hasn't been any big dramas from the regulars I'd guesstimate that such warnings are rare.