Abusing the hell out of control point loot chests

It would be a nice idea when people get pvp-flagged for say 1 minute when they loot chests which they did not unlock by themselves...

 

First, I never said anyone in your party was botting, I was making a general statement about botting happening in CP's and maybe some of the chest looters you were talking about were bots.

Obviously, there are a lot of you upset about all this gold being looted that will influence the economy, but the only difference between the ones that are looting it and you looting it is they did not work for it. If you looted the chest, the XXXX amount of gold still enters the economy, but by them it is a means you have no part in, but you worked for. Do I find this fair, not really, but everyone has seen what happens in multiplayer PVP in a control point. But people rail against it, but won't change anything until Port. can come up with a way to resolve it.

It was once said Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results-- Albert Einstein. If A: you know they are going to loot your chest and B: You continue to flag PVP for the extra 25% XP then C: Folks get upset about it happening = Folks flagging PVP for 25% bonus XP are part of the problem. So, until a solution is introduced by the developers, why not do control points in friends only and when it is fixed go back to what you were doing? Because this is what I fail to understand and maybe I am as dumb as a rock. You currently have the decision to not be in multiplayer so they can't have the chest. But the lure of the 25% extra has gotten to so many folks they refuse to stop. Have you ever considered that if today everyone stopped flagging PVP for the extra 25% until this is fixed, it would draw more attention?

I am not trying to be difficult, I am trying to reason with folks that currently,if you want to assure you loot the chest, forget the 25% bonus and wait for the fix by Port. Because if you don't, you will be having the same thing happen every time until something gets changed. They said they will, why not wait for it and then PVP multiplayer for the 25% XP as long as you can stand it?

 

Theres a couple big reasons in my eyes why this gold influx is a huge problem. I'll list some out to try and help you better understand where I'm coming from and how I think it effects the big picture.

Number 1: There is often time far more than 1 full group looting the chests at any given time. It's not just maxed out to 8 people. Say we level to the point where loot rotation is viable option, now we are creating bare minium 16 chests x5 every 3 minutes, or MORE! (potentially endless especially if the fix next patch is to have a single MPO instance open.)

Number 2: Ruins the game experience for lower level players. These people are essentially gold hacking. I see this as no better than people using the old chests from the doorway. It would be better off if the Oracle give out 75k per day and people were actually out adventuring. In other words, people are essentially skipping the game, especially when people sub level 60 are asking to get carried through CP groups. Should we charge a fee and run power leveling service? How else are we supposed to earn when the only place we can level at a reasonable pace doesn't provide income? I've already stated we're spending on #1 regs, but I'll add #2 repairs(how do we afford CotO to repair gear when in game currency is devalued and not readily available?) This system is looking alarmingly P2W.

Number 3: Ruins the game experience for higher level players. As I said earlier a borked economy means that lower level players are not out producing. That means not only less people to BUY from on the marketplace but also it means more competition to purchase! This leads to scenarios like (this anecdotal experience) the other day where I run around Owls head for ~20 minutes unable to find a single Tin on a vendor. This may make sense if I put it this way. When you're trying to advance your gear by going from +13 to +15 and better, you need MORE liquid income, not less. It's already difficult to compete with people who buy/sell thousands of CotO's, now every random off the street are millionaires? +1 to how horrific this is, if the situation you described with botted looters is also going on. How does anyone compete? It's an unfair advantage given to some players that hurts anyone not abusing it.


I came on here to share on the topic because I am disgusted at the sheer amount of people downplaying the situation, and the people insisting that the EXP influx is worse than the gold influx. The difference here is that normalizing Exp across the board is not a big deal, and easy to implement in the future (For instance release an area where you can hunt for 1 mil xp/hr solo in the future.) Games have been doing this for a long time to level the playing field, for instance WoW with every +10 level expansion trivializing gear. What you can't so easily normalize is GOLD. If you devalue gold it hurts everyone EXCEPT the people who are gaming the system. The most egregious offense, in my opinion, is to the people who support Port with real money, and have been trading for in game gold.

At this point aside from actually abusing the chests yourself, the best bet to advance monetarily (short of buy/sell RMT) is going to be farming crafting materials to sell to said abusers. I support rewarding risky, challenging play. I do not support rewarding people who refuse to produce, or those who abuse bugs. This is a welfare system with 100% tax rate. That said, the price of materials is going to go up! Everyone without hundreds of thousands of gold stockpiled will have to go gather all the mats themselves. BUY BUY BUY!

This is why I'm on the boards, sharing input from the perspective of a person who IS part of the groups hunting control points for hours on end to advance. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and if these problems are not brought to light they may go unchanged for many releases to come.

It is sad to me that this is a legit suggestion actually worth of consideration. We should not be playing in MPO. We should be only playing with our 8 person group in Friends mode. We should not be min/maxing, because it hurts the economy as a whole. When did we become the protectors of the economy? Where is Port to step in with a band aid fix until they can do something solid?

If I don't join the groups they are still going to exist. The only thing that will change is me falling further and further behind the high end, which for a Min/Maxer is never an option.

When the high end moves from being 80+ to do Vertas into 100+ to do some higher level CP, I would get left behind due to my morals holding me back. It's a very difficult situation to navigate as a person with no more power than an individual voice. Can you point me to where Port said a fix was incoming? The only fix I saw slated for CPs was to force everyone in MPO to a single instance, which would serve only to exacerbate the current problem. As someone on the fence with this game already, these are the kind of game changing development mistakes (in persistence no less!) that push me away.

Edit: Grammar

 

Has anyone mentioned the money spent on regs by the party holding the point? That takes money out of the economy, it should be part of this equation.

 

Or if they can't figure out how to make the chests player specific, just remove them. I'd rather no gold produced from the CP than tons of gold for people not participating in the hunt.

Term of the month: Looting party

 

Absolutely mentioned that, I'm losing money to hold the CP!

 

I've got a great suggestion for a fix. Remove chests entirely. Spawn a mimic chest on each wave containing what would be in the chests. Players in party can take turns looting chest for gems/items while gold is automatically split.

 

This game IS P2W since it started.

 

There are a couple instances of things you can purchase I think were over the top. Immortality fruit, Lord British Cloak, harvesting+crafting tools being far superior. They still aren't quite as egregious or game changing as some other games where you can buy %crit chance, max health, resistances, etc. I do think the nearly endless scaling of items could be an issue in the future however. I much preferred the even-footing of UO where everyone could only have so much skills, gear had a relatively low ceiling, and the same consumables were available to all. Put the ball in EVERY players hand and let them make their own destiny. Not having an established class of elite behind a paywall.

edit: I want to point out I think cosmetics, and player housing are perfect things to keep behind a paywall, but there still needs to be substance to the game, and if you want people to be attracted to pvp it needs to be at least relatively balanced.

 

No don't remove the chests, this is part of cp participants is the challenge to grab the chests before the next spawn. And to the point of playing the CP for hours, sure we do but it is not all about the xp. We are having fun together and learning to work in a group. I was very rusty indeed since the last few games I played mostly solo. When there are more things added in to do in this game, yeah CP may lose their participants or who knows. The issue people on this thread is someone complains that others are looting the chests besides the CP participants and spamming the rewards and others are xp spamming. The groups I am are just having fun together and showing new people something to do in the game while we develop.

A thread like this could address the balance of the game needing reworked but instead it seems to me some are trying to destroy a game mechanic that has great possibilities. I don't agree with making every new thing Port creates use the control point mechanic as the easy way out for less coding, but it is one mechanic we do have which is: waves of creatures spawn killing off one wave opens the door to lot and the next wave will become increasingly difficult as you kill off each wave and that reward for killing the waves is a trivial small amount in chests that open up behind doors for all to loot.

This CP mechanic in game is the part I enjoy and if others will exploit this in some way xp or rewards from the chests then this is the issue to address not pulling pieces off of the cp mechanic. If XP were handled differently in the first place we would not have that issue.

We should not be GMing in a matter of minutes, days, or weeks anyway imo and yes in development this is one thing to do. The goal of GMing. I, in all my years here, I have to say, I truly did not see that one coming.

edited

 

It takes less than a week to have a fully maxed out character in UO if you knew what you were doing.

Edit: T2a era, you know, real UO.

 

I don't resent people looting. We can hold it with <8 so a loot rotation is not hard to sort out.

It's just dumb easy button loot (for randoms in MPO) that has nothing to do with good gameplay.

We will see what happens soon. (If nothing changes I'll take my turn again on the loot party but I can't right now or I'd be a huge hypocrite at this point).

 

7X gms and stats maxxed in a week easy. This is what i loved about UO everyone had caps and had to build their mold. Sure there were cookie cutter builds and some stronger than others but you could be anything and just about PvP with most builds. More character slots, and skill caps FTW. The few great crafters put there time in and services were needed. I mean even in current UO since the Abyss release if you wanted to maxx out artificing, chances are there were only a few people that did just because it was so tedius, tiem consuming, and expensive. Had nothing to do with super small pop. I can log into Napa Valley shard today and prob see more people at the bank then i do in SOTA unless im with the guild.

 

What you guys always talking about UO? SotA is not UO and has nothing to do with it. Just because Richard Garriot is the creator of both games makes them not comparible, SotA is just a reminiscence to UO in a few points and easter eggs. Stop comparing and start playing the new game.

 

I do play the game? Is there a rule against talking about ultima online I'm not aware of ?

I'm sure it would be mentioned less if terms like "spiritual successor" weren't thrown around... I might be crazy but I think that may imply some comparison is warranted?

 

Another great night looting chests in a CP. I was hoping to hit the 100k mark over the week, but only managed to make 82k gold.

Need more people grinding EXP in PVP mode.....c'mon guys, get off your butt so I can make more money!

 

Yes if that is your thing. I don't mind the GM part in general for the game. I am not putting anyone down for playing the system as it is. All I'm saying is people get burned out once they spam a game components to the point of winning the game. Then what is left if that is the thing that is most immersive to that type of player. If the game consisted of the missing more satisfying content and the basics structure wise atm then who would would or even could focus on xp because to gain xp would be the journey not the destination. For example if gaining xp is not just related to grinding combat, well some can be gained from questing as well, but generally if atm the game had a reason for what we do, why we do it, and consequences for it then perhaps we would have something else to look forward to. As it stands now, the most exciting thing is one of the most exciting things to be found is xp grinding aka the goal to GM grinding.

If we had content that provided satisfying things to do, such as for example; any one of Sotas systems in the game being fleshed out and complete, and things added in; such as treasure hunting with map difficulty and discoveries that matter and can send you to discover other things in game, our fishing system completed with all components added in like it gives a challenge to catch the largest fish or find treasures and treasure maps and fight sea battles etc, agriculture completed and having that it matters more than the action of just planting crops for ingredients, we must have reasons for doing what we are doing and consequences like using our systems sleeping in beds, eating foods and that these matter and have counters that are meaningful and interesting like drinking wine is a temporary fix for somethings or eating sugary foods are, but these have negtatives as well and starvation will get you and lack of sleep will get you if not countered with sleeping or eating, and our UI and AI are smart enough to know it and tell us about it by buffing us with resting bonus and satiation etc.

I know I harp on this all the time, but most issues we have in the game are due to a game full of incomplete systems atm, and I am concerned that basics will not be added in unless we say they should. So this and many topics that go ballistic are true, yes part of the process to get from here to there that we must endure in development. I know that so carry on of course, but to @Portalarium, @Darkstar, @Richard Garriott, @Berek @Lum the Mad , @Chris, @Attenwood, please do not forget the basics before we release, we cannot have a game without achievements and reasons to play. We have the most beautiful game and the most dedicated team working on it, so I have faith you are listening

@Blink sorry this is not all to you but I'm sure you know that

 

You throw out walls of text always telling the dev-team what's their work. Don't you think there is a Masterplan and that they really don't know what to do and furthermore do you really think you know better? We play this game in awareness it is incomplete, for me its still testing the game and we give feedback to the team. Our job is not to tell the guys to construct an other game than that what was planned. I am sure when its finished it will be the vision of @Lord British.

 

Lol I would not tell them to construct another game, well it is already another game from what anyone envisioned at kickstarter but we have been here making the game as we go. One thing added effects another and who knows what game it will be in the end, and I'm with you I'm hoping for a Richard Garriott influenced game very much, and I'm sure they are doing great, but Darkstarr said they don't have time to hunt for our ideas So for this topic carry on and don't read my walls of texts. I'm still here through it all no matter what. They are nothing new that I haven't said for over 3 years. *cheers* and back to the topic at hand

 

1: You can't win an MMO
2: Many people spam game components to do things at endgame, with other maxed out players, like PVP or get rich in high level dungeons. (neither of which are fun or rewarding currently)
3: There is no endgame in SotA, and several I know personally quit when they found this out the hard way.

1: Farming control points is not fun for me, and many I know would agree.
2: Farming trivial 5 skulls that don't provide enough XP to level up in a reasonable time is even less fun.

That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Considering the time it takes to level, (new players could never truly catch up with the current system) added with the fact that the world is persistent, many believe the game to be "released" and just waiting for some polish before marketing. Unfortunately myself and many others realize that there is no system aside from Player Housing that is currently polished, leading us to believe that at this pace it will take years for the game to be truly "ready."

You don't have to apologize to me. I appreciate the passion and effort you're putting forth in an attempt to help this game which I and so many others have/had extremely high hopes for!

Considering the disastrous implementation of control point loot chests, and how long they have been trying to fix them, as well as reworking the target system and having massive glaring bugs with things so in your face as melee attacks upon final wipe, No. I do not think there is a master plan. It was known that final wipe and land rush would lead to more people online in game, and (just a guess based on steam achievement numbers) many of those people were upset with game quality at that point and quit.

One of the main points of Alpha testing is to provide our impressions and experience. We're essentially tendrils of Port feeling out the game for them(though in reality we are paying customers.) If I don't enjoy the game, and my friends don't enjoy the game, am I supposed to shut up and quit, or be silent here, like so many others giving bad reviews on Steam and Reddit?

Well right now it is neither his (stated) vision nor the kickstarter promise, so maybe they need more feedback.

I just want to point out that on final wipe the FIRST QUEST in the game, to transport a healer to a wounded guard in the Battle of Highvale scene, was broken. That's a REALLY bad first impression. I'm just guessing here, but I would wager that many people(possible future customers, guild mates, or rivals) didn't make it past that first scene before exiting and uninstalling.

Edit: grammar