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Botting, NM hunting and drop ratio. What are your thoughts?
Proximo521
Member UncommonPosts: 283
I was just on the Square Enix members site and saw a topic on Botting. A particular user felt that they needed to make it more casual because it was so hard to fight against the Gil Sellers and their botting to get claim. Another user thought that since everyone else was botting, that it was a great reason why he started to bot himself. How else would he get claim?
In my personal opinion, botting is simply a wussies way out. I played on a PS 2 for all of time that I spent on FFXi and had great drop ratios. I also spent most of my time hunting NM's because it fueled my crafting. With that said, I have beat a ton of Gil Sellers and other players that have used bots. I also have reported them several times because of it. I was very particular about this because to me it was definitely cheating and if I could beat a running program (with millions of calculations going) with a PS 2 then there is something wrong with the bot or they were simply out of position.
I agree some people have their reasons for having most of those items rare/ex and I cant blame them for wanting that. It has to be quite painful after spending several hours trying to get the NM and then finally realize that, after all that work you have put in, it was all for nothing because it didnt drop.
Which brings me to my question. Several actually.... Should they dumb down this game because it was hard for someone to get claim on the NM? Do you feel there was a better way with dealing with the Gil Sellers and if so what were those? Or is it simply something they could have fixed by making all NM items rare/ex? I know a lot of people that NM hunted and primarily for the purpose of fueling other aspects of the game. Should NM hunting be completely nixed from FFXIV? Or is there a better way? For my last question, could Square just turn up the drop ratio for these items?
I am really curious to your everyones thoughts on this subject. Yes, I hunted only for the purpose to obtain gil and help with my crafting. Is that so bad? I really do find myself torn because I loved NM hunting and hope they do bring it back. Although, I have my personal reasons. I truly believe that it was a flawed system and could have been done better. Any feedback would be great!
Thanks for reading my post ladies and gents!!!!! 
Comments
If any developer has learned how to combat botters, gil farmers and cheaters its SE, and I'm confident that SE will have many advanced measures in place to stop these from happening as much as possible from day one.
As far as NMs go, they should return and be just as difficult to claim and drop rates just as low....I don't wanna see everyone running around in the same gear at every lvl bracket like all the other MMOs. Rare gear should stay rare and very difficult too acquire!
One thing I have to say. You can't really make every one item r/e. The reason you make these items sellable is because you need to let people who don't have time to camp a mob a chance to get it too.
For instance. Leaping Boots. Lizzy is not a hard claim. When you have 60 people out in a small area it could be a little hard, but she is a mob that shows up pretty quickly (compared to say Augus). Personally I have been after those shoes for 5 years now. I have gotten claim so many times it isn't funny, but never anything on the drop. I have since bought them and have gone for the r/e verson to sell the ones I have.
Making those boots r/e might have stopped a gil seller from just camping the mob non-stop and basically monoplizing the mob, but it doesn't help legit players that might be looking for the boots to sell and make money to buy something else (which we all do in the form of BCNMs). Now it looks good for people who legitimatly want the boots to use, but now the problem becomes all those people who avoided camping Lizzy before b/c they didn't like the competition from gil sellers all come and are now trying to get it so you have really accomplished nothing as far as getting rid of people.
Now look at the flip side at some person who doesn't have hours to camp a mob that spawns anywhere from 10 minutes to 4 hours. What this person will normally do is farm up money from other means then buy the shoes on the AH. By making something R/E you take this option away from the player forcing them to camp for it. Now there is a log jam of people as I stated above and the player just gets frustrated and moves on. Not fun, I wouldn't want to play that game
The problem with the system is the economy is player driven with no regulations. Couple that with the fact that 3rd party tools are so prevolent because as the OP stated person A uses so Person B counters and everything snowballs. The only true way to combat a situation like this is to make items R/E which we have proven isn't nessessarily the best thing to do, or devalue currency so much that no matter little money you have you feel like a trillionaire.
There are always going to be RTMs as long as there are people who will buy the online currency bacause -- frankly -- they can't cut it otherwise. The problem with it is the only way to combat is a reactive event. You need someone to buy the drug before you can do something about it. When you do crack down you end up ensnaring people who will bitch and complain about how they had to cheat (yes CHEAT) becasue they game was too hard for them.
All in all there are only a few bad apples in the orchard, but they bad apples really fester and rot the world around them. The best thing you can do is keep the current system you have in place, get third party tools out of the game, stiffen penalties for infractions, and work with the community to weedle out the baddies.
I am guessing the economy in FFXIV or any other MMORPG will not be affected as much by RMT / Gold Farming due to China's recent ban on the practice.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10275180-62.html
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There will always be RTM as long as people will buy. The only reason they are centered primarily in china is because of there low wages.
That is simply crazy. Square Enix if you are reading this..... PLEASE PLEASE BRING BACK NOTORIOUS MONSTERS!!!
Karma is a b!tch!!! ahahahahaha!
I think NM's and rare spawns are a great addition to the game and add a lot of fun and excitement, I would hate to have to lose that because of some botters/exploiters.
I didn't do alot of NM camping but I always found it fun, even if I never got to even see one pop or if I was on the phone when it did and someone else came walking by and got it. The fact is that because it was hard it was exciting, you can't have one without the other. There seems to be a trend in MMO's today of a slow watering down of just about everything to the point where everyone can get everything no matter what they do or don't do, some day there will be a game where all you have to do is log on and you reach the level cap and have every piece of gear possible. hah
I do think SE could use some creative ways of allowing more people a better chance of enjoying NM hunting. Something like if you claim a certain mob and kill it you can't claim that mob for another 24hours or depending on it's spawn cycle longer, so that 1 person can't just get every claim on the same NM over and over.
They could also come up with something that would always drop from NM's, some kind of currency perhaps, so that even if you didn't get the real drop you would get something and say if you kill the same mob 10x and get 10 of whatever coin you could maybe turn it in to some NM hunter npc and get something, maybe not the same drop but something decent.
If there's one thing that SE got right with FFXI, it's that they didn't make a game that coddles it's players. If the reward doesn't require putting forth effort, then it becomes near meaningless to me.
With that being said, I actually think they should make NM spawns more difficult in FFXIV. Have them spawn in random locations throughout the zone. Have the spawn rate be based on a number of random factors such that it could be 30 minutes or even 3 days after the last spawn. They need to do everything they can to discourage people from "camping" for an NM. The claim should be truely random for the lucky guy who was in the right place at the right time. Keep the drop rates low.
Of course they should also stick with the idea of some NM's being forced spawns using rare items found in game.
I would agree with the first part of your post. They should not ever feel like they need to coddle anyone.
I was actually really happy with the current system in place. The problem was with NM hunting.... Well at least for me, was the Gil Sellers constantly trying to drive the price of the item. So it was a trickle down effect, we would see the same Gil Sellers camping the same NM and they would just put that item up for auction so they could sell gil to someone! That was an issue for me. They were giving the people an opportunity to cheat. Allowed the general populous to be tempted and buy into it.
I dont mind someone camping against me. I would actually cheer people on if they were able to get the NM and use the drop or sell it. I dont find that in anyway a bad thing. I have said this a lot but I am going to stick by it. That is.. options in a game cannot be a bad thing. If I cant craft I better have an alternate option. If I cant farm then I better have an alternate option. I believe that options are going carry a lot more weight on games rather than dumbing down or making it hard for someone to get an NM.
I can definitely see your point, but the whole idea of having to compete with gil sellers sucked all the fun out of NM hunting for me. That's why I like the idea of having it be so random that nobody could predict where or when they would spawn and it's just luck of the draw, so the gil sellers wouldn't be able to monopolize the drops. Either that or have them all be forced spawns from rare items. I much preferred hunting NM's in Sky that were forced spawns because I didn't have to worry about joe gil seller taking "our" mob.
I can definitely see your point, but the whole idea of having to compete with gil sellers sucked all the fun out of NM hunting for me. That's why I like the idea of having it be so random that nobody could predict where or when they would spawn and it's just luck of the draw, so the gil sellers wouldn't be able to monopolize the drops. Either that or have them all be forced spawns from rare items. I much preferred hunting NM's in Sky that were forced spawns because I didn't have to worry about joe gil seller taking "our" mob.
As I said, I loved the system that they had in place. Dont make them Rare/Ex items and having to camp against others. Now, I do like your idea of a BCNM type quest. Where you have to turn in a certain amount of crystals or some type of item to a quest person, then obtain the orb. That would be a fantastic way to provide options to players. Now, I do believe that the hard part about NM hunting is being vigilant and having the technique to be able to claim. If they have taken that way. Then they need to reapply that to gathering of the items for the orb or apply it to the fight and make it an epic type battle.
I'm not sure if you got to participate in Sky NM fights, but you basically had to kill various regular mobs to get certain drops plus some other rare item (which I can't remember how it was acquired) to make them spawn. It wasn't a BCNM. You just went to a certain spot and used the item(s) and the NM would spawn already claimed by the spawning party. I can't remember all the detail because it's been a few years, but that's the basic gist of it. There was competition over the regular mobs, but it was mild compared to regular NM camping.
I'm not sure if you got to participate in Sky NM fights, but you basically had to kill various regular mobs to get certain drops plus some other rare item (which I can't remember how it was acquired) to make them spawn. It wasn't a BCNM. You just went to a certain spot and used the item(s) and the NM would spawn already claimed by the spawning party. I can't remember all the detail because it's been a few years, but that's the basic gist of it. There was competition over the regular mobs, but it was mild compared to regular NM camping.
Yah i have done the sky battles, but I would really stay away from making some low level NM in the same way that you would fight a Sky God. I am going to stick to my stance as far as the BCNM is concerned. For instance with the Peacock Charm if you wanted to get it from the NM Argus you could. If not you could still get it through BCNM quest called Under Observation. But trading Beastman Seals in to get Star Orbs to be able to fight an NM would be perfect. But I would still require them to do that with every NM that you would run into.
This is the Allakhazam description of the fight for Argus. If you do not like NM hunting they should provide it as an option. Just as so....
Battle Notes
Trade 40 Beastmen Seals to Shami and get a Star Orb. Trade the orb to the Burning Circle in Horlais Peak located in the Yughotto Grotto.
This fight is capped at level 40, and only three people may enter the Burning Circle. Upon entering, you will find three mobs from the Hecteyes family: One large Sobbing Eyes and two smaller Compound Eyes.
•They are resistant to Silence and Sleep but are susceptible to Bind and Gravity.
•The Sobbing Eyes will cast Firaga I, Bindga and Breakga and is capable of healing itself using the ability Catharsis.
•The Compound Eyes will cast Fire II and Drain I.
•All have Hecteyes special attacks, and will spam "Hex Eyes" if the characters are not already paralyzed.
Strategies
A typical strategy for this fight is to go in with a party consisting of two NIN/BLM or NIN/RDM's and a RDM/BLM. Eat food, buff, heal, then each NIN will take their own Compound Eyes while the RDM kites the Sobbing Eyes with Elemental Seal Gravity to start, then Bind and Gravity. Each NIN will spam Tier-2 Elemental Wheel Ninjutsu on their Compound Eyes, making sure to keep their back to the mob to avoid the paralysis effect of the Hex Eyes ability. Once their individual mobs are dead, the NIN's will rush to where the RDM has kited the Sobbing Eyes and spam Tier-2 Elemental Wheel spells again until the fight is over, while again keeping their backs turned towards the mob.
Note: Reports indicate that it is possible for Scroll:Utsusemi: Ni to drop twice from the same treasure chest at the end of the fight.
They really need to improve other way's to get some good gear. Like really improve on the BCNM's, or have big epic quest chain's to get some solid gear. What i've learned from playing other games... they offer better way's of getting some good gear, without making it feel like it was job how FFXI did. And it never felt easy mode. To many people confused spending thousands of hours doing something in FFXI as hardcore. It doesn't = hardcore, it never did... you just have major time sink on your hands.
They should have NM's, they should be hard. Should the NM gear be better then the big epic quest chain idea.. fuck yes.. you were able to spend the time and long effort to obtain it.. it should be better. But going the easier route should give you something good... just not as good as a NM drop or that bad ass crafted piece. So many other people who don't have a huge time commitment can have a well geared toon, and not feel like a noob :P
I would agree, gear requirement in FFXI played such a role and the reason for so much NM hunting and exploiting going on. Everyone is in the mind set that gear is the only important issue that you must address and having people in game telling you that you need this gear in order to party didnt help that at all. So yes, I agree gear dependency seem to play a very very big role in FFXI. If they are going to make that such an requirement then they (being Square Enix) should provide other possibilites to get gear.
My biggest pet peeve with FFXI was the lack of gear choices. Every player of the same job/level pretty much had 1 or 2 sets of gear that they wore and you looked like mirror images. They should have a bit more variety in FFXIV IMO. Certainly not to the extent that WoW took it where gear practically fell into your lap, but I would like to at least look somewhat unique from everyone else.
Yah I hated the fact that my Samurai had full Shura Gear with a Kirins Osode... Which when you were in Aht Urghan seemed everyone had. I would like some more variety when you get gear. At least changing the color would have been nice. But some kind of customization for gear and the way it looks would have been sweet.
I agree
That was the fun and purpose of having/hunting NM's to get gear no one else have. If everyone ran around with adaman hauberks that would be just horriable. It was bad enough that alot of the characters look like alike the rare gear and the abundance of other gear was one the things that set someone apart from another person.
Botting is botting if you are going to play the game, play the game, don't use some automated software to do the playing for you, whats the purpose of playing if you let someone/something else do it for you. Just because you see someone else use a bot doesn't mean you should. I will admit that in my time, I've been outpulled by people with bots. Whole concept of 'playing the game' is to use your brain, the moment you let something else do that for you, you aren't playing it anymore.
My .02: They shouldn't have to re-work the NM/HNM drop ratio aspect for the people due to people with bots. Just because the item is Rare/Ex doesn't mean that someone won't use a bot to get it. With the exception of smaller dungeons or sorts, IMO the NMs just need to be spread out more to where someone, even with 10 bots, couldn't sit there and get the pull. The problem with many NMs in FFXI was that where they spawned was too close, too small of a radius where one or two people can cover the area they would spawn (Like Mystmaker even though his drop rare/ex spawns within a very small radius). Make the spawn locations far apart and more of them, so that the journey/hunt is half the battle
I will agree with you though, some drops (peacock charm E.G), depended too much on the time, moon phase and other weird aspects which I have never seen used in a game like this. I guess thats what made FFXI a little bit more unique though. Perhaps a better drop ratio on some of the mobs should be increased, however there should be some mobs out there that drop great gear but with a crappy drop rate
// word
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=^^=
Tough topic.. I have mixed feelings about NM hunting... It was always awesome to be running along and find a NM and kill it or get a bunch of people together and kill it. For me it added to that special feel of the game which I think overall was a good thing that FFX and I'd like to see it stay... However I think the whole idea of being able to "camp" something and get it every time or most of the time is flawed and I'd like to see them change things around some to prevent the camping part of it. Random spawn anywhere on the map would certainly make it a lot harder, but I got no good answer for how to do it.
There is a difference between legitimate time put into nm hunting, and time increased due to lax restrictions that could remove botting altogether.
They could make all drops r/e. Except drops from mobs in BCNMS etc, the difficulty involved in getting seals etc is more then enough to stop botters from using that as a means of getting sellable items. other drops that dont need to be r/e are ones droped from mobs that need r/e traded items... makes it a little mroe difficult for the bot but sellable to the public
there are methods that i can come up with in 1 minute that could greatly reduce the UNECCESARY timesink of any mmo... but as long as a game developer looks like they are tackling the issue well enough and the people are happy they dont want to change things that work to their benefit
there would be a lot more happy people willingly nm hunting and enjoying ff14 if they are smart enough to implement simple masures, that do not detract from fun gameplay.
WOOT
www.eorzeapedia.com
(Great FF14 source)
Personally think NMs was a giant waste of time when I played. Besides teh problem of gil farmers botting and whatnot I always foud it quite stupid in the instance of lizzy's boots how such a low level item was THE item to have on (said applicable characters) 20 levels later. Any such items should be very useful for a few levels but not so far into the future that you never have to really worry about geting new boots again.
You will never stop all botters, you will never stop gold/gil/whatever farming/selling. But SE CAN lower the focus on such items where they're not trivial but not pivotal. Yes NM drops were hard to get but it never took any real skill or effort other than racing against other players (and maybe a little luck of the drop) to gain the items.
SE should have NMs in their new game but they also shouldn't make them the only way to get "epic" items. The really good gear should come from group efforts or something that involves a little more skill than just waiting around in a zone for hours on end then racing to grab teh mob when it pops.
I would have liked to see all drops rare/ex.The problem is sellable items,the yare needed,so the use of seals and bcnms is a good alternative.The problem is that the RMT could still bot and get tons of seals and go that route for sellable items.
BTW it is MUCH easier to cheat in a bcnm setting than in the open,because noone can watch your actions.
I like the idea of items being rare but they were exploited by the massive botting 24/7 around the clock ,so soon the rare items were no longer rare.
Personally the whole system needs to be dopne with some thought .not a throw in that caters to cheating and botting.From my long experience over time, i fear that Square will do no different this time around in FFXIV,it will still be a haven for cheats.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Just read everything on here.. and have 2 things to say.
First, I really hope Square is not really thinking of NOT having NM's. I mean, I've heard they are changing a bunch of stuff already, and I know some people are not wanting a "rehash", but umm.. some things have/need to stay the same, or we are not playing FF anymore... we are just playing some MMO that was given the title FF.. imo anyways.
The second is really a questiong I guess. Before the question though, I do want to point out that I am probly the biggest bot hater in the MMO world! With that said, I also want to state that I am in no way great with what people can and cant do with a computer which brings me to my question. Can't Sqare, or any other developer for that matter, make a system that detects 3rd party software.. I mean it just seems like something that wouldnt be that hard to do with all the technology we have today... and again I'm not super computer literate, just something I think wouldnt be to difficult. Or can't they put in something that we have to accept before we would log in and that button disables anything else running on your computer besides the operating system and the game?
I have a feeling that people are going to write some flaming stuff that they need to have other stuff running for w/e reason, so my rebutal to you before you even type that stupid crap is this. If you are on your dedicated time to play the game.. then play the game. In the world of MMO, I dont think you really need to be looking up stuff online or sending messages to other people.. or at least I dont want you in my party XD. I mean I played FFXI on the PS2 so I didnt even have those options, and I was fine with that... when FFXIV comes out, I plan on playing it on a console.. PS3 if I have to.. but hopefully the 360.
Point in that paragraph is to just stop people from replying in a way that I dont really care about.. I just want to know if it is possible to stop the botters in that way, nothing else. The reason I want to know is because imo that would be a small sacrifice. Or if they can detect 3rd party systems.. why they just dont do that.
Simple answer is no.Square nor any other developer has shown any proactive measures towards anti cheat.It is ALWAYS up to the user to report cheating or in Squares case,the now TASK FORCE,does most of the work for them.The problem is that a task force does not monitor bots/pos/speed cheats.All they do is monitor gil going to and from players.
Unless all changes take place server side,you will not have a perfect anti cheat game.Punkbuster seems to be a decent anti hack program,but since developers will not pay to use it,it shows how little resources they dedicate to anti cheat.
To really catch the cheats,a games code would have to be written by some amazing thinkers.They would have to have code that rewrites itself,changes binaries often.There would have to be dedicated GM's for EACH server that are constantly monitoring cheating.There needs to be separate IN GAME buttons to report cheating for Bots,separate buttons to report POS/speed cheats,and there needs to be NO wait time for action on these matters.I do not see Square meeting ANY of the criteria,so expect more of the same broken economy and a broken game.
You can try to enjoy the game and ignore the cheating,but after a while you realize it affects your game a lot and really ruins the design and game experience,so much so that you often decide to quit.I am really sick of PLAYERS having to do al lthe work for the developer,they need to show some effort if they expect us to pay to play their games.Who knows by time FFXIV comes out ,i may still decide to play ROM as it is free.Sqaure had better show me they are taking a true stance against cheating and show some effort in doing so.I can easily afford to pay Square whatever amount to play their game,but out of spite ,i will not pay them anything if i do not like their effort.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Of course SE can spend a little more thought on the issue... we would all expect them to. But it's not going to stop botting and stuff.