A Discussion of Gold Farmers, Botters, MultiBoxers

First point. NONE of the above will work.

This is a full open PvP game. You gain some corruption for killing someone who doesn't fight back. If you run into any bot/farmer/multiboxer, its free gold. Wreck them, even at the cost of a little corruption(which decays over time) and steal a portion of their farming. Group of 10-50 multiboxers? Get your entire guild to come enjoy the free gold.

Second point: GMs

Steven said in one of his interviews that he fully believes in a good amount of GMs who are integrated and active in the community. If Steven, who I have no reason to distrust based on his current monetary position, stays true to actually paying employees to monitor the game and ensure proper behavior and a better experience for the players, then there is nothing to worry about.
Blizzard could easily get rid of all the bots in classic if they paid someone to actively monitor flagged accounts. Same with AoC.

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Comments

Lazyactor

"First point. NONE of the above will work."

While I appreciate the sentiment lets not be naive. This things will exist. Now based on the solutions presented I personally think there overall effect on the player driven economy and experience will be pretty abysmal. It will be kept to a minimum which honestly is all any gamer ever asked for. Keep it so low it is not really a big deal.

As long as lazy entitled gamers with more money than sense exist these behaviors will exist. By being able to combat them via pvp and active moderation the profit should be kept lower than the cost which will prevent most of the issues associated with them.

I think most gamers dont really care that you spent money because your lazy. Honestly none of us would ever care if the effects of so many people doing it weren't negatively impacting everyone else's experience.

Bardtic

@Lazyactor The key is making the cost/reward ratio to these botters/gold farmers not worth it. If the real money comes from farming something and then transporting it via caravan. Then if the botter is griefed during all aspects of that by players, they won't end up with much reward.

And once again, from the AMA today Steven said they are already working on a system for flagging suspicious accounts. If a GM take a small amount of time to actively watch and/or interact with these accounts, they get banned. With the roughly 225 hours required to level to max, these types don't gain much reward.

Lazyactor

Reign118 wrote: »

@Lazyactor The key is making the cost/reward ratio to these botters/gold farmers not worth it. If the real money comes from farming something and then transporting it via caravan. Then if the botter is griefed during all aspects of that by players, they won't end up with much reward.

And once again, from the AMA today Steven said they are already working on a system for flagging suspicious accounts. If a GM take a small amount of time to actively watch and/or interact with these accounts, they get banned. With the roughly 225 hours required to level to max, these types don't gain much reward.

Basically my thoughts on the matter as well. I just think it is important to be realistic in our expectations. Since no game of any genre that could be exploited by the behaviors has ever managed to reduce them to zero I see no reason AoC would be different. Thats all I am saying.

Bardtic

Lazyactor wrote: »

Basically my thoughts on the matter as well. I just think it is important to be realistic in our expectations. Since no game of any genre that could be exploited by the behaviors has ever managed to reduce them to zero I see no reason AoC would be different. Thats all I am saying.

Totally agree, you will never reduce them to zero. But I guess where we differ is the fact that I am more optimistic. AoC is already trying to be different in so many other ways. From what Steven has already talked about, he understands the core behind the problem and has already in development started taking steps to prevent it.

Here is to hoping that he can minimize it, at least to the point that no person with a normal amount of money would use gold selling services in this game.

nidriks

I believe, in the interview with Asmongold, Steven said they have a mechanic built in to the game that monitors transactions and can flag suspicious activity by accounts. With that, and a dedicated team, Intrepid can be on to gold farmers fast.

Steven wants a game where the players build the world, and the economy is key to that. For that reason it is in Intrepid's best interests to battle gold farming actively.

Let's hope they manage it.

But let's also not forget that we, the players, are also key. Don't buy gold. Report suspicious activity.

Bardtic

@nidriks Agreed, unfortunately with a game this size you can't count on everyone being decent human beings. But the systems are in place to curb any gold buying. This game is making a lot of promises, and I am guessing it won't live up to ALL of them, however I am extremely optimistic when hearing how passionately Steven talks about this. If 90% of the design ideas are delivered we are still in for a treat of a game.

Noaani

Reign118 wrote: »

Group of 10-50 multiboxers?

A group that large isn't a group of multiboxers, it is a group of botters.

Multiboxing - at least the kind that Steven has so far said is ok in Ashes - is one player individually controlling two or three accounts simultanously. It doesn't inherently involve botting, nor gold selling.

A multiboxer is a person that actively plays multiple accounts at the same time. If those accounts are controlled via bot, that player isn't actively controlling them and thus isn't multiboxing.

Bardtic

@noaani Yes and no, there have been cases of 10 characters in wow being multiboxed. 5 is more likely there as that is the standard party size. It is unlikely someone is going to pay 150 bucks a month or more to play 10 accounts, but either way if it did happen, they would be pretty damn easy to wipe and take a portion of what they farmed.

And even 2 to 5 players being multiboxed are going to be easy to wipe compared to a group of 2 to 5 actual players.

Noaani

Reign118 wrote: »

@noaani Yes and no, there have been cases of 10 characters in wow being multiboxed.

There will be an amount of automation in that - likely an amount that would make it against the EULA/ToS.

Reign118 wrote: »

And even 2 to 5 players being multiboxed are going to be easy to wipe compared to a group of 2 to 5 actual players.

This depends on how good the multiboxer is. 2 or 3 accounts in almost all games is possible to play as well as 2 or 3 players, if you have the right setup.

The bigger factor in Ashes will be the action combat component.

akabear

Goldfarmers; not ok, agree with OP and I do not think you will see any to argue otherwise.

Botting; not ok, even more so agree that should not be part of the game.

There will most likely be attempts and providing the community sentiment for reporting and sufficient in games systems, then it should really be minimised.

Multiboxing; on the fence for that one.

I sense a disdain by the tone of some of the comments but not seen a compelling argument against. Just various colorful expressions against.

Should the player class mix be sufficiently diverse to fulfill the requirements to make a party coupled with a community mindset to actively seek groups then the desire to multibox will probably be less.

Where certain classes are unpopular to play but become a core makeup in parties, I can see multi-boxing becoming desirable by a minority to maintain active participation.

Also, should a player be able to sustain play as a solo player, then it is likely going to be less need and hence desire.

Then there will be those that strive for excellence and box...but nefarious reasons I think would be a small minority.

Multiboxing and pvp, well that all depends on the skill of the player boxing vs the player fighting.. generally the odds are against the multiboxer but then again, there will be some high and low skilled players on both sides.

thaginjaninja

So what’s simple to kill multiboxing issues is you don’t do auto follow, you don’t do auto attacks, you don’t do passive life skills like bdo, everything has to be active. Even if the crafting takes 1 min per craft it requires an input to activate. So anything other than manual control won’t get very far. Yea people are gonna use macros, software and shit but they’re subject bans for doing so and take a risk which if drops can be as rare as they might is an even bigger loss that can’t just be bought with another account necessarily anytime soon. The only topic I’ve seen to hear people bring up is multiboxing gatherers on certain nodes which if they’re not actively playing and not fighting back rip 4x loot drops thanks for free goodies.

Noaani

thaginjaninja wrote: »

So what’s simple to kill multiboxing issues is you don’t do auto follow, you don’t do auto attacks, you don’t do passive life skills like bdo, everything has to be active.

I multibox in some games.

I don't use auto-follow.

Auto attacks in almost all games are not worth using.

I hate the way BDO does it's passive crap.

This is not stopping multiboxing, it is stopping automation. This is a good thing though, as multiboxing isn't something that needs to be stopped, automation is.

unknown

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Noaani

Tsukasa wrote: »

Multi-boxing NEEDS to be stopped for sure because anything comes from it is P2W.

What are you even talking about. Why don't you just play your alts on the same account???????????????????? Pay2convenience?????????

I'm undecided if I am going to run multiple accounts in Ashes, but in many games, it is about the only way you can gain any actual challenge.

akabear

I used to multi-box out of frustration for not being on when there were enough people to start a party..so I multi-boxed to start a party..

For PvP, multi-boxing was not so great.. focused on main and alt was fodder. I think when I multi-boxed in L2, it was first a healer than later a buffer too (3 accounts) but a long time ago now, so not sure.. I was quite dexterous at the time on the laptop alt-tabbing between accounts but did have a nostromo .. all the better for more commands at your fingertips.. in PvP, I either let someone go red on my buffer which worked only better for me.. or ported it home in an instant.. yes had in game follow macro and in game buff sequence macro.. but that was all.

Now with 3 monitors on a desktop.. it would be even easier.

Was not a top player, and was not trying to be, just someone who wanted the capacity to play in a game when they chose. Prior, with a class that could not solo I would often be shouting for party anywhere from 30min - 2hrs before I could play for the day, and some days didnt get to join at all.. after a year or so a clan filled much of that gap. now that aimless waiting around is a scenario I never want to see again in any game, so if the game setup is prohibitive of soloing successfully, I`m not against multiboxing.

Hopefully the clans are sizable and the chat wide enough so parties are easy to form and/or one can solo when not able(or wanting) to group

For those disagreeing with multi-boxing, have you actually multi-boxed before?

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