View Full Version : Part 1: Allied PKing and TL150 Res Missions
When the Tradeskill Missions were introduced as a way for Tradeskillers to level without needing any Combat Skills, all tradeskillers jumped for joy. I thought it was great but never really saw myself using them. These days I'm seeing two things:
- Characters capping thier lesser skills in just an hour or so of running TL150 Research Missions and putting little to no effort into it at all. In NC1 (start old fogie voice here about going to school uphill, both ways, in 40 feet of snow, butt naked) we capped a Monk's DEX by Driving or spec'ing some CST for Weapon Part 8s or recycling lots of boosters. Now players just buy a batch ot TL150 missions and cap stats in a mere hour. I don't think KK intended these missions to be for Combat Characters.
- Allied PKers using these things like "Get out of jail free" cards. Kill 10 friendly runners then go grab a stack of 100 TL150 missions that you probably have 5,000 of in a cabinet, run freely around your HQ with Red Soullight, and gain it all back + great exp + great cash. That's absolutely ridiculous! Allied PKing is practically rewarded :rolleyes:
I know most people would hate this idea because they don't want lose either the aforementioned Point A or Point B - but every character class has capped their lesser stats a million times over BEFORE we had the res missions, so there's no room to complain there. Besides, people could still use the missions to level, and then just LoM over to combat. But the Allied PKers, well, I could give a shit if they complain ;)
Dunno if it's possible - but what about putting a Skill Req on the RES/CST Missions? If you want to do a TL150 Research Mission, you have to at least have 150 Research Skill. Then the missions would be used the way I think KK intended. The Missions already check your faction sympathy so I'm assuming checking a Skill Req would be similarly possible?
I'm just getting a bit tired of the Pro-City PKers, the known Anti-City and bored runners, PKing to their hearts content, then running these missions to correct their SL and Sympathy in record time, with little to no effort. Seeing fellow runners gunned down then the PKer buying TL150 BPs on Trade 20 mins later is pretty much a load of BS :rolleyes:
But there will always be PKers. There will always be "bored" players. There will always be players who just want to cause mindless chaos. What they need is an outlet that doesn't involve abusing the Faction/Soullight/Sympathy System...
Part 2: Allied PKing and Anarchy Breed (http://forum.neocron.com/showthread.php?p=1818897#post1818897)
good idea, vote for a change.
its not only pk that gets a bonus with those easy missions but all the faction jumpers too.
not quite sure what this "res missions" are, but they sound very silly atm and people are abusing them alot
Jesterthegreat
31-05-05, 21:18
every character class has capped their lesser stats a million times over BEFORE we had the res missions, so there's no room to complain there.
"why use a washing machine when our ancesters just beat clothes on rocks?"
"why use a washing machine when our ancesters just beat clothes on rocks?"
Touché :p Doesn't it just seem "too" easy tho? For all the other MMOs I've played, Neocron is still the easiest (maybe bar Guild Wars from what I've heard) to "cap" a character in. I just don't see why it should be made even easier *shrug*
Jesterthegreat
31-05-05, 21:26
oh i agree that its stupid as it is, i just don't agree with that line of reasoning :p
:edit: i would only support idea 1 if idea 2 went with it.
i don't support removal / modification of tl 150's unless AB is introduced.
Dunno if it's possible - but what about putting a Skill Req on the RES/CST Missions? If you want to do a TL150 Research Mission, you have to at least have 150 Research Skill. Then the missions would be used the way I think KK intended. The Missions already check your faction sympathy so I'm assuming checking a Skill Req would be similarly possible?
Would make sense, you don't hire a painter to do your laundry.
damn, ppl have so brilliant examples today.
"why use a washing machine when our ancesters just beat clothes on rocks?"
why remove asbestos if everyone used it in 60-70s :D
Would make sense, you don't hire a painter to do your laundry.
hey i dont care as long as he do it good.
is everyone washing today ? :p
Vae Victis
31-05-05, 22:25
Kill 10 friendly runners then go grab a stack of 100 TL150 missions that you probably have 5,000 of in a cabinet make that 249x 40 :rolleyes:
If the city guards didn't tick you to the ground and make PVP worthless in the city people might not gank on aly chars. Kill missions suck,if there were fun missions people would do them :), maybe you should be able to take 5 missions at a time, most MMOs u can :)
On my first PPU o capped my dex poking a moveon.... OMG now thats an exploit..
On my second PPU i capped Repairing a Rhino... OMG now thats an expliot....
On my APU i capped doing missions .. OMG now its being removed....
*sigh* People play NC for pvp not to spend year capping a crappy stat...
*sigh* People play NC for pvp not to spend year capping a crappy stat...
That's purely an opinion. I know many people who love the PvM, RP, Exploration, Socializing aspect of this game. And certainly every new player who is just learning the Neocron world and gameplay isn't playing for Pure PvP. Ironically though that mindset is pretty much inherent in every Anti-City player, which is yet another indirect reason the two sides are unbalanced.
On my first PPU o capped my dex poking a moveon.... OMG now thats an exploit..
That's an exploit now? News to me.
On my second PPU i capped Repairing a Rhino... OMG now thats an expliot....
If you were repairing a fully repaired rhino with a piece of Scotch Tape back in NC1, duh, common sense. If you are PPU driver in NC2 who repairs the Rhino when you're out hunting - 100% legal. What's the problem there?
On my APU i capped doing missions .. OMG now its being removed....
It's just a suggestion. Did you Research the cubes? Probably not. If you did, there's no problem.
Seriously, what's wrong with speccing a skill on your char and USING it to gain it's experience? The only thing anyone should be complaining about is INT on a Monk. Everything else is realistically cappable with some effort.
I can't shake the suspicion that anybody who has 5000 TL150 research mission cubes in storage exploited to get them, either by item dupe or scripting. That's one holy hell of a long time sitting there clicking.
I'm OK with them as a source of XP and faction symp. I'm not even vaguely sure they should be being used to restore SL. But then, given how easy it is to lose SL by bug or by accident in this game, I guess they have to give people some way to get it back reasonably easily.
That's purely an opinion. I know many people who love the PvM, RP, Exploration, Socializing aspect of this game. And certainly every new player who is just learning the Neocron world and gameplay isn't playing for Pure PvP. Ironically though that mindset is pretty much inherent in every Anti-City player, which is yet another indirect reason the two sides are unbalanced.
But also every player new to the game isn't going to buy a mils worth of tl150 research missions go kill a few ally people then cap there low levels stats with them.
//
If the clan war system works or living your life as a criminal (constantly -16 or lower SL) was in ne way viable then i would back you up on the SL issue.
Jesterthegreat
31-05-05, 23:43
I can't shake the suspicion that anybody who has 5000 TL150 research mission cubes in storage exploited to get them, either by item dupe or scripting. That's one holy hell of a long time sitting there clicking.
I'm OK with them as a source of XP and faction symp. I'm not even vaguely sure they should be being used to restore SL. But then, given how easy it is to lose SL by bug or by accident in this game, I guess they have to give people some way to get it back reasonably easily.
it's entirely possible to have 2 computers running 2 accounts and make a cube every x amount of seconds.
people should stop being so quick to shout "exploit" tbh... its getting sad
But i love my Blueprints.....
You can't get rid of them!!!
My daddy pays me a pound for 50K on his char! :p
I couldn't agrre more with FN on both parts. Those who defend the current system are most probably allied Pk'ers themselves.
It is far to easy to repair your SL with these cubes which are being sold on trade 24/7.
Take a trip to TH to see how bad this game is getting for allied PK. All red chars spamming trade for a poke and some tl150 cubes dm me pls!! a quick trip to Faction HQ and back on the streets pissing people off but then hell thats how they get their kicks in pissing people off.
It makes NC the most untrustworthy place hell i stealth most the time when i see people on local. Why?? because far too many times I have been standing, walking, chatting and someone shots me in the back. Do I shoot back?? NO because I for one value the idea of allied vs Anti, not a Free For All.
If you wanna kill allieds it should be done with the now defunct clan wars then at least clans would be aware of allied enemies and it wouldn't involve random people.
How about putting a minimum soullight requirement to do the higher missions or have a sliding scale, such as:-
Very Easy -16 SL
Easy -8 SL
Normal 10 SL
Hard 30 SL
Very Hard 50 SL
Adjust the values to suit, but the point is, SL and FS should come into the factor of doing missions.
Think about it...as a person in real life would you trust someone with 100 FS and Red Soullight to research your Faction's special and exclusive blueprints? No...why, because that person is probably a wanted criminal for shooting your faction's allies.
I can't shake the suspicion that anybody who has 5000 TL150 research mission cubes in storage exploited to get them, either by item dupe or scripting. That's one holy hell of a long time sitting there clicking.Why? Have you ground out the math to show that it's impossible to make 5000 BPs in a timely fashion on a char with level 302 research (176 base + 60 from imps/glove +16 from spell +50 from op)?
I couldn't agrre more with FN on both parts. Those who defend the current system are most probably allied Pk'ers themselves.I'm not, all my chars have LE. I do TL70-120 research and construction missions using my capped Spy to level up my gimp char stats and Faction Sympathy. It's faster than wasting time running through the starter pistols and hunting.
Why? Have you ground out the math to show that it's impossible to make 5000 BPs in a timely fashion on a char with level 302 research (176 base + 60 from imps/glove +16 from spell +50 from op).
From what I remember of when I was doing TL 150 missions on my researcher spy, it's 83 seconds per blueprint with 225 in RES, which doesn't appear to have gone down at all since I hit 170 in RES, with a zero failure rate equates to a little under 5 days, assuming you're able to hit "start" with brilliant accuracy. Even if you get a 50% increase in research speed, that's still of the order of days. Oh, and if you pop your LE to join a clan who owns an OP, then there's always the risk that you could be taken out in the UG itself. Which would make you sad. I've read through both Consider Phlebas and Neuromancer while researching TL 150 missions, and went insane after making a couple of hundred BPs. Anyone who is producing 1000 or more a week either a) needs a life or b) is doing something against the TOS. This is the reason that my researcher refuses to accept contracts for TL 150 research missions from anyone.
Then there's the selling of the missions back to the FSMs in order to gain experience, SL and money. That saps my will to live. :(
Thank you, RDevz. I didn't have the exact count in seconds, and I knew there were people with higher RES than my researcher, so I didn't quote my estimate of how many blueprints can be done per day.
TL150 blueprints wouldn't be nearly the problem they are now if it weren't for the fact ... and yes, it's a damned fact ... that some people have scripts going 18, 20, maybe 24 hours a day manufacturing those blueprints. AFK scripted XP and cash, the bane of all online games.
One of the reasons that we're getting so few bug fixes and that new content is taking so longer to deliver is that Reakktor is having to put so much effort into smarter and smarter script detectors, and then getting around to banning the accounts of the violators. (Just in the last couple of weeks, I've seen at least two of the most prolific sellers of TL150 BPs sort of quietly vanish. Good riddance.)
So what's making this an ally-killing issue is that thanks to AFK scripters, ally killers have no trouble finding very profitable and readily available missions to clear up their "little problem" in a matter of minutes. If TL150 blueprints were honestly made by hand, there'd be a hell of a lot fewer of them rattling around.
Even if you get a 50% increase in research speed, that's still of the order of days. Now step it up to a clan-level production. You have one research bitch char shared amongst a clan of 50 or more people. The research bitch is kept parked in an op owned by the clan and the clan's smart enough to use its members globally. Now you've got a group of people who log into the char, in shifts, to research on that char round-the-clock.
It's not beyond the realm of possibliity. I run two clients and I've done 800 BPs in a sitting before, especially if I'm watching TV at the time. I don't do it often, but when you step it up to the level of clan? It's entirely feasible to do WITHOUT scripts.
One of the reasons that we're getting so few bug fixes and that new content is taking so longer to deliver is that Reakktor is having to put so much effort into smarter and smarter script detectors,It's more along the lines of "Oh shit, people exploit in games like this? We didn't think of that..." It's painfully obvious that NC's evolution is driven by feature-first, fix-later.
Jesterthegreat
01-06-05, 07:47
sorry IceStorm... if it's something they don't do, it must be cheating.
if someone kills you (not you you...) they must be hacking.
its the classic online game philosophy...
Vae Victis
01-06-05, 09:21
IF this is going to be implemented, make an Anarchy Breed, remove cops etc.
[COLOR=DeepSkyBlue]The only thing anyone should be complaining about is INT on a Monk. Everything else is realistically cappable with some effort.
As he said!
on first glance, FN is perfectly right with his idea to remove *bought* TL 150 missions (we're not talking about trader doing missions for their own good).
but: what about people who are just defending? would defending be punished?
i can see 2 different problems:
1) stupid random killers - there should be some disadavantages to this behaviour. i believe everyone agrees to that, except those guys.
2) defending against pkers, fighting between allies with a reason. there should be ways to allow a 'good clean fight'.
my conclusion: remove bought trader missions but bring on a "license to kill" and a "clan war function". details need to be discussed.
Original monk
01-06-05, 10:55
it would be naive to think that every tl150 bp is made by clicking and hours of waiting ...
why do people group in a labUG yust to go afk ? i dont believe this is a secret
Bugs Gunny
01-06-05, 11:02
Remove it and anarchy breed should be made a viable option.
If you remove it, it's not going to stop ally pking. People have several alts, they can easily pk for a long time, then get an epic weapon and a noob stealth and run a few launcher missions.
Some will just let their alts regain sl by being afk in their appy at night.
And seriously, when you see people defend against ally killers (who are always teamed) how many of them get yellow or red sl due to not being in team? Ally killers don't lose sl that much if they are smart in picking targets.
Funny how it's mostly the city that suffers from ally killing. Maybe it's time to change that.........
Vae Victis
01-06-05, 11:24
basically its bullshit coz every tradeskiller capped his int by macroing TL 150 blueprints and then running the missions to get 100 soullight.
every non damagedealing char has 100 soullight, kill them and you're at -11 or -13, cant remember, either one of those.
whats the fun in that? specially when u hit someone u didnt mean to hit (like with a CS or a HL gone wild :) )
I mean thats what we used to do, have a hacknet spy with 100 soullight run through all the people we were shooting. they hit them = we kill the (teamed) hacknet spy. they loose sl and maybe to red sl, we kill them, hacknetspy either gets a rezz or takes the genrep and hacks the belt...
remove the tl 150's and this is what you will get unless you implement AB.
Ch1n Th3 M4g
01-06-05, 11:41
Funny how it's mostly the city that suffers from ally killing. Maybe it's time to change that.........
plz enlighten us on ur idears sir :angel: :p
I've seen a file which is rumoured to do what you are suggesting, but I haven't downloaded it. Not really supposed to discuss this though are we, I merely post this in the hope that KK have seen this file too and do something about it. Its more the infinite money that worries me more than soulight quick fixes.
My tradeskiller was levelled using drones and then lommed to tradeskilling, it took months, and for people to cap very quickly through unscrupulous means annoys me, but its a game so its not the end of the world.
Perhaps another solution to the res missions would be to make them unique each time to the runner who takes on the mission (so you can't buy in bulk), or change the missions to force you to go outside the safezone of the faction hq to complete them.
Seriously, this is one of the best (and fair) ideas ever stated in this forum. I wish this could be implemented straight away! <==honest compliment here
got a droner.....dont like the idea sorry :p
and as for sticking a req on the missions, some people also run em on a ppu so they have higher soul light.
this is worse than the ppu issue.
removing one problem makes alot of others imo.
Vae Victis
01-06-05, 12:56
after all, its neocron we're talking about ;)
Bugs Gunny
01-06-05, 14:49
plz enlighten us on ur idears sir :angel: :p
That's the first time someone accused me of having ideas....
I am truly and utterly offended sir !
Only thing that needs change is the soulight gain
Being able to cap a monks DEX this way is great but its still not easy someone has to ress the cubes, I suggest you try ressing 200 TL 150 cubes o_O
If monks can cap there dex this way big fucking deal, people have been asking and crying for a way to lvl it for ages and now people want it nerfed lol ...
/edit its allready hard enough to cap a monks intel to use the much needed heavy belt
I think it's the people being able to happily run around their faction hq with red sl part that is the problem, not the res missions.
Stop people being able to sell them problem solved tbh
if monks want to cap there dex this way then they can ress them, them selfs
yes encourage even more people to sit afk in a lab UG while ressing nonstop...
Jesterthegreat
02-06-05, 13:47
yes encourage even more people to sit afk in a lab UG while ressing nonstop...
the more ppu's have all their int in research and research imps in the better IMO...
so in summary:
macro'ing is good! it keeps ppus occupied!
Jesterthegreat
02-06-05, 14:00
so in summary:
macro'ing is good! it keeps ppus occupied!
anything is good if it keeps ppu's away from real fights...
besides, maybe kk will ban them for it... ban all the ppu's...
sounds like a good idea to me
Vae Victis
02-06-05, 15:18
delete the monk class, give every1 that has a (fully capped) monk another (fully capped) char to play of his/her choice + inventory (imps, weapons, spells, etc)
delete the monk class, give every1 that has a (fully capped) monk another (fully capped) char to play of his/her choice + inventory (imps, weapons, spells, etc)
I've got all the classes I enjoy playing and 3 of them are monks, if KK removed monks, I'd be gone.
Mechanicus
02-06-05, 15:26
thx for the heads up
Funny thing is, Nidhogg stated on these forums (can't find the post though) that macro'ing was not allowed, and even though the macro's that Kayne wrote were sent in (at least I think they were), nothing was done about it.
But then again, KK don't even have any form of XP logging in their databases (mine reset to the start of its level for INT/DEX/CON/STR on my PPU, apparently some Stephen Bast dude says its not KK's fault their databases' wouldn't know a data inconsistancy if you beat the hamster with it), so I doubt they could even get close to coding something to watch out for macro's.
NB: If you find you XP resets back to the level you are on (0/*** XP for any lvl), don't contact support, they really don't care.
Jesterthegreat
02-06-05, 19:21
i think its more to do with the cross over of tracking someones mouse / keyboard movements and the possible invasion of privacy...
people may try lawsuits, and though they may not win, kk isn't a rich company that can afford it :p
that and they may not know how of course :D
Vae Victis
02-06-05, 20:09
I've got all the classes I enjoy playing and 3 of them are monks, if KK removed monks, I'd be gone.
i only enjoy playing PE and PPU.
tried tank, riflespy, rifle PE, APU..
sucked on all except (hightech) pistol PE from nc1 and PPU
i sucked as APU but i usually had Gerald Tarrant up my ass so i could kill lots on him but i missed half my HLs/antibuffs
i only hate playing ppu when ppl i dont know ask me for buffs or to keep them alive. usually i let them die :D
i like ppus but at the same time i hate them.
prolly coz FF keep spamming para.. god i hate that.
2 choices, antipara spam or run with a para on u.
para removes all skill out of pvp. how hard is it to hit someone that cant move?
i mean if u like that go to the carnaval and shoot some ducks or something, at least there u win a prize other than a dogtag
i think its more to do with the cross over of tracking someones mouse / keyboard movements and the possible invasion of privacy...
In this case of researching, it's looking for clicks starting reserch every 83 or so seconds. I can see ways round this involving randomness and various API calls, but I'm not going to try or discuss them on public forums. There again, I'm not sure how KK can distinguish between someone physically moving the mouse (which causes windows to call the mouse_event event) and someone using a VB/C++ program to call the event every so often.
Furthermore, where is the line drawn? Using an alarm to tell you when to click? Using a program on another computer to control some Heath-Robinson-esque contraption that physically moves the mouse and pushes buttons? Using a program embedded in a microchip to send the appropriate electrical signals to the PS/2 mouse port on the computer? Hacking together a VB program that has the same net effect as all of these?
It could be argued that anyone doing more than 300 TL 150 research cubes in a day is spending over 8 hours researching, and therefore either a) is macroing and should be banned, or b) needs a life, and should be banned for their own mental health.
BTW, if discussing in very general terms ways to defeat macroers is frowned upon, please feel free to jump up and down on me.
Jesterthegreat
02-06-05, 21:23
In this case of researching, it's looking for clicks starting reserch every 83 or so seconds. I can see ways round this involving randomness and various API calls, but I'm not going to try or discuss them on public forums. There again, I'm not sure how KK can distinguish between someone physically moving the mouse (which causes windows to call the mouse_event event) and someone using a VB/C++ program to call the event every so often.
Furthermore, where is the line drawn? Using an alarm to tell you when to click? Using a program on another computer to control some Heath-Robinson-esque contraption that physically moves the mouse and pushes buttons? Using a program embedded in a microchip to send the appropriate electrical signals to the PS/2 mouse port on the computer? Hacking together a VB program that has the same net effect as all of these?
It could be argued that anyone doing more than 300 TL 150 research cubes in a day is spending over 8 hours researching, and therefore either a) is macroing and should be banned, or b) needs a life, and should be banned for their own mental health.
BTW, if discussing in very general terms ways to defeat macroers is frowned upon, please feel free to jump up and down on me.
as someone said... imagine a clan resser... people log him onto their spare comp when they arent doin anything that gripping... round the clock ressing, a couple of hours per person (if you got the timezone spread)
...
I wouldn't worry about details, people that macro already know what they are doing, people that want to just contact [insert recently banned moron], and the only people who moan are the mods because its like me outlining how "[insert common cheat program]" works.
k, my 5 slot weapon said constructed by ble ble ble
so why cant my fraction blueprint say reserched by ble ble ble (being me, i dont buy em lol), then there only useable by me, or they will say, wait a minuet u didnt do this, well we will pay u for it anywhay (but u wont get the fraction simpathy or SL, just the money and exp)
Freaky Fryd
03-06-05, 00:40
One way to cut down on the "other side" rolling people allied to you and killing you, is make it so that you have to stay pro-city or anti-city with all your characters. That would cut things down, as only people with multiple accounts could still cause that problem.
As for only being able to run the TL 150 missions yourself, well would stop me from doing them probably. My mouse reaches the coffee table, so while I'm lying on the couch watching movies, I leave my hand on the mouse and click every minute and a half or so (the monitor is turned my way too.)
I've done up hundreds of BPs this way, and I do it for the cash.
I don't have the drive/time/patience to run the missions myself, so I'd like to sell them.
ye great idea :D teach thouse son of a bitch dome runners to stay dome and we keep all the PPR resistors and MOVEON's and they all die MUHAHAHAHA
erm. no :P sorry for the sarcasm there, u cant solve things like that ppl will always find ways around everything,
just need bigger penelties that take into acount acidental death
Original monk
03-06-05, 09:23
delete the monk class, give every1 that has a (fully capped) monk another (fully capped) char to play of his/her choice
NOO 8|
http://users.pandora.be/original/1.jpg
edit: about the TL 150 missions .. i was suprised when those got in honestly (admit that how they are now they contain a big risk in being abused he ..) ... they are indeed a good addition to fix youre symps and sl ... i didnt had troubles with alliedPKers yet tbh (yust kill em if they attack you and do some missions .. like they would do otherwise)
... and ffcourse them missions are OK to level up newbie chars or annoying stats ... dex on monks, some psi on a spy etc ...
... tough im afraid for the economic consequences .. 80 mill for a ds anyone ?
on itself it wouldnt be a problem but as always there are people using automated programs ... this is a silent poison
as always with these things ... there are enough billionairs allready because of them missions ... even if KK would remove the tl150 missions on the spot ... (sometimes its yust TO obvious ... dont come tell me that "this or that" person spend 18 hours ressing a day for the last couple of months hé ..)
only ones that get harmed by these frauds are ... again ... honest traders ...
ill yust wait with selling expensive gear ... in half a year you can get tenfold for anything anyway ...
at the end, the honest way is still the right way to go ... tough it wont get you rich fast in any case ...
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