Tradeable NCStore and Auto-Macros

[Taunt]

Obviously neither of these will probably happen, or at least anytime soon. But here is the pros for them.

Tradeable NCStore (Or gift option)

- players will favour this to RMT with illegitimate sources, even if ratio of Adena:$ is less, since it's legit.

- L2 store gets more purchases

- might, but probably won't, help to reduce RMT spam and RMT bots.

 

Loop Macros

- will have less QQ on forums of banned accounts. I understand maybe 5% of people on forums may have been banned on accident, but the rest were players who decided to try a bot to keep up, got instant flagged, panicked and now think life is unfair. Loop Macros will give an alternative to this.

- loop Macros also, unlike what people think, won't let you just afk farm forever like on a God server, unless it's highly tuned over time, and you have a large party all macroing in sync, which you could just kill 1 and the whole party fails. It's more of a benefit for boxed buffers to autofollow/buff/heal. Or shout on shop alts.

 

[Decayed]

+1 on loop macros

 

When this game first came out, we were all hoping for a bot free environment.  And people didn't want loop macros, but it's clear that NC doesn't care about bots.  Let's put the loops back into the game.

[Cally]

wouldn't Loop-macros just benefit certain classes?
For example single target hunters with a box?

I dislike the idea of loopen macros.

[Lawman]

Tradeable NCStore would result in server being every bit as much P2W as the live servers.  It's already far too much P2W as it is, but if you want that you'll support tradeable NCStore.  Loop macros will give people a legitimate way to play the game w/o actually being there to play the game, basically botting.  If you support botting, support loop macros.  Otherwise, no thanks.

[Buldos]

Add buttons "Auto quest" and "Auto hunt" similar to mobile mmo games.

[WarriorOfLight]

No item l2 store tradeable, no PW2

[qtpi]

7 hours ago, Buldos said:

Add buttons "Auto quest" and "Auto hunt" similar to mobile mmo games.

This is the worst idea i've seen all day.. And that's being compared to having the first siege on superbowl sunday. Let that sink in

[BadCrab]

Good post.

Some of ya'll saying some stuff making you look dense.

 

3 hours ago, WarriorOfLight said:

No item l2 store tradeable, no PW2

The L2Store exists, that's Pay2Win (PW2?)  Go back to your hole, never come out.

 

17 hours ago, Lawman said:

Tradeable NCStore would result in server being every bit as much P2W as the live servers.  It's already far too much P2W as it is, but if you want that you'll support tradeable NCStore.  Loop macros will give people a legitimate way to play the game w/o actually being there to play the game, basically botting.  If you support botting, support loop macros.  Otherwise, no thanks.

How would tradeable L2Store items lead to a "more" Pay2Win environment?  Wouldn't this actually close the gap between players willing to spend Real Life Money vs those willing to work the in-game economy?  Why would keeping some boost items exclusive to players willing to pay real life money make the game servers less Pay2Win?  Your entire statement is garbage.

RE: Loop Macros

Why do people constantly campaign against their own self interests?  There is only one camp of people that benefit from not enabling looping macros: botters.  Because without looping macros, legitimate players are going to continue to fall behind their established curve.  Don't like the idea of looping macros? Don't use them.  But continuing their prohibition will result in more players moving to full-on botting and the legitimate-playing playerbase falling further behind.

[elari]

+1 for gift option in the store.

[Lawman]

2 hours ago, BadCrab said:

How would tradeable L2Store items lead to a "more" Pay2Win environment?  Wouldn't this actually close the gap between players willing to spend Real Life Money vs those willing to work the in-game economy?  Why would keeping some boost items exclusive to players willing to pay real life money make the game servers less Pay2Win?  Your entire statement is garbage.

RE: Loop Macros

Why do people constantly campaign against their own self interests?  There is only one camp of people that benefit from not enabling looping macros: botters.  Because without looping macros, legitimate players are going to continue to fall behind their established curve.  Don't like the idea of looping macros? Don't use them.  But continuing their prohibition will result in more players moving to full-on botting and the legitimate-playing playerbase falling further behind.

These are fair questions.  I'll try to answer:

1. There are two ways in which making the L2Store items tradeable helps make the servers more P2W.  First, it would enable those who are willing to pay to buy large quantities of popular items from the L2Store and sell them inside the game for adena, thus converting cash into adena as surely as if they had RMTed.  Second, It would allow them to overcome any quantity limits set for items in the L2Store.  For example, say there was a promotion selling a 24-hour drop rate boost rune, but limiting the purchase to 1 per account.  If the item was tradeable, the P2Wer could buy the item on dozens of accounts, trade them all to the one account he wanted the boost on and have what was intended to be a 24-hour boost for weeks.  Or, obviously, as in the first case, he could buy dozens and sell them in the in-game market to make substantial adena.

2.  Loop macros are not in the interests of just botters.  On the live servers, at least back when they were busier, it was impossible to find a place to hunt in the more popular areas because those area were taken up by loopers.  At least with botters you could report them and hope/expect them to be banned.  But, with loopers, you couldn't do that, since they were just doing what the game allowed.  It used to drive me crazy.  And it didn't feel right to take other action, like training them or pking them because, although they were screwing up my game, what they were doing was perfectly legal.  They shouldn't be punished for that. 

Of course, I must admit I'm also a bit prejudiced.  I believe people should not be able to automate their game play and progress in the game without actually playing the game.  I would not be at all unhappy if they eliminated automated fishing.  And I certainly don't want to see legal automation extended to hunting.  

The only effective argument I've heard in favor of looping is that it gives honest players a way to compete with the botters, essentially the argument you make.  You have a point, if the game is not going to enforce the rules against botting.  But in that case, they should just make botting legal and be done with it.  I'd much rather see them do more to get rid of botters than to turn honest players into mini-botters (loopers).

Thanks for writing, and I hope I don't sound dense this time, lol.

P.S. I do agree that looping is useful for boxed buffers and healers.  Perhaps if they severely limited what commands could be included in a looped macro so that no hunting commands could be looped that would work without screwing anything else up, but that's not going to happen.  And I'd hate to see shouts looped, polluting the chat box even worse than RMT sellers do.    

[BadCrab]

17 minutes ago, Lawman said:

Lots of Good Stuff

Significantly more articulate!

I think you've nailed the essential two forward arguments; Is allowing the legitimate-playing-community (who are not willing to bot or RMT) access to "grey legal" versions of both good for the health of the server and the game?   

I would argue that keeping as many players away from true RMT/Botting as possible is our collective goal, and that providing these outlets diverts players who would otherwise give RL dollars to farmers (who utilize true bot systems and I would argue are significantly more frustrating then two players making a looping party while at work); it instead pushes that money directly to NCWest - increasing our server's visibility to the people who matter in that company and potentially leading to better funding for staff, server hardware, and event development.

I think the key to winning vs bots is a two prong approach: NCWest should encourage more non-bot play (either by redefining live play to include looping or otherwise incentivizing live play) while continuing to develop bot detection and pouring resources into removing active botters.

 

[Lawman]

2 hours ago, BadCrab said:

Significantly more articulate!

I think you've nailed the essential two forward arguments; Is allowing the legitimate-playing-community (who are not willing to bot or RMT) access to "grey legal" versions of both good for the health of the server and the game?   

I would argue that keeping as many players away from true RMT/Botting as possible is our collective goal, and that providing these outlets diverts players who would otherwise give RL dollars to farmers (who utilize true bot systems and I would argue are significantly more frustrating then two players making a looping party while at work); it instead pushes that money directly to NCWest - increasing our server's visibility to the people who matter in that company and potentially leading to better funding for staff, server hardware, and event development.

I think the key to winning vs bots is a two prong approach: NCWest should encourage more non-bot play (either by redefining live play to include looping or otherwise incentivizing live play) while continuing to develop bot detection and pouring resources into removing active botters.

 

The issue is philosophical.   You and the author are essentially saying: if I'm not allowed to RMT/BOT I want a legal way to accomplish the same things (what you, in a nice turn of phrase, call "grey legal").  I oppose these RMT/Botting alternatives for the same reasons I oppose RMT/Botting.  I'm a purist, I guess.  I do not believe that people should be able to gain a huge advantage in the game by spending thousands of dollars or by automating game play, legally or illegally.  I oppose making anything legal that makes that possible.  People should get ahead in the game by actually playing the game, with hands, at the keyboard.  

I've never been one of those who supported making the game hard for the sake of it being hard.  You know, the kind who say free teleports and shots are luxuries that make the game too easy.  But I do believe the game should be played, not bought or automated.  Insofar as possible, NCWest should provide us with an even playing field, where those who work/play the hardest and smartest excel.  Whether you excel by grinding solo, by partying, by playing the market, or whatever, you should succeed by actually playing the game, not by buying success or letting a program (bot, looping macro, programmable controller, whatever) succeed for you.

Your "health of the game" arguments make sense.  But, purist that I am, I'd rather see the game fail that see the health depend on money or automation (as it does everywhere else and, sadly, is tending toward doing in Classic).  

Thanks for writing.

[elari]

44 minutes ago, Lawman said:

The issue is philosophical.   You and the author are essentially saying: if I'm not allowed to RMT/BOT I want a legal way to accomplish the same things (what you, in a nice turn of phrase, call "grey legal").  I oppose these RMT/Botting alternatives for the same reasons I oppose RMT/Botting.  I'm a purist, I guess.  I do not believe that people should be able to gain a huge advantage in the game by spending thousands of dollars or by automating game play, legally or illegally.  I oppose making anything legal that makes that possible.  People should get ahead in the game by actually playing the game, with hands, at the keyboard.  

I've never been one of those who supported making the game hard for the sake of it being hard.  You know, the kind who say free teleports and shots are luxuries that make the game too easy.  But I do believe the game should be played, not bought or automated.  Insofar as possible, NCWest should provide us with an even playing field, where those who work/play the hardest and smartest excel.  Whether you excel by grinding solo, by partying, by playing the market, or whatever, you should succeed by actually playing the game, not by buying success or letting a program (bot, looping macro, programmable controller, whatever) succeed for you.

Your "health of the game" arguments make sense.  But, purist that I am, I'd rather see the game fail that see the health depend on money or automation (as it does everywhere else and, sadly, is tending toward doing in Classic).  

Thanks for writing.

Its obvious that you have too much time on your hands.

[Lawman]

4 hours ago, elari said:

Its obvious that you have too much time on your hands.

LOLOL!  You are right.  I'm retired!

[November]

21 hours ago, qtpi said:

This is the worst idea i've seen all day.. And that's being compared to having the first siege on superbowl sunday. Let that sink in

He is trolling op.

[November]

On 1/23/2019 at 10:05 AM, Taunt said:

Obviously neither of these will probably happen, or at least anytime soon. But here is the pros for them.

Tradeable NCStore (Or gift option)

- players will favour this to RMT with illegitimate sources, even if ratio of Adena:$ is less, since it's legit.

- L2 store gets more purchases

- might, but probably won't, help to reduce RMT spam and RMT bots.

Diablo 3 Tried this and it failed, now I know other classic alternatives have it going, though I frankly do not think we need to turn this into a wallet slamming, wallet throwing, credit card swiping battle. They could go a more alternative route and go with a model similar to POE which is proving successful. 

 

On 1/23/2019 at 10:05 AM, Taunt said:

Loop Macros

- will have less QQ on forums of banned accounts. I understand maybe 5% of people on forums may have been banned on accident, but the rest were players who decided to try a bot to keep up, got instant flagged, panicked and now think life is unfair. Loop Macros will give an alternative to this.

- loop Macros also, unlike what people think, won't let you just afk farm forever like on a God server, unless it's highly tuned over time, and you have a large party all macroing in sync, which you could just kill 1 and the whole party fails. It's more of a benefit for boxed buffers to autofollow/buff/heal. Or shout on shop alts.

 

The biggest concern against them is that it is soft botting no matter how you put it. Which the community is actively against (despite the violators we so often see). Why lean towards it?

[November]

18 hours ago, BadCrab said:

Good post.

Some of ya'll saying some stuff making you look dense.

RE: Loop Macros

Why do people constantly campaign against their own self interests?  There is only one camp of people that benefit from not enabling looping macros: botters.  Because without looping macros, legitimate players are going to continue to fall behind their established curve.  Don't like the idea of looping macros? Don't use them.  But continuing their prohibition will result in more players moving to full-on botting and the legitimate-playing playerbase falling further behind.

I feel like the proper answer to botters is not enabling everyone to bot.... You don't solve a problem by making it accepted... If they could remove bots in a more effective and timely manner, then I believe the point here is moot.

[KlausMorgan]

On 24.01.2019 at 7:48 PM, BadCrab said:

 

 

The L2Store exists, that's Pay2Win (PW2?)  Go back to your hole, never come out.

 

 

its not p2w.  it's still free 2 pay.   p2w is when you can get items which you cannot receive during your game process.    Do you think that cosmetic or ss will destroy a classic server? I'm not! 

 

let's see what will happen when they will add pendants and rune I hope they won't put them in their store.   at this moment their store does not affect the game economy.  But its ncwest. they already destroyed all their games with this store.  

[BadCrab]

What do you call XP Runes? What do you call store event only items? (admittedly not many so far, but the server is new and NCSoft is NCSoft); Use of the cash shop is already Pay2Win.  This isn't a cosmetics only cash shop and pretending it is is disingenuous at best.

[Jorep]

On 24/1/2019 at 10:06 PM, Lawman said:

These are fair questions.  I'll try to answer:

1. There are two ways in which making the L2Store items tradeable helps make the servers more P2W.  First, it would enable those who are willing to pay to buy large quantities of popular items from the L2Store and sell them inside the game for adena, thus converting cash into adena as surely as if they had RMTed.  Second, It would allow them to overcome any quantity limits set for items in the L2Store.  For example, say there was a promotion selling a 24-hour drop rate boost rune, but limiting the purchase to 1 per account.  If the item was tradeable, the P2Wer could buy the item on dozens of accounts, trade them all to the one account he wanted the boost on and have what was intended to be a 24-hour boost for weeks.  Or, obviously, as in the first case, he could buy dozens and sell them in the in-game market to make substantial adena.

2.  Loop macros are not in the interests of just botters.  On the live servers, at least back when they were busier, it was impossible to find a place to hunt in the more popular areas because those area were taken up by loopers.  At least with botters you could report them and hope/expect them to be banned.  But, with loopers, you couldn't do that, since they were just doing what the game allowed.  It used to drive me crazy.  And it didn't feel right to take other action, like training them or pking them because, although they were screwing up my game, what they were doing was perfectly legal.  They shouldn't be punished for that. 

Of course, I must admit I'm also a bit prejudiced.  I believe people should not be able to automate their game play and progress in the game without actually playing the game.  I would not be at all unhappy if they eliminated automated fishing.  And I certainly don't want to see legal automation extended to hunting.  

The only effective argument I've heard in favor of looping is that it gives honest players a way to compete with the botters, essentially the argument you make.  You have a point, if the game is not going to enforce the rules against botting.  But in that case, they should just make botting legal and be done with it.  I'd much rather see them do more to get rid of botters than to turn honest players into mini-botters (loopers).

Thanks for writing, and I hope I don't sound dense this time, lol.

P.S. I do agree that looping is useful for boxed buffers and healers.  Perhaps if they severely limited what commands could be included in a looped macro so that no hunting commands could be looped that would work without screwing anything else up, but that's not going to happen.  And I'd hate to see shouts looped, polluting the chat box even worse than RMT sellers do.    

i like your post and i want to add that thing on macro paragraph that they can enable it but be able to use buffs and follow commands because if they just enable them the server will be taken over by legal botters  areas will be filled with ppl hiting all the time and i dont wanna see my player dead because someone wanted to take my spot i left on macro so he decides to bring many mobs to kill me or something like that

[McBacon]

On 1/24/2019 at 4:54 PM, qtpi said:

This is the worst idea i've seen all day.. And that's being compared to having the first siege on superbowl sunday. Let that sink in

Nobody cares about your superbowl cause majority of population are latinos.

[Taunt]

On 25/01/2019 at 4:40 AM, November said:

Diablo 3 Tried this and it failed, now I know other classic alternatives have it going, though I frankly do not think we need to turn this into a wallet slamming, wallet throwing, credit card swiping battle.

Already is my friend, level difference is the strongest weapon in classic, throw your credit card at the game and grind to be higher LVL than anyone and you win flights, not to mention higher level = better farm, meaning better gear.

Adding tradeable/giftable items in the shop won't make this worse, will make it better. Players who can't afford ncoin but are hardcore 12 hour a day players can buy exp boosts of casual players with money to burn as an exchange of goods.

[November]

8 minutes ago, Taunt said:

Already is my friend, level difference is the strongest weapon in classic, throw your credit card at the game and grind to be higher LVL than anyone and you win flights, not to mention higher level = better farm, meaning better gear.

Adding tradeable/giftable items in the shop won't make this worse, will make it better. Players who can't afford ncoin but are hardcore 12 hour a day players can buy exp boosts of casual players with money to burn as an exchange of goods.

Im not against it if it is executed properly.

[Shreekz]

+1 for shop gifting. Can't see how that would have negative effects. Anything that is limited to x per account is not available to gift.

[Buldos]

Quote

It would enable those who are willing to pay to buy large quantities of popular items from the L2Store and sell them inside the game for adena, thus converting cash into adena as surely as if they had RMTed. 

This way of RMT is much better then black market. Players who prefer buy adena instead of boring grind or "market play" will buy needed amount any way. So better if they will use l2store for get adena from real players. So farmers will lost theyr customers and as result motivation for farm. 

Currently RMT is very big problem, i been in a few clans and in every clan i saw more or less RMT players buying adena for all stuff they need.