L2C – Every Issue We Face with Solutions

[therealTrueLies]

ISSUE #1. First and foremost, thousands of players are unable to log in on a daily basis. When any “free to play” player tries to log in, they are put in a queue which often has 500-800 players waiting. It typically takes 15 – 30 minutes to reach the front of the queue at which time players are disconnected….repeatedly…for hours. On Sunday a friend tried to log in for 6 hours straight…6 hours…and was unable to do so. In my 15 years of gaming, I have never seen or heard of a game so terribly managed.

SOLUTION #1a – prior to game launch, NC Soft should have offered pre-registration, like other games have done including Lineage2 Revolution. Pre-registration would have allowed them to better gauge server populations and balance them.

SOLUTION #1b – Hundreds of players are afk in shops. Other Lineage2 servers offer a system where those shops stay available while the player disconnects, thereby freeing up server space.

SOLUTION #1c – L2 Classic offers afk fishing. Either players who are fishing should be permitted to disconnect in a similar manner to the shop suggestion above, or fishing should not be permitted while afk (i.e. remove the auto function). The linked image shows less than half of the players currently fishing at Giran Harbor alone, and there are many other fishing spots (panned left) - https://imgur.com/a/SZZxCZz 

SOLUTION #1d – Offer free server transfers from over-populated servers to less populated servers

SOLUTION #1e – Upgrade the server hardware to support higher levels of traffic

At the very least, Solution #1d can be offered immediately at no cost to NC Soft.

ISSUE #2 – Prioritized “VIP” login. The game is advertised as “free to play” but that is simply not true. As a VIP player, I can log in instantly at any time and play. Free to play players cannot log in at all most of the gaming day. They cannot play. It is, at best, highly deceptive for NC Soft to permit paid players to log in while actively blocking free players. At no point in time was it ever mentioned in advance, or even now, that free-to-play players would be blocked from playing many hours every day.

Furthermore, blocking free-to-play players from logging in directly impacts all players. Like many L2 Classic players, I have a 9 person Constant Party.  While many CP members are paid players, there are some free-to-play gamers. When 1 player cannot log in, we are stuck. Our party cannot function without our healer, buffer or other key support classes, nor should it.

SOLUTION #2 – Allow everyone to log in. Stop blocking free-to-play gamers.

ISSUE #3 – Accounts “blocked” or banned without explanation. These are US servers and I kindly suggest NC Soft follow US customs when taking action against player accounts. Blocking or banning an account is parallel to a “digital arrest”. When a person is arrested, they are immediately informed of the charges against them. By contrast, NC Soft bans accounts without providing any explanation. This action is not only un-American, it is extremely poor customer service.

SOLUTION #3 – Immediately inform players why their accounts are blocked or banned.

ISSUE #4 – 1 week for responses to blocked account inquiries. If a NC Soft employee has the time to block an account, a NC Soft employee should have the time to PROMPTLY respond to inquiries about the account. Instead, it typically seems to take 2-4 days for each reply.

SOLUTION #4 - The first response from NC Soft is a complete waste of time….it asks the player to verify who they are….then wait another 2-4 days for a second canned response. Instead, ask players to always contact NC Soft while logged into their NC Soft account on the website. That way, players would have had to enter their NC Soft user name, password and/or pin…the system NC Soft established…which should be sufficient to verify their identity. This solution would greatly speed up the response time by cutting the required responses in half. It is a win-win for everyone.

ISSUE #5 – Sending the same generic response to 100% of players who inquire about their banned accounts. When players are banned they are instructed to send an e-mail to appeals@lineage2.com. Upon sending the e-mail, they will receive the following response after 2 -4 days:
 

 

Hello,

I would be happy to assist you with your concern. However before we proceed, we would need to verify your account first. Please provide as much of the below information as possible.

• List all possible emails that you would have used on the NC Account.
• Billing information: If activated using a credit/debit card, please provide the last 4 digits of the credit card used ONLY. If activated using PayPal®, please provide the Transaction ID or the Invoice ID associated with the original activation purchase. If you have an Order ID number from a previous purchase on your NC Account, please provide that as well.
• Provide location (City and Country) at the time of account creation.
• What date of birth did you use when you created the account?

If the information you provided is not sufficient, we will be requesting for additional information in order to investigate your issue further.

I look forward to your reply.

Regards,

Jun
NCSOFT Support Team
 

The above message is so generic, it does not even apply to the game we are playing. L2 Classic does not have subscriptions, therefore accounts are not ever “activated” with a credit card, which the second bullet point refers to.

After missing 2-4 days on a brand new server waiting for the above response and replying, players now have to wait another 2-4 days to receive the below generic reply.

 

Hello,

Account Name: **

Offense: Use of 3rd Party Program

Penalty: Account Closure

We have reviewed your accounts further and unfortunately, we found activity that is in violation of our Terms of Agreement. As such, we have no choice but to close the accounts. We ask that you review our terms and rules of conduct, which are available here: http://us.ncsoft.com/en/legal/user-agreements/. The action taken against the accounts will not be removed and the penalty will stand.

Regards,

***
NCSOFT Support Team

 

THIS E-MAIL is the first time a player is given the reason for his account being “blocked”. At this time he is also told the decision is “final” and he/she has absolutely no recourse.

America established a system of laws based on fairness. It is far from perfect, but it has served us well for over 200 years. Imagine being arrested, thrown in jail without being informed of the charges, then after a week being informed you are charged with xyz, have been found guilty and there is no appeal process. Furthermore, you cannot see any of the “evidence” against you.

SOLUTION #5 – Advise players of the reason of the ban / blockage immediately. Follow Solution 4a above to allow players a method of responding from the website while logged in, bypassing the need to re-verify information on accounts less than a week old. Lastly, PROVIDE EVIDENCE supporting the reason of the action taken.

We get the argument. If we tell users why we banned them other players may use this information to avoid bans. That argument, which NC Soft used in the past is….and I apologize for my language here…complete bullshit. There are cameras in every bank. Photos from those cameras are used to convict criminals, yet banks are still robbed. You can share examples such as:

- Program xyz was seen running on your pc. Our research indicates it is a bot program designed specifically for L2, and action was taken based on that program running.
- Your character was attacking, healing, buffing and taking other actions in game. While those actions were taking place, we presented a pop-up window which required a response. That window was ignored and you continued taking a variety of ingame actions indicating your character was not under your direct control.
- We buffed you with Might level 10 and your buffer kept trying to over-write the buff until it was out of mp. That action is not natural for a human player.
- We spawned a mob that was invincible. You kept attacking it for 4 minutes. That action is not natural.

There are dozens if not hundreds of possible ways to determine a player is a bot. If NC Soft is going to ban bots, which they should, you are obligated to tell us what actions are being taken to draw that conclusion.

Our original ally on Lionna server had over 400 players. We brought over 200 to L2 Classic. I never used a bot and my account was never sold. You can look it up – TrueLies on Lionna server. I am playing now, my account is active, but my gaming has been ruined by seemingly random bans of players who are playing 100% live without any bot, nor any automated clicker. They are live at their pc and disconnected. If you want to ban them, fine, but without any evidence to the contrary, I am going to believe the people I have gamed with for 15 years and that NC Soft is randomly banning players without reason. Based on that belief, I cannot continue to play this or any other NC Soft game. What reasonable person could?

Other issues….

Issue #6 – wrong XP on mobs. This issue has been reported by others and wrongly dismissed. Go outside Dion and kill mobs which are white / green and you only receive 100xp. If you kill the same mobs on other L2 Classic 1x rate servers, or if you look up their old XP from the original L2, or if you compare to any other white/green mob, the XP rate seems to be about 10% of what it should be. To be clear, this is not a random complaint but a very specific one. The XP given by some mobs is flat out wrong.

SOLUTION #6 – Investigate and fix the XP of mobs outside Dion. Going forward, do not dismiss player complaints so easily. The official NC Soft response of “We investigated the issue and determined the provided XP is correct” - - - was not only wrong, but it ruins all credibility for NC Soft. That is the same generic response we have received about the bans of legitimate players.

ISSUE #7 – allowing players from “blocked” countries. Players should be playing mostly from home / work / school but others may be playing from an “internet café”. Players should not be using services which mask their real IP address.

SOLUTION #7 -  A company of the size and sophistication of NC Soft should easily be able to run the IP addresses of players and check who the real players are vs those who are violating the EULA.

ISSUE #8 – Banning priority. The primary focus of bans should always be the top ?300 players on the server. Right now there is a party of players who is, by far, the highest on the server. They are Russian players, on this server in violation of the EULA, and they are using “drivers” - - - players from China / India or other poor countries who work for a few dollars/day. They are account sharing and staying online 24/7.

SOLUTION #8 – It should simply be bannable to actively farm 24 hours/day continuously. The simple act of doing so is not possible unless the rules are broken. Either the accounts are being shared, or a bot is being used, or an auto-clicker is being used. It does not matter what “tests” are passed….there is not a way to stay online 24/7 without some violation of the rules. Either way, any bot tests should be focused on the top players first. Sure, you can “follow the adena” from low level accounts trading to other players and institute bans, but it should all start from the top.

ISSUE #9 – Ban adena sellers. Every day most players receive private messages from adena sellers. We then receive similar messages the next day from the same accounts, and/or see them in shout chat.

SOLUTION #9 – Ban adena accounts multiple times each day. A minimum wage employee should easily be able to recognize an adena seller and take action. Furthermore, NC Soft should be actively “following the adena” - - - any player who has received 100k+ adena should be suspect...and watched further.

The bottom line….a large number of players were very much looking forward to playing L2 Classic together. Our experience thusfar has been so overwhelmingly negative, we are actively discussing quitting. The launch was delayed ?8 hours and players received ZERO compensation. Players cannot log in and have received ZERO compensation. Players have been banned without warning or evidence and players have received ZERO compensation.

L2 is a game / hobby for us. I cannot in good conscience ask others to spend their time or money on a hobby where players are treated so poorly. It is my hope NC Soft offers a prompt and thorough response, but I am not expecting it. Much of the damage is done, and many gamers have been permanently lost. Some of the parties / clans / allies those players belong to have left with them.

Disappointed,

-TrueLies

PS. A final thought for consideration. The whole idea behind banning bots is fairness. L2 is a COMPETITIVE game, and we do not wish to game against the massive advantage bots offer. But the same can be said for all the other cheats such as bypassing IP bans, using paid "drivers" to run parties 24/7, buying adena, etc. NC Soft needs to hit ALL the cheaters...at once. Randomly banning 1 cheater while allowing others to continue....it only hurts the game. You will still have players quit because of the other cheats, and you will lose the banned players, along with the their friends, Constant Party members, clan and allymates. 

[MeMiaN]

CLAP CLAP CLAP .You should be the admin .jajaja

[Decayed]

Regarding the first and second issue. If you have vip, you avoid the queue, but the laughable part is you have to endure the queue and the instant disconnect to actually get vip on your account.  

[Saintly]

I don't see anything wrong with #1/#2 tbh.
Servers are full so its natural to prioritize those who pay over freeloaders.

And totally agree with 8.
Couldn't care less if they are the highest or the lowest lvl.
Many people left Skelth to join here in order to avoid the cancer of EU servers aka Russians even if that means we have to pay extra for ping reducing services.

You would ban someone for breaking any rule of EULA so cant see why you would turn a blind eye now.

[Decayed]

1 minute ago, Saintly said:

I don't see anything wrong with #1/#2 tbh.
Servers are full so its natural to prioritize those who pay over freeloaders.

And totally agree with 8.
Couldn't care less if they are the highest or the lowest lvl.
Many people left Skelth to join here in order to avoid the cancer of EU servers aka Russians even if that means we have to pay extra for ping reducing services.

You would ban someone for breaking any rule of EULA so cant see why you would turn a blind eye now.

The 5second disconnect is a problem and it's also a problem for paying people who have yet to activate vip in game on an account.

[Saintly]

9 minutes ago, Decayed said:

The 5second disconnect is a problem and it's also a problem for paying people who have yet to activate vip in game on an account.

Personally i managed to create 3 characters on 3 different non-VIP accounts.
Watched the queue, asap i got in i created character, added pin and played.
Only had to queue twice with my 3rd character cause i got d/ced as i entered pin for 3rd time.

Not sure how they gonna fix the issue tho.
If being in character select reserves a spot in server and they remove the disconnect or extend the time greatly it'll probably create more issues that it'll solve.
But again, as long as it doesn't affect me they can go ahead to do anything that it pleases the masses.

[Decayed]

Yeah, it depends on time of day.  I had a hard time doing that and ended up having to name my dwarf asdffsa which promptly got banned.  I have to assume it's because of the name but I have yet to get a response. He's level 1, brand new account.

[dorukasama]

Wow that's deep. A good and coherent post, not like other ones primitive commets "OMFG INCREASE ADENA" in orther threads.

 

GJ

[LionnasFinest]

Well written post and completely agree with his statements. I look forward to seeing what NCSofts  response to this.

[AmusingName003]

Ryan - true ellies I played with you for many years, and we weren't the best of friends, but I support pretty much all of what is being said here. As much as I don't particularly like you, I wish there was someone like you working @ NCSoft. I feel like the devs are a bit out of touch and should really be consulting with hardcore players like yourself and others to make this game the best it can be. 

Some comments:

The state of the customer service in this game is appalling. Fully agree with you here. It's almost like they anticipated a perfectly smooth launch with no problems and are completely unprepared for this clusterbleep of problems.

Cheaters absolutely need to be banned and they need to be banned quickly and consistently. Full agreement here as well. A situation where the odd person is banned for botting, while the majority bot with impunity (which was the case on Lionna for a very long time), results in a situation where many people will risk botting on their main (because the chance of being banned is relatively low). This is not a good system to have in place. It fosters an environment where people are compelled to cheat to keep up with the other cheaters, but if you get a bit of bad luck and get hit by the banstick, you're basically quitting the game while the rest of the botters still get to play. If botters are dealt with properly, then no one will bother botting because it won't be worth the hassle. Likewise for the Russians cheating their way onto an American server. These people need to be banned and they need to be banned quickly and consistently so that everyone knows the score when it comes to cheating - DON'T CHEAT! Long story short - if NC allows cheating, it only encourages more cheating.

I think my main disagreement with your post here is when it comes to the paying customers being prioritized over the freeloaders when it comes to logging in. The people supporting this game financially should absolutely be prioritized over the freeloaders. I feel like this is just common sense... VIP1/2 is not expensive at all. If people want to play L2 so badly, and they want to spend countless hours grinding, well, they can spend a few hours grinding @ mcdonalds or some other minimum wage job and send a few of those $$$ over to NC and there will be no more queue problems. I have little sympathy for people trying to play a game for free, that myself and others are paying for, when this results in me potentially being unable to play. I don't think this is shady at all on NC's part, and is really par for the course for F2P games. Think of the f2p part of this as a demo. You play the demo for free, you get to level 20 or so before the f2p handicaps really start to hurt, and then you either want to continue or you don't. If you like the game and want to keep playing, then you need to shell out a few dollars. This is totally reasonable IMO. 

No mention of the adena/spoil rates though... What are your thoughts on that? Adena seems really low @ VIP4 and doesn't seem to line up with the Prima guide. 

[ogre]

SOLUTION #8 – It should simply be bannable to actively farm 24 hours/day continuously. The simple act of doing so is not possible unless the rules are broken. Either the accounts are being shared, or a bot is being used, or an auto-clicker is being used. It does not matter what “tests” are passed….there is not a way to stay online 24/7 without some violation of the rules. Either way, any bot tests should be focused on the top players first. Sure, you can “follow the adena” from low level accounts trading to other players and institute bans, but it should all start from the top.

 

 

truthnotlies

 

[BodybuilderIRL]

More like he got locked out of the forums/had an account banned and was hoping to run a 9 man train, but now only has a 3 man train to work with so is sad and thinks of quitting.

boo-hoo-hoo.

My response is more "onpoint" than his. Keke

 

[StabbingU]

Well this is actually a great topic and i look forward to hearing a response from a moderator. There is great value added to what Truelies has written and i am sitting here thinking to myself why he isn't employed by ncsoft to run this game. @Juji Great topic and points, can we please get a response. i think all the hardcore players from 15 years ago that came back for this would really like to understand this.