I started this game in Prelude and loved it. Beautiful characters, weapons, armor and the environment is amazing. The grind was harsh but there was definatly a feeling of accomplishment at each level. Anyway, bots started to over run the game. Alliance and Clan chat pretty much consisted of how there wasnt a piece of land in the game that a 3-5 man bot team wasnt patrolling mindlessly and how slow grinding was as you litterally hurried just to get a kill before the bot group got it. Slowly my clan and alliance quit, not because they didnt love the game but because bots were crowding the players out.
I stayed for awhile and started opening bot tickets. They were (and still are) terribly easy to spot. Petitions took awhile and if I had a bot ticket open, I had to wait to open another until the one open was resolved. This new bot reporting button is awesome!
To make a long story short, I quit a couple years ago and hadnt looked back until last weekend. This week I played on each of my characters in various areas and it was amazing. There wasnt some "aS7dd89" named player/players all just killing everything around me. I was just grinding away, and those that were nearby actually had real people behind the controls, chatting away. I used to hate how obvious the Gludio, Dion and the starter towns bots would be attacking guards in droves, just trying to de-level and how NCSoft wasnt doing a thing about them.
Now Im not saying bots are gone, but man its great so see that so many are not around (for the time being). So great, Im happy to be playing again, and hopefully the word will spread and some life will come back to our servers!
Thank you whom ever it is that threw a wrench in the bot cogs. Please keep it up!
Level and server? As I get higher I see more and more bots, more then at lower levels. 70ies areas are overly crowded with the bot-trains of high level people. Their money makers ? or something.
None of my characters are very high with today's standards unfortunatly.
My characters are as follows:
64 SH
50 Glad
50 TH
46 WS
45 Bish
44 SO
41 Proph
Havent been in the 70 areas yet (I guess all the bots leveled up pretty good since I was gone I guess). :(
I was on Seighardt but it looks like its now called Sayha (spelling?).
If its true that all the bots are in the 70 lands, maybe I'll just not level into S grade (I cant afford that stuff anyway) ;)
Really liking this vitality system too. Cant believe there was a time when I was happy to get 4% an hour (for my 64 that is, I'm sure its much worse for you 70's), its sooo much faster now. Drop rates seem to be accelerated somehow too, cant grind an hour without getting 2-3 current grade weapons or armor items.
Anyway, for the places I am at the moment, I'm very happy with the game. I really hope it stays that way.
I started this game in Prelude and loved it. Beautiful characters, weapons, armor and the environment is amazing. The grind was harsh but there was definatly a feeling of accomplishment at each level. Anyway, bots started to over run the game. Alliance and Clan chat pretty much consisted of how there wasnt a piece of land in the game that a 3-5 man bot team wasnt patrolling mindlessly and how slow grinding was as you litterally hurried just to get a kill before the bot group got it. Slowly my clan and alliance quit, not because they didnt love the game but because bots were crowding the players out.
I stayed for awhile and started opening bot tickets. They were (and still are) terribly easy to spot. Petitions took awhile and if I had a bot ticket open, I had to wait to open another until the one open was resolved. This new bot reporting button is awesome!
To make a long story short, I quit a couple years ago and hadnt looked back until last weekend. This week I played on each of my characters in various areas and it was amazing. There wasnt some "aS7dd89" named player/players all just killing everything around me. I was just grinding away, and those that were nearby actually had real people behind the controls, chatting away. I used to hate how obvious the Gludio, Dion and the starter towns bots would be attacking guards in droves, just trying to de-level and how NCSoft wasnt doing a thing about them.
Now Im not saying bots are gone, but man its great so see that so many are not around (for the time being). So great, Im happy to be playing again, and hopefully the word will spread and some life will come back to our servers!
Thank you whom ever it is that threw a wrench in the bot cogs. Please keep it up!
I hope someone from nc will read this post and realize there is a lot more ppl like Stalfos who quit because of bots, and would come back to the game if bot problem was solved. This is the best way to increase their profits (all they seem to care about), replace bot accs by real player accs.
I started this game in Prelude and loved it. Beautiful characters, weapons, armor and the environment is amazing. The grind was harsh but there was definatly a feeling of accomplishment at each level. Anyway, bots started to over run the game. Alliance and Clan chat pretty much consisted of how there wasnt a piece of land in the game that a 3-5 man bot team wasnt patrolling mindlessly and how slow grinding was as you litterally hurried just to get a kill before the bot group got it. Slowly my clan and alliance quit, not because they didnt love the game but because bots were crowding the players out.
I stayed for awhile and started opening bot tickets. They were (and still are) terribly easy to spot. Petitions took awhile and if I had a bot ticket open, I had to wait to open another until the one open was resolved. This new bot reporting button is awesome!
To make a long story short, I quit a couple years ago and hadnt looked back until last weekend. This week I played on each of my characters in various areas and it was amazing. There wasnt some "aS7dd89" named player/players all just killing everything around me. I was just grinding away, and those that were nearby actually had real people behind the controls, chatting away. I used to hate how obvious the Gludio, Dion and the starter towns bots would be attacking guards in droves, just trying to de-level and how NCSoft wasnt doing a thing about them.
Now Im not saying bots are gone, but man its great so see that so many are not around (for the time being). So great, Im happy to be playing again, and hopefully the word will spread and some life will come back to our servers!
Thank you whom ever it is that threw a wrench in the bot cogs. Please keep it up!
Sayha here too and let me tell you, the bots are around at both extremes. Varka is packed with em and so is the 20ish Necro. It seems that the middle level areas are mostly bot free.
i have mid toons and bots are all over. I think the OP was being sarcastic. Last night i was just outside of Goddard trying to kill Bandersnatches and Antelopes. This is like steps from an entrance to town and there were three bot trains competing...couldn't get a kill so i went to WOA where i got smacked around by a toon that was 79+ or so she said...guess how she got there :P....btw i think it was a guy playing a female toon.
Told me i was stupid for playing legit....then killed me... went red and said she would bot it off. I have her name though :)
By the time i'm anywhere near her she will be 100+ lol.
i have mid toons and bots are all over. I think the OP was being sarcastic. Last night i was just outside of Goddard trying to kill Bandersnatches and Antelopes. This is like steps from an entrance to town and there were three bot trains competing...couldn't get a kill so i went to WOA where i got smacked around by a toon that was 79+ or so she said...guess how she got there :P....btw i think it was a guy playing a female toon.
Told me i was stupid for playing legit....then killed me... went red and said she would bot it off. I have her name though :)
By the time i'm anywhere near her she will be 100+ lol.
Well around botdard the bot flows seem to be random. At times its hard finding an untouched mob, but then there are days(like today) where there are so many mobs around you don't know what to do with em (Playing luna). The absolute best tool against bots is high-range debuff/nuke/anything, just hit the mob first and it's yours (<3 soulbreaker for it ;) )
i have mid toons and bots are all over. I think the OP was being sarcastic. Last night i was just outside of Goddard trying to kill Bandersnatches and Antelopes. This is like steps from an entrance to town and there were three bot trains competing...couldn't get a kill so i went to WOA where i got smacked around by a toon that was 79+ or so she said...guess how she got there :P....btw i think it was a guy playing a female toon.
Told me i was stupid for playing legit....then killed me... went red and said she would bot it off. I have her name though :)
By the time i'm anywhere near her she will be 100+ lol.
That's so sad, but very true, happened to me at times, people bragging about how they bot and I "lolgrind"...
I don't think there's a clan out there (not counting the one I'm in) on Franz that i haven't seen bot one place or another.
My clan bans all people who are discovered botting, and that's what I simply like about them. Also decent level-headed people.
Even thou in the long run we, or should I say they since I'm much too casual, have almost no chance to compete with botters since they're over-leveled and over-enchanted to kingdom come..
Whatever other clans out there on Frazn haven't stooped to botting, I salute ya.
i have mid toons and bots are all over. I think the OP was being sarcastic. Last night i was just outside of Goddard trying to kill Bandersnatches and Antelopes. This is like steps from an entrance to town and there were three bot trains competing...couldn't get a kill so i went to WOA where i got smacked around by a toon that was 79+ or so she said...guess how she got there :P....btw i think it was a guy playing a female toon.
Told me i was stupid for playing legit....then killed me... went red and said she would bot it off. I have her name though :)
By the time i'm anywhere near her she will be 100+ lol.
I don't think there's a clan out there (not counting the one I'm in) on Franz that i haven't seen bot one place or another.
My clan bans all people who are discovered botting, and that's what I simply like about them. Also decent level-headed people.
We have the same mind-set in our clan (on Devianne).
If we find someone botting (we were send a screenshot by our ally once) in clan - we kick them out - no discussion, no explanations - it is a clan rule; thank you and goodbye.
I have been playing over 3 years and have *just* started to get near to 3rd class change. Ok I have quite a few toons, and a couple of accounts (2box buffer) but even so, I think thats impressively slow levelling ;)
And like you - I salute all the non-botted toons out there and especially the bot-intolerant clans.
There is not one ally on Devianne (at least any factor ally) that doesn't have more than enough bots in it to call it a botter clan. I would probably say the same for Bartz, also.
There ARE some relatively clean alliances/clans on Bartz, but none clean enough to post, boasting about their cleanliness.
I used to be very dedicated to PMing clan leaders and letting them know about known botters that they may have unknowngly recruited, but people are just not caring much anymore. There are not that many players in the game, and when you absolutely need certain classes (healers, dancers, tanks, etc.) and nobles for Olympiad, you have to bend you back a bit.
The only way to avoid this is to simply not join a clan, or have just a small clan with RL friends and people you know very well. You will never advance in the game by descriminating characters based on past history, though, and that's why most clans may disallow it while tagged, but they do give players second chances.
There simply isn't a big enough poll to recruit from to maintain a strong stance against characters that may have cheated in the past, and still remain a factor.
Most people play MMOs to advance/progress, not to just sit in an XP zone killing mobs, or sit in giran for market play.
Cheating is horrible, and there is nothign wrong with legit gameplay - that is the way things are supposed to be. But the game is old and if you wish to progress, you need to recruit from what is available. Probably half or more of the players in this game have cheated in some way or another, and probably half of your clan has, also, be it by botting or leaching from bot groups, or buying adena/items with RL money. I would estimate about 85% of that server to be compulsive ebayers or botters. I know most of them use that auto-assist and pot spamming program.
That's why I spent over half of my time there deactivated.
The cleanest clan I know on Devianne is SlyCutters. I was going to join his clan, but decided to transfer back to Bartz instead.
To the OP, welcome back. This game has ups and downs, but the good far outweigh the bad imo.
And yes, there are still bots.
The bots that bother me the most, though, are usually the ones that turn up at the siege or whatever pvp competition is in the offering claiming to have legitimately earned all of their levels. (Perhaps some of you reading this post are familiar with a player like this?)
They claim to be legit, but we know who they are. You can sometimes find them taking an AFK dirt nap in a hostile area, the mobs that killed them still close by, deeply disappointed by the absence of a conscious enemy.
Others may suggest that these blokes were simply waiting for a high rez: being dead proves nothing. Funny, when I offer them that very thing they don't respond. In fact, they don't say anything at all... not even when they're upright and "hunting."
Yet when you see them in town, they're gregarious enough. Some of them talk quite a bit and will even boast of their exploits at great length. That is until you whisper to them that you saw them "in action" and you truly marvel at their 3rd party hunting style. ;)
Oh well, what are you gonna do? As in life, so it goes in L2. There's always someone bending the rules. Enjoy the game anyway.
The cleanest clan I know on Devianne is SlyCutters. I was going to join his clan, but decided to transfer back to Bartz instead.
I second that.
I spent some time in Sly's clan (although I don't think he knows which toon I was) and they're a good group of LIVE players. I was out sick for a week, and spent quite a bit of time online. Everyone that I pm'ed, with the exception of AFK shops, typically responded no matter the hour.
This past weekend I reported several bots. Some were the obvious alphanumeric nonsensically-named variety. Some were players. It will be interesting to see what becomes of them.
That's why I don't craft. Any system that is 100% dependent on chance (with a rather large chance to fail), is not worth my participation. Save the adena and buy the item :)
That's why I don't craft. Any system that is 100% dependent on chance (with a rather large chance to fail), is not worth my participation. Save the adena and buy the item :)
I used to do the same thing (buy weapons) cause i failed 5 Soul Bow crafts in a row. This goes back about 3 years ago when a SB craft was a big deal.
But now the botters have made a joke out of the economy. They are selling Adena for .20 a million or less....of course this means that they are charging way more for their goods.
So how can a legit person afford 4-500 kk for A Grade..the only way is to craft.Cause of NC's drop rates you still have to get your recipes and keys from a botter but it is considerably cheaper.
I used to do the same thing (buy weapons) cause i failed 5 Soul Bow crafts in a row. This goes back about 3 years ago when a SB craft was a big deal.
But now the botters have made a joke out of the economy. They are selling Adena for .20 a million or less....of course this means that they are charging way more for their goods.
So how can a legit person afford 4-500 kk for A Grade..the only way is to craft.Cause of NC's drop rates you still have to get your recipes and keys from a botter but it is considerably cheaper.
If you are paying 4-500M for an A Grade weapon, it's cause you need to get non-OE'd A Grade weapons. A +10 SoV on Bartz was 335M, and it's a 173 M.Atk mage weapon with Acumen SA.
You can get a +6 SoM for 500M. I don't know any +3 A Grade weaponw with SA that sell for 400M, TBH. Maybe it's time to transfer off that server, Lol. That's what I did, and it's more honorable than buying adena. Just leave and go where you can afford to play (adena-wise).
You can get a +0 S Grade weapon with SA/No Attribute for 500M on Bartz.
What you said makes no sense, unless you are playing on one of the botter servers like Devianne, Franz, Luna. I haven't been on all the servers, but I don't think the majority of NA servers had that kind of pricing, TBH. At least when I checked, and of course, things can always change :)
If you are that poor, you probably can't afford to fail crafts, either.
If the prices are high, why not use it for own profit? Farmers sell dmp on phoenix for 130-160k, manoring woa angels or other mobs with comparable hp gives .6 dmp from each so considering you kill around 100 angels per hour you earn 7.8 - 9.6m / hour. Not bad at all, 20 hours of manoring and you can buy A weapon with sa!
If you are paying 4-500M for an A Grade weapon, it's cause you need to get non-OE'd A Grade weapons. A +10 SoV on Bartz was 335M, and it's a 173 M.Atk mage weapon with Acumen SA.
You can get a +6 SoM for 500M. I don't know any +3 A Grade weaponw with SA that sell for 400M, TBH. Maybe it's time to transfer off that server, Lol. That's what I did, and it's more honorable than buying adena. Just leave and go where you can afford to play (adena-wise).
You can get a +0 S Grade weapon with SA/No Attribute for 500M on Bartz.
What you said makes no sense, unless you are playing on one of the botter servers like Devianne, Franz, Luna. I haven't been on all the servers, but I don't think the majority of NA servers had that kind of pricing, TBH. At least when I checked, and of course, things can always change :)
If you are that poor, you probably can't afford to fail crafts, either.
I was talking full A grade Armour, A Grade weapon w/ common Soul bow, Jewels....nothing OE. Nothing common either except bow. I play on Phoenix and thats what the rough cost is. 180kk for armour, 250 for weapon with SA and 70 for jewels. These are ballparky.
Still its lots of adena and i don't believe Dev is any better. My toons on Dev are all outfitted and so are the toons on Aria so i don't check prices there. I just started on Phoenix (mouse event) and have saved 200 million by crafting up to A shots. i should reach 500 million in another 3 months or so if i stick to the game plan. But i think i can craft for cheaper..or at least i hope so cause with 5 accounts i have lots of toons needing help :P
There is not one ally on Devianne (at least any factor ally) that doesn't have more than enough bots in it to call it a botter clan. I would probably say the same for Bartz, also.
There ARE some relatively clean alliances/clans on Bartz, but none clean enough to post, boasting about their cleanliness.
Ummm LegionofDivinity and the United Alliance has a strict no bot policy and we hold that very true to our rules. Your caught by any screen or vid your gone, no if ands or butts. Please forward all botter pictures to me and ill be happy to send them to the higher ups and have the botters removed but my Clan leader is the cleanest player i know! (i know you said factor but lets just say i consider LoD an up and coming factor)
As many already said that almost all 7x spots are overrun by bots. Basically due to fact that endgame moved to 8x and bypass 6x lvl's with bot is work of week or two.
Friend of mine contaced me today and invited to try www.l2.ru (russian retail servers, for those who dont know). He said that there reported players(if they're actually botting) are gone within minutes..
Ummm LegionofDivinity and the United Alliance has a strict no bot policy and we hold that very true to our rules. Your caught by any screen or vid your gone, no if ands or butts. Please forward all botter pictures to me and ill be happy to send them to the higher ups and have the botters removed but my Clan leader is the cleanest player i know! (i know you said factor but lets just say i consider LoD an up and coming factor)
I was in UA.. DragonDove side. All i'm gonna say is that Dove and MsKatie are sweethearts and that Daniel is a pretty funny guy and gets pretty excited at times :p
I was in UA.. DragonDove side. All i'm gonna say is that Dove and MsKatie are sweethearts and that Daniel is a pretty funny guy and gets pretty excited at times :p
Excited can be an understatement at times hehe ;) always an exciting vent ^^
That's why I don't craft. Any system that is 100% dependent on chance (with a rather large chance to fail), is not worth my participation. Save the adena and buy the item :)
Not all of my crafts are to equip my characters, but to sell the items and turn a modest profit. I eventually did craft a Drac Helm, 2 Tat rings and necklace, and 2 Drac Bows, all of which sold for 3 - 4 times what it cost me to make them.
But that's not my bread and butter.
I'm that guy selling everyone else the +++++ weapons for 1000% mark up. I like that so many would prefer to buy an OE weapon than try their own luck.
As L2 luck goes, I fail more at crafts than I do at enchants...but I'm not giving up on either, since success in one area offsets the failures in the other. :cool: