I’d like to share some information (hopefully useful) that I learned while completing the Hellbound/Giants Cave 10,000k proof quest.
TL;DR
48 grinding hours to complete.
57,879 kills
As a 105 Titan, the quest took me 48 grinding hours to complete and totaled 57,879 kills, yielding one proof for every 5.79 kills. I spent 99.9% of my time killing in the captive demon rooms in Giant’s Cave. It should be noted that my first 2k proofs were in a duo (quest items split between party members), so my total number of kills will be higher than someone who only quests solo. Readjusting for solo kills only, I had a rate closer to 4.5 kills per quest item.
I found that I averaged around 200 proofs per hour (pph) while in my duo and AOEing. This is significantly lower than my single-target solo kill rate where I averaged 285pph. The disparity can be attributed to the fact that if you kill two or mobs at once with an aoe spell only a maximum of one quest item can be generated. However I did a few single-target hours in a duo and never managed to break 220pph. This could be complete coincidence, but proof aquisition felt noticeably slower in a duo rather than as a solo party.
I had one golden hour where I spiked to 360pph and was even so lucky as to get 4 proofs from 4 kills in a row. The following hour was met with one terrible dry spell where I only got 190pph or so. Even so, my run to 1000 proofs took 3.5 hours (so I hit my average of 285pph)
To give you an idea of kill speed, each mob was a 2-shot unless I was rolling with BR or Critical Damage Increase. I was clearing the entire room of demons, and when I would AOE I found myself having to wait 5-10 seconds for mobs to respawn. I can knock out the 8k quest (first exalted quest) in around 4 hours, so this 10k proof quest took me 12x longer to complete than the 8k quest. Most of you have done your 8k quest, so that gives you an idea of how long you can expect this monstrosity to take.
Upon turning the quest in, the NPC dialogue gave me an option of selecting either Blackbird Clan or Giant’s Trackers rep for 4500 points. You do not get rep for both factions. This equated to around 45% of level 5 Blackbird faction.
Estimated kill rates solo
Full Room: 285pph for 35 hours (limited by respawn timer)
Half Room: 142pph for 70.5 hours
Quarter Room: 71pph 141 hours
There, doesn't that just twist your stomach into knots? Good luck, everyone!
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Edit: Spellbook reward requirements.
If you're someone like me who primarily plays their dual class, you should note that the Spellbook rewards for both quests require at least level 103 on your main class (http://boards.lineage2.com/showpost.php?p=3558131&postcount=161) to be learned.
This AFK-macro is killing the Game. 1/3th of my Friends quit playing because of it. This AFK-macro is resulting in a negative Community environment. Where ever you go, 97% of the Field Players are AFK getting EXP. I wonder why we have in-game Chat Options still available, if none is ever gonna use it nowadays. Why all those Players in the past got banned for botting when there is a System in place that is giving the exact same results in our Communities right now. This System will result in a negative impact on our Servers. I call it neglecting of why Games are Games. You play Games with Friends, Family, Clans. Now all I see in the last two updates are more and more AFK Players in multiple dead Servers.
Also I think the last two Updates are a joke. Especially the Grand Crusade. I spoke to many casual Players from three different Servers. Most of them can't, don't or won't spend a ton of Dollars to get EXP Bonus Items. Those Players will never hit 103. Without any Bonus you should be lucky to get at most 1% per day from 103 to 104. 100-days to get 103>104. Epics/RB are fixed to Top Clans or Top Farmers, and Field EXP aint good enough if you don't have TOP of the TOP Gear (Bloody Set +10 and Bloody Weapon +12) to get to places such as lower GC and Superion.
Face it Grand Crusade opening 105-110 is a joke. Players can't even hit 103. Alot of Players are loosing interest day by day. To hard XXL. To many restrictions. Not even mentioning the change in Attribute Attack and Defense ...
This AFK-macro is killing the Game. 1/3th of my Friends quit playing because of it. This AFK-macro is resulting in a negative Community environment. Where ever you go, 97% of the Field Players are AFK getting EXP. I wonder why we have in-game Chat Options still available, if none is ever gonna use it nowadays. Why all those Players in the past got banned for botting when there is a System in place that is giving the exact same results in our Communities right now. This System will result in a negative impact on our Servers. I call it neglecting of why Games are Games. You play Games with Friends, Family, Clans. Now all I see in the last two updates are more and more AFK Players in multiple dead Servers.
Also I think the last two Updates are a joke. Especially the Grand Crusade. I spoke to many casual Players from three different Servers. Most of them can't, don't or won't spend a ton of Dollars to get EXP Bonus Items. Those Players will never hit 103. Without any Bonus you should be lucky to get at most 1% per day from 103 to 104. 100-days to get 103>104. Epics/RB are fixed to Top Clans or Top Farmers, and Field EXP aint good enough if you don't have TOP of the TOP Gear (Bloody Set +10 and Bloody Weapon +12) to get to places such as lower GC and Superion.
Face it Grand Crusade opening 105-110 is a joke. Players can't even hit 103. Alot of Players are loosing interest day by day. To hard XXL. To many restrictions. Not even mentioning the change in Attribute Attack and Defense ...
This is by far the best update in past few years.
Different people, different needs.
For one, I can get a lot more xp per day, without the need to spend a dime on pixels. And the more important is that nc has to pay me to ever actually pvp in this game, the visa warriors can only envy from a distance, never given the chance again to fight vs a player like me.
Ez players, ez game, ez life.
Most of them can't, don't or won't spend a ton of Dollars to get EXP Bonus Items. Those Players will never hit 103. Without any Bonus you should be lucky to get at most 1% per day from 103 to 104. 100-days to get 103>104.
I spent nothing from 102-104, and it didn't take me long at all.
103-104 I could pull in 1-1.5% a day with ease with no boost other than vit and freya scrolls in k99 and af2x each day. Those are cheap if you have a good group looking to make use of cakes and chipping in. Likewise freya scrolls aren't that much, or you can spend daily coins on maph scrolls and get more than I did (I save mine for blessing scrolls).
That doesn't count things like grinding for XP, nor any of the ways you can use to keep/regain vit within the game for adena, or even free, to ensure you don't just blow vit on day one.
Finished it 2 days ago, only afk macro. Too easy if you ask me
Doing the quest where?
In front of Giran Auction House? Stop being a liar.
In relation to the topic, the ratio is approximately 1: 5
Making the faction quest of 750 mobs in HB makes the conclusion that you do about 150 quest items from the exalted quest, sometimes for more, sometimes for less.
Considering that the player does exactly 150 quest items per day, 150 × 7 = 1050 per week, which means that between 9 to 10 weeks = less than 3 months to complete the whole quest.
Taking into consideration that the players took 100 days to do the Dimensional Rift mission, to the point of no one complaining, I already consider extremely normal, as the ratio of this quest is.
Doing the quest where?
In front of Giran Auction House? Stop being a liar.
In relation to the topic, the ratio is approximately 1: 5
Making the faction quest of 750 mobs in HB makes the conclusion that you do about 150 quest items from the exalted quest, sometimes for more, sometimes for less.
Considering that the player does exactly 150 quest items per day, 150 × 7 = 1050 per week, which means that between 9 to 10 weeks = less than 3 months to complete the whole quest.
Taking into consideration that the players took 100 days to do the Dimensional Rift mission, to the point of no one complaining, I already consider extremely normal, as the ratio of this quest is.
So that, in my view, working as expected.
Sorry if you're handicapped and can't do anything brah xD
Doing the quest where?
In front of Giran Auction House? Stop being a liar.
In relation to the topic, the ratio is approximately 1: 5
Making the faction quest of 750 mobs in HB makes the conclusion that you do about 150 quest items from the exalted quest, sometimes for more, sometimes for less.
Considering that the player does exactly 150 quest items per day, 150 × 7 = 1050 per week, which means that between 9 to 10 weeks = less than 3 months to complete the whole quest.
Taking into consideration that the players took 100 days to do the Dimensional Rift mission, to the point of no one complaining, I already consider extremely normal, as the ratio of this quest is.
So that, in my view, working as expected.
Dim rift is very different. It's 1 time per day that can be done without taking much time (took me ~10 minutes any given day I did it).
It also gives you some decent rewards every 10 days as well as at the end.
But, the key thing is that it isn't directly tied to character progression in any way. You can simply choose not to do it, and you won't be handicapped in any way vs someone who has.
Exalted is quite different. People complained about the 8K mobs as well... and while it was annoying, it wasn't terrible. You could hunt anywhere in HB, you could even do Gainak (initially).
This new quest has entirely too many limitations on it... it makes it needlessly difficult to complete, and all but forces you to not help anyone else do it otherwise you handicap your own progress. Keeping the rates the exact same, but making it able to be done in Phantasmal/GC lower and not suffer a penalty for having multiple people in party doing it at once is the only change truly needed.
I spent nothing from 102-104, and it didn't take me long at all.
103-104 I could pull in 1-1.5% a day with ease with no boost other than vit and freya scrolls in k99 and af2x each day. Those are cheap if you have a good group looking to make use of cakes and chipping in. Likewise freya scrolls aren't that much, or you can spend daily coins on maph scrolls and get more than I did (I save mine for blessing scrolls).
I must be missing something here. I'm 103 and running with a 100% 30 day xp rune, use freya scrolls, occasionally will use a 50% buff pot, Erupting pot, and maphr's when I have them for last boss when doing Altar and only get 1.6%. Also, take into consideration we have that 50% xp boost from the update. WTF am I missing?
I must be missing something here. I'm 103 and running with a 100% 30 day xp rune, use freya scrolls, occasionally will use a 50% buff pot, Erupting pot, and maphr's when I have them for last boss when doing Altar and only get 1.6%. Also, take into consideration we have that 50% xp boost from the update. WTF am I missing?
Altar is brand new. I was talking before this update even hit (I'm 104 now).
k99 (x2 if you want, but not really worth it at 103+ in a full party), and AFx2. If you can do in a 5 man group, awesome, but a 7 man is pretty decent.
If you have a 100% rune, have vit, and use a maph/freya/storm scroll on last boss of k99 and AF x 2 that you should get, at minimum (with no other boosts or server xp settings) close to, or over 1% a day.
Using anything more than that, or doing anything else, should obviously get you more.
Even with no runes, no vit, no scrolls, or other boosts I could pull in ~.6% with just k99/afx2 (which I did sometimes).
Going to GC lower, AoE in AF, or going to superion could boost that XP quite a bit.
And now with the XP boost a lot of mobs got (even without server settings), it's even easier. Can do GC upper or EV and get some pretty decent XP.
This AFK-macro is killing the Game. 1/3th of my Friends quit playing because of it. This AFK-macro is resulting in a negative Community environment. Where ever you go, 97% of the Field Players are AFK getting EXP. I wonder why we have in-game Chat Options still available, if none is ever gonna use it nowadays. Why all those Players in the past got banned for botting when there is a System in place that is giving the exact same results in our Communities right now. This System will result in a negative impact on our Servers. I call it neglecting of why Games are Games. You play Games with Friends, Family, Clans. Now all I see in the last two updates are more and more AFK Players in multiple dead Servers.
Also I think the last two Updates are a joke. Especially the Grand Crusade. I spoke to many casual Players from three different Servers. Most of them can't, don't or won't spend a ton of Dollars to get EXP Bonus Items. Those Players will never hit 103. Without any Bonus you should be lucky to get at most 1% per day from 103 to 104. 100-days to get 103>104. Epics/RB are fixed to Top Clans or Top Farmers, and Field EXP aint good enough if you don't have TOP of the TOP Gear (Bloody Set +10 and Bloody Weapon +12) to get to places such as lower GC and Superion.
Face it Grand Crusade opening 105-110 is a joke. Players can't even hit 103. Alot of Players are loosing interest day by day. To hard XXL. To many restrictions. Not even mentioning the change in Attribute Attack and Defense ...
The afk macro system is the best thing to ever happen I. L2. You can always get them to flag and kill them. The system is very balanced.
This AFK-macro is killing the Game. 1/3th of my Friends quit playing because of it.
first let me say that I am not one of these people who use the in-game
macro system 24/7. however....
Why is it that i always see people complaining about people macro-ing
24/7 to get xp, but at the same time NOBODY complains about people
doing the exact same thing via the afk fishing system ???
first let me say that I am not one of these people who use the in-game
macro system 24/7. however....
Why is it that i always see people complaining about people macro-ing
24/7 to get xp, but at the same time NOBODY complains about people
doing the exact same thing via the afk fishing system ???Two main reasons for this: XP Earned from fishing is laughably low. A full week of fishing r99 bait 24/7 gets you around 200b xp. I've had a lv100 fisher fishing 24/7 since Heine event ended last November, and it has only made 65% at Lv100.
Fishing does not hog up spawns in crucial grinding spots like hb or gc. Part of why doing the 10k quest is such a chore is because you have to clear out the macro bots before you can begin your grind. A lot of players can even find themselves having kills stolen by afk macro bots.
Playing an MMO where the majority of players you encounter outside of town are on bot macros really waters down the experience of playing a social game. I don't think it's so much the free XP they get rather than just selfishly hogging a zone from people who otherwise would like to play the game.
Those are my complaints. But I just PK the bots anyway.
Two main reasons for this: XP Earned from fishing is laughably low. A full week of fishing r99 bait 24/7 gets you around 200b xp. I've had a lv100 fisher fishing 24/7 since Heine event ended last November, and it has only made 65% at Lv100.
Fishing does not hog up spawns in crucial grinding spots like hb or gc. Part of why doing the 10k quest is such a chore is because you have to clear out the macro bots before you can begin your grind. A lot of players can even find themselves having kills stolen by afk macro bots.
Playing an MMO where the majority of players you encounter outside of town are on bot macros really waters down the experience of playing a social game. I don't think it's so much the free XP they get rather than just selfishly hogging a zone from people who otherwise would like to play the game.
Those are my complaints. But I just PK the bots anyway.
This.
Also many macro bots are targeting mobs by name, so you cannot simply flag and kill them. Unless you have hoards of PK scrolls (or can afford them) this becomes a bit ridiculous.
The macro system is okay for boxing buffers. The way people are using it to bot characters is a completely different matter.
Also many macro bots are targeting mobs by name, so you cannot simply flag and kill them. Unless you have hoards of PK scrolls (or can afford them) this becomes a bit ridiculous.
The macro system is okay for boxing buffers. The way people are using it to bot characters is a completely different matter.
Kill the monster theyre most likely to target, before they do target it.. when monster passes away, hit the macroer.
In doing so, they are targetting a dead monster, shortly after they have no target..
Hitting someone without a target forces them to target you, and they will flag on you since macro will use whatever skill/attack on you.
Never had an issue with any macro to kill it.
Personally I'm tired of people complaining about new content being boring and not challenging enough and they miss the old L2. Do any of you remember getting alliance level 5 with varka or ketra in order to get recs and mats for S grade stuff? That took forever too. Remember when doing your class change at 40 took a day or two? What about the class change at 76 to get blue tagged? This game used to be a Korean grind game and now some of you refuse to pull the silver spoon out of your mouth. No one is forcing you to do this quest anyways. Its not mandatory.
Personally I'm tired of people complaining about new content being boring and not challenging enough and they miss the old L2. Do any of you remember getting alliance level 5 with varka or ketra in order to get recs and mats for S grade stuff? That took forever too. Remember when doing your class change at 40 took a day or two? What about the class change at 76 to get blue tagged? This game used to be a Korean grind game and now some of you refuse to pull the silver spoon out of your mouth. No one is forcing you to do this quest anyways. Its not mandatory.
Maybe because those days content was more thought of compared to now?
Nothing in this game IS challenging anymore, just pull out a strong wynn, tyrr or evisc. and do any instance in a few minutes.
Even the new instances, how challenging or groundbreaking is it exactly? Go in, kill mobs and repeat.
Like we havent seen that in 20 other instances.
Heck, could even compare istina, octavis, tauti etc during release with bosses (or instances) released the past few years and tell me how the new content is more exciting.
Quest? Go sleep with macro on.
Items? Buy a 4000 NCoin card, get 6b adena and buy an OK set, wep and jewelry.
Avout rulers authority, people dont even seem to bother killing Helios because events gave us thousand of rings.
Compare with just a few years ago and tauti weapons, was it 1 or 2 years before we even had ONE full weapon after boss release? With helios it didnt take many months before we had hundreds of rings, without the events we would have like 3..
The challenge these days is who can spend the most in L2Store, nothing less.
Saying their complaints have no merit is laughable to say the least, you just cant compare now and then.
Personally I'm tired of people complaining about new content being boring and not challenging enough and they miss the old L2. Do any of you remember getting alliance level 5 with varka or ketra in order to get recs and mats for S grade stuff? That took forever too. Remember when doing your class change at 40 took a day or two? What about the class change at 76 to get blue tagged? This game used to be a Korean grind game and now some of you refuse to pull the silver spoon out of your mouth. No one is forcing you to do this quest anyways. Its not mandatory.
my main complaint with this particular quest is that it leaves support players behind and it encourages afk macro both of which is just bad planning from a MMO perspective - back in the old days I would make parties to grind the Ketra Orc quest and we all helped each other getting it done, that mentality is gone nowadays..
Kill the monster theyre most likely to target, before they do target it.. when monster passes away, hit the macroer.
In doing so, they are targetting a dead monster, shortly after they have no target..
Hitting someone without a target forces them to target you, and they will flag on you since macro will use whatever skill/attack on you.
Never had an issue with any macro to kill it.
How about, just avoid that area or simply take a break from the game and hope they fix it?
Live players know how the game works. I don't need tips. I am just stating some obvious facts about how this is obviously being abuse.
Live players shouldn't have to compete with afk toons. It doesn't matter if they're afk on walker or macros. It's practically the same thing. Hillarious how the players here have turned into defenders after getting a taste of this.
my main complaint with this particular quest is that it leaves support players behind and it encourages afk macro both of which is just bad planning from a MMO perspective - back in the old days I would make parties to grind the Ketra Orc quest and we all helped each other getting it done, that mentality is gone nowadays..
This.
It's not that I'm being selfish and hoarding the quest all to myself. Much like the EV quest it actively discourages you from having anyone else in party with the quest running. And unlike EV, it's not just a small number of items with a respectable drop rate... it's a ton of items and a terrible drop rate.
I'm a pretty respectable DD, I'd love to be able to help some people out with it while doing it myself. But it's mind numbing.
Back in the ketra/varka days you could do that. Having more people with you helped you, not hindered you. At the absolute worst they were just no benefit to you, but didn't hamper your progress at all.
And there were tons of bad quests back in the day too... but people just didn't do them more than once to see how bad they were.
The old class changes were tedious as well, but they were rewarding, varied, and interesting in their own ways. You had to run all over, do different things...
This quest is sit in solo spots for hours upon hours every day, if not just say hell with it and AFK the whole thing.
my main complaint with this particular quest is that it leaves support players behind and it encourages afk macro both of which is just bad planning from a MMO perspective - back in the old days I would make parties to grind the Ketra Orc quest and we all helped each other getting it done, that mentality is gone nowadays..
If you're not willing to help your supports, then you're not worthy of receiving their help either, lol hypocrisy...
How about, just avoid that area or simply take a break from the game and hope they fix it?
Live players know how the game works. I don't need tips. I am just stating some obvious facts about how this is obviously being abuse.
Live players shouldn't have to compete with afk toons. It doesn't matter if they're afk on walker or macros. It's practically the same thing. Hillarious how the players here have turned into defenders after getting a taste of this.
"Also many macro bots are targeting mobs by name, so you cannot simply flag and kill them."
Obviously you did not know this.
If they take your spot, or a spot is taken by macroes, kill them.
Dont complain theyre there and act so passive about it making up excuses as to why you cant kill them or clear the spot.
If you're not willing to help your supports, then you're not worthy of receiving their help either, lol hypocrisy...
He is, himself, a "support" class.
But that's besides the point. He didn't design it this way.
You want people to help others with it? Great! How about making that possible without penalizing both for being in party together and doing it? I'd carry a whole party and do it in Phantasmal or GC lower if the quest applied there and actually gave items out just as consistently as it did when solo.
How many supports did you help while you afk macroed it? And the fact that you did that doesn't seem contrary to how quests should be completed in this game?
Varka and Ketra were great XP for both a solo player and a small group (Trio or Quartette). There was a reason to do the those quests other than "Quest Completed!" You needed Level 2 for 3rd Class Change, and most people were XPing there, anyways. There were similar quests in IT and FoG, IIRC (for mats, etc.). Those quests made sense, and were designed in a sane manner.
Beleth's Magic Circle and HB Quarry are awful. They're on par with Blazing Swamp, and Quarry is even worse than B.S. for XP rate. The MOBs give the same or less XP, hit 5-10x harder, and take 2-3x longer to kill. Over-tuned, like all other 99+ XP zones.
The quest drop rate is balanced like a quest in a Level-Appropriate XP Grind area. Kind of like the 400 Item quests in BS and Cemetary that take hours to complete. Except it's completely illogical to send players above level 102 to those areas to do this quest, because they don't level there. If they did, then the drop rate and the amount of items needed would be much less of an issue. This is the same issue with the 8k Quest in HB. No one XPs there except macro botters. People only go there to do the quests, and then they're out.
These quests should be in Phantasmal Ridge and Lower Giant's Cave (and maybe Superion and AF).
Also, these quests are designed with the Korean market in mind. Keeping players out of town is important to NCSoft's business model in Korea, but it makes no sense here. No one is going to buy or burn Runes to kill 50k MOBs in HB or GC solo areas at 104+. That's a complete waste of money.
"Also many macro bots are targeting mobs by name, so you cannot simply flag and kill them."
Obviously you did not know this.
If they take your spot, or a spot is taken by macroes, kill them.
Dont complain theyre there and act so passive about it making up excuses as to why you cant kill them or clear the spot.
I know this because it happens to me everytime I try to summon a group member not in the same zone while a MOB is attacking me. Everytime it lands an attack, it steals focus. I thought you were referring to /nexttarget in the macros, which some people are not using. They're simply targeting MOB names.
And if there is a MOB with that name in the area, they will target that MOB always.
I'm not going red on bots, or flagging on them when most players in this game are *****holes and won't bother to kill you even though you're just "clearing bots out of the spot." I shouldn't have to take any risk to get AFK toons out of a leveling spot. I'm not here to do the GM's job for them. How about stop blaming players who complain about an obvious issue? Send feedback to NCSoft to stop people from botting with Macros... Or is that not worth your time, because you're busy at work right now while doing it yourself?
I think you're confusing [terrible] "workarounds" for "solutions." I'm not interested in your workaround. I want a solution to a fairly rampant problem in the game right now.
I know this because it happens to me everytime I try to summon a group member not in the same zone while a MOB is attacking me. Everytime it lands an attack, it steals focus. I thought you were referring to /nexttarget in the macros, which some people are not using. They're simply targeting MOB names.
And if there is a MOB with that name in the area, they will target that MOB always.
I'm not going red on bots, or flagging on them when most players in this game are *****holes and won't bother to kill you even though you're just "clearing bots out of the spot." I shouldn't have to take any risk to get AFK toons out of a leveling spot. I'm not here to do the GM's job for them. How about stop blaming players who complain about an obvious issue? Send feedback to NCSoft to stop people from botting with Macros... Or is that not worth your time, because you're busy at work right now while doing it yourself?
I think you're confusing [terrible] "workarounds" for "solutions." I'm not interested in your workaround. I want a solution to a fairly rampant problem in the game right now.
It also doesn't work all the time either.
If you have a macro set up correctly it would be VERY hard to actually get them to flag.
Of course there's tons of people that just have them set up to do next target, and it's also nearly impossible to set it up in certain areas without possibly getting yourself killed by a mob in the first place.
But be that as it may, the issue is certainly no different than the tons of 3rd party bots that went all over. These ones are just less efficient, and relatively ncsoft approved.
If they are going to allow it, then they need to make sure the game can support it.
When I run out to the quarry there's a group on every single spawn of monsters.
When I go to the circle, there's multiple groups all over, meaning it's horribly inefficient to kill anything there as there's just not enough mobs.
I go to GC upper, not even all mobs give the 10k quest items, meaning some rooms are not even viable to do the quest in... either the quest mobs are too rare, or don't exist at all.
The ones that are viable tend to have one or more parties in them nearly 27/4 just doing shinedust/demons or xping, making them even harder to get the 10k quest done.
I know this because it happens to me everytime I try to summon a group member not in the same zone while a MOB is attacking me. Everytime it lands an attack, it steals focus. I thought you were referring to /nexttarget in the macros, which some people are not using. They're simply targeting MOB names.
And if there is a MOB with that name in the area, they will target that MOB always.
I'm not going red on bots, or flagging on them when most players in this game are *****holes and won't bother to kill you even though you're just "clearing bots out of the spot." I shouldn't have to take any risk to get AFK toons out of a leveling spot. I'm not here to do the GM's job for them. How about stop blaming players who complain about an obvious issue? Send feedback to NCSoft to stop people from botting with Macros... Or is that not worth your time, because you're busy at work right now while doing it yourself?
I think you're confusing [terrible] "workarounds" for "solutions." I'm not interested in your workaround. I want a solution to a fairly rampant problem in the game right now.
So its not an issue with the game or the feature itself, but rather you being too afraid to fix the issue, if someone is spamming marks on you would you cry foul aswell?
It is not a rampant problem, as you can easily kill them if they clog your spots.
It also doesn't work all the time either.
If you have a macro set up correctly it would be VERY hard to actually get them to flag.
Of course there's tons of people that just have them set up to do next target, and it's also nearly impossible to set it up in certain areas without possibly getting yourself killed by a mob in the first place.
Takes less than two minutes to kill any macro.
All macros have a delay in them, either with /delay or when using skills, if you do the way I said there is no macro solution that will help you.
Writing /target X will make you target X, whether its alive or dead.
If you kill it 10 seconds before the macro targets it, it will "poff" away after a few seconds, if the macro is in-mid skill casting step or attacking step, attacking them will force them to flag on you.
But then again, this does require thinking (seeing how their macro is made just by looking at them, seeing the delays in place etc) which is something most players cannot do, perhaps it was wrong of me to assume people did think! :D
So its not an issue with the game or the feature itself, but rather you being too afraid to fix the issue, if someone is spamming marks on you would you cry foul aswell?
It is not a rampant problem, as you can easily kill them if they clog your spots.
Takes less than two minutes to kill any macro.
All macros have a delay in them, either with /delay or when using skills, if you do the way I said there is no macro solution that will help you.
Writing /target X will make you target X, whether its alive or dead.
If you kill it 10 seconds before the macro targets it, it will "poff" away after a few seconds, if the macro is in-mid skill casting step or attacking step, attacking them will force them to flag on you.
But then again, this does require thinking (seeing how their macro is made just by looking at them, seeing the delays in place etc) which is something most players cannot do, perhaps it was wrong of me to assume people did think! :D
While I don't doubt the vast majority of them are easy to do that with. If you even need to try harder than flag and wait for next target... it doesn't take much thought to break that chain of events either.
You are presuming they do a /target then a series of skills/attacks, then delay.
Allowing you to kill a mob before they attack it, then have it fade just before they do their skills so their target is dropped and then you hit them to force them to attack you.
However, i instead they do an attack, then /target, then delay it breaks your assumed chain of events. That would require them to be monumentally stupid and have you targeted when they start the macro up the first time, or you would need to be able to kill it at exactly the right time (and fast enough) to be in between the /target and skills. not impossible, but a lot harder to do since you'd have to wait around hitting them at random when running towards a mob.
If they assume someone was messing with them, and were less concerned with kill speed, they could also insert some delays to ensure that it was nearly impossible to pull their target in the way you describe.
But again.. most aren't going to put anywhere near that much effort into it, and will just invest in some rezes, or have an alt healer around to rez them if needed.
So its not an issue with the game or the feature itself, but rather you being too afraid to fix the issue, if someone is spamming marks on you would you cry foul aswell?
It is not a rampant problem, as you can easily kill them if they clog your spots.
Takes less than two minutes to kill any macro.
All macros have a delay in them, either with /delay or when using skills, if you do the way I said there is no macro solution that will help you.
Writing /target X will make you target X, whether its alive or dead.
If you kill it 10 seconds before the macro targets it, it will "poff" away after a few seconds, if the macro is in-mid skill casting step or attacking step, attacking them will force them to flag on you.
But then again, this does require thinking (seeing how their macro is made just by looking at them, seeing the delays in place etc) which is something most players cannot do, perhaps it was wrong of me to assume people did think! :D
Because killing a macro bot fixes the issue of macro bots littering most outdoor field and xp places at 99+.
Again, workaround != solution nor is that a fix. If killing them disabled their ability to not toons, then I'd gladly do it. But it doesn't.
While I don't doubt the vast majority of them are easy to do that with. If you even need to try harder than flag and wait for next target... it doesn't take much thought to break that chain of events either.
You are presuming they do a /target then a series of skills/attacks, then delay.
Allowing you to kill a mob before they attack it, then have it fade just before they do their skills so their target is dropped and then you hit them to force them to attack you.
However, i instead they do an attack, then /target, then delay it breaks your assumed chain of events. That would require them to be monumentally stupid and have you targeted when they start the macro up the first time, or you would need to be able to kill it at exactly the right time (and fast enough) to be in between the /target and skills. not impossible, but a lot harder to do since you'd have to wait around hitting them at random when running towards a mob.
If they assume someone was messing with them, and were less concerned with kill speed, they could also insert some delays to ensure that it was nearly impossible to pull their target in the way you describe.
But again.. most aren't going to put anywhere near that much effort into it, and will just invest in some rezes, or have an alt healer around to rez them if needed.
Like i said, isnt really hard to 'sneak' into middle of their macro, just look for a minute and you'll see when.. just need to pull your mob next to him and voila.
And sure, if they do make long delays then they might aswell stay alive, if they dont kill mobs they are no problem :o
But yes, might res i agree that might be a problem.. but if so it means theyre somewhat active which makes it more OK to me.
my main complaint with this particular quest is that it leaves support players behind and it encourages afk macro both of which is just bad planning from a MMO perspective - back in the old days I would make parties to grind the Ketra Orc quest and we all helped each other getting it done, that mentality is gone nowadays..
Back in the old days Nova didn't left support players behind.
Or had no problems with afk "macros"
**** these cheaters these days, AFK MACROS IN HELLBOUND! That is bad planning from a MMO perspective.
Like i said, isnt really hard to 'sneak' into middle of their macro, just look for a minute and you'll see when.. just need to pull your mob next to him and voila.
And sure, if they do make long delays then they might aswell stay alive, if they dont kill mobs they are no problem :o
But yes, might res i agree that might be a problem.. but if so it means theyre somewhat active which makes it more OK to me.
You're completely missing the point that Cinna bought up, and the other poster and I were referring to. You're drowning it out in a completely worthless circular semantic argument. Those are fun, but at some point you need to actually address the issue being brought up. Attention spans aren't forever ;-)
Why is it okay for toons to AFK XP. There is worse overpopulation of AFK toons in some zones now than there was when the bots were practically ignored by NCSoft. We could PK Walkered Bots as well, or train them. Or log in a summoner and mark them and let MOBs kill them. So what.
No one is asking "how to kill a Macro Bot." They want to know why they have to compete with AFK XPing toons in XP and Quest areas. That sounds familiar... Like the same question people were asking when they were crying about program bots. And no, there is no difference between the two, except in XP Rate and the fact that the Macros are idiotically built into the game... Lol.
At the lower levels there are areas that are 90% full of Macro bots, like Harnak. There is nothing "right" about that, and that's basically what players have to deal with from 85 on up. Every open area has Macro bots set up all over the zone, except maybe right near the zone-in spots.
How is the game supposed to grow its player base if so many players don't even play the game. How is the game supposed to foster PvP if you're PvPing AFK toons all day and all night?
You're completely missing the point that Cinna bought up, and the other poster and I were referring to. You're drowning it out in a completely worthless circular semantic argument. Those are fun, but at some point you need to actually address the issue being brought up. Attention spans aren't forever ;-)
Why is it okay for toons to AFK XP. There is worse overpopulation of AFK toons in some zones now than there was when the bots were practically ignored by NCSoft. We could PK Walkered Bots as well, or train them. Or log in a summoner and mark them and let MOBs kill them. So what.
No one is asking "how to kill a Macro Bot." They want to know why they have to compete with AFK XPing toons in XP and Quest areas. That sounds familiar... Like the same question people were asking when they were crying about program bots. And no, there is no difference between the two, except in XP Rate and the fact that the Macros are idiotically built into the game... Lol.
At the lower levels there are areas that are 90% full of Macro bots, like Harnak. There is nothing "right" about that, and that's basically what players have to deal with from 85 on up. Every open area has Macro bots set up all over the zone, except maybe right near the zone-in spots.
How is the game supposed to grow its player base if so many players don't even play the game. How is the game supposed to foster PvP if you're PvPing AFK toons all day and all night?
And relevant to this specific post, this quest VERY much encourages you to set up afk and not help anyone.
That's a problem that is only compounded by others doing it for other quests (8k, shinedust, chaos fragments, demons) or just being lazy for XP.
And relevant to this specific post, this quest VERY much encourages you to set up afk and not help anyone.
That's a problem that is only compounded by others doing it for other quests (8k, shinedust, chaos fragments, demons) or just being lazy for XP.
When the game makes it legal to XP AFK, and gives you the tools to do it, how can you call it laziness? Sitting in front of a PC pressing buttons doesn't really take that much effort. IT's not like NCSoft is asking them to join the Marines.
IT's not laziness... It's "why do it, when I don't have to do it?"
Yes, XPing live is better XP than macroing, but is XPing live 4 hours a day better XP than Macroing 24 hours a day? I want to say no, but someone else would have to do that math for me. You're limited by MOB spawn rate in most areas, so there is only so much ground you can make up by being live, to the point where it may not even be worth it if you can get so many hours in AFK.
I have seen characters macroing in places like GC Upper for 4-5 days straight.
The quest doesn't encourage this. The quest is just terribly designed for the Western Market. It's designed for a market where players pay for game town outside of Towns, therefore they design quests that require them to spend inordinate amounts of time out of town killing MOBs... So they pay for more game time.
If our market was like that of Korea, the Macro bots would be a far smaller issue, because they'd have to pay to bot their characters that way.
This is just the result of a development team out of touch with their export markets pushing verbatim content to those markets, which is thoroughly inappropriate for them.
People do it because they can, it's "convenient" for them, and there is no risk of reprimand. The only thing stopping a lot of people from botting was the risk of losing hundreds of hours put into their accounts. Once that was listed, even some of the most vocal complainers from the forums could be seen botting in broad daylight with this macro system...
Most people are opportunists. That's why QA and Testers exists to check the work of developers: To close loopholes that opportunists use to [not] play the game in unintended ways.
my main complaint with this particular quest is that it leaves support players behind and it encourages afk macro both of which is just bad planning from a MMO perspective - back in the old days I would make parties to grind the Ketra Orc quest and we all helped each other getting it done, that mentality is gone nowadays..
I guess I didn't think about this fact went talking about this. Support classes are kind of getting screwed in this, and while yes as mixa pointed out we can help them, but also NCSoft is making it harder and harder to do that. The more people you have in party the less likely you are to receive quest item. Normal rates are roughly 1 in 5 solo, throw you iss boxed buffer in party and that rate drops to 1 in 9 even if they don't have the quest. Drop in another support class that is in need of the quest and you're looking at something like 1:15 or 1:20 rates, which starts to become ludicrous at that rate.
I like the fact that they made it hard though. Not like killing mob hard, like not being able to grind it out in 15 minutes, like everything else is nowadays.
I do think they have to fix the acquisition of quest items, not go to a 1:1 ratio or anything, but factor in support classes can't kill like DD's do. Keep the ratio at a 1:5 or 1:7 regardless of how many people are in party with quest. Another thing I think they need to change is adding Phantasmal Ridge and GC lower into the mobs, after all the quest does say HB and GC.
Why would anyone complain about the macro system NC soft built into the game? Bots were never hard to kill or remove from a preferred exp spot. Macro AFK bots are even easier as mention above alot of the times you just let them flag on you and drop em.
Walker type bots were really bad because of the intelligence built into them that allowed a toon to exp and farm very efficiently, giving them a very big competitive advantage over people that did not want this risk or investment.
Ranger type bots were the WORST! As they literally took the player out of the equation for PVP. Its impossible to have faster reflexes than a program.
(Why it took over 12 years before NCsoft even started to try and remove these is beyond me. Blizzard was PRO and stopping these actions.)
AFK macro does not give a competitive advantage to anyone beyond what they already have. Its like single payer health care, everyone can use it for free and legally, even if its less efficient than exp live with vita boosts. It DOES give the people who liked to bot to keep pace with the people who had the free time to be in the game 40,50,80+ hours a week. The macro helps satisfy this player base.
Some of you are jaded about the drop rates, and I completely agree ALL MOBS IN GC AND GOS SHOULD DROP QUEST ITEMS, that part does seem like a bug, even if its not. Also, every situation in game should be boosted by more people in party, like drop rates and exp. Nothing outside of duo areas should ever give less with more people in party. I've never understood why this is not the case.
STILL, CT and others got this quest done in no time. Proving its not really a big deal. Some did it live and others did it macro, so there is obviously not a problem to complete this in your manner of choice. I will myself plan to AFK marco this quest when I get there. If you PK me while I'm at work, so be it, I'll res when I get home and not be upset.
Oh, and btw, Stromo macros don't need delays. GL getting a flagged status.
Maybe because those days content was more thought of compared to now?
Nothing in this game IS challenging anymore, just pull out a strong wynn, tyrr or evisc. and do any instance in a few minutes.
Even the new instances, how challenging or groundbreaking is it exactly? Go in, kill mobs and repeat.
Like we havent seen that in 20 other instances.
Heck, could even compare istina, octavis, tauti etc during release with bosses (or instances) released the past few years and tell me how the new content is more exciting.
Quest? Go sleep with macro on.
You´re really complaining about the macro system???
All ******* quests these days are 1 item per person in party. Thats when they do drop. Some give less even if another member is not doing it.
******* 8000 items for exalted, now 10000 for this new one.
The 700 mobs one for noble(3rd class?) back in the day was hard. 1 for each member of the party at a time. BUT THAT TIME YOU HAD PEOPLE THAT WOULD GO THERE TO MAKE WITH YOU.
NOW EVERYONE ARE ALL FEEGETS THAT ONLY SAY "DONT TOUCHT MY VITALITY" AND ONLY DO ******* INSTANCES.
Auto macro best thing in game ever <3
Takes less than two minutes to kill any macro.
All macros have a delay in them, either with /delay or when using skills, if you do the way I said there is no macro solution that will help you.
Writing /target X will make you target X, whether its alive or dead.
If you kill it 10 seconds before the macro targets it, it will "poff" away after a few seconds, if the macro is in-mid skill casting step or attacking step, attacking them will force them to flag on you.
But then again, this does require thinking (seeing how their macro is made just by looking at them, seeing the delays in place etc) which is something most players cannot do, perhaps it was wrong of me to assume people did think!
Pff. For everyone that is having issue with those kind of ******* trying to make you flag to **** with your macro:
Put a delays only at the end of the macro(no attacks/skills after it) and a /target %self as the last line of your macro.
STILL, CT and others got this quest done in no time. Proving its not really a big deal.
I want to caution you, or anyone else who would like to use my numbers as a metric for their own success. I kill at speeds 3 to 4 times faster than decently geared toons. I'd like people to try and understand what this quest is like for the average player.
The average speed I've seen a group kill the 300 quest in lower GC has been around 90 minutes. That's with a couple DDs in +8 armor and +12 weapons. Top clans with stacked groups complete the quest in 30 minutes. I solo the 300 quest in 30 minutes.
All ready the average player is 3x slower if they are carrying the entire weight of the group, but that's certainly not the case. They're doing, at best, half the groups damage. That puts them at around 1/6th my kill speed.
So if I was averaging 285 proofs an hour, we can expect an average toon farming 48 an hour. Or around 208 hours to complete.
208 hours. If you treated this quest as a full-time job, it will take you 5+ weeks to complete (8 hours a day). Treat it like a part time job (4 hours a day, 5 days a week?) That's now a 2.5 month long quest. Or 3.5 months if you grind for just 2 hours a day.
This quest is going to take the average player a lot of time!
To add insult to injury, you don't even get worthwhile experience off of these mobs. I hit the 6 hour mark before I saw my XP bar move 0.01% that same rate translates to 0.40% at level 103, but that's at my kill speed. It's closer to 0.06% for your average 103, or 0.01% an hour. You don't even get XP to look forward to.
This quest is just designed to be a huge pain, pure and simple. It will level the majority of players to faction 6 in both zones if they just do the two quests in each zone. I don't think the bots will be an issue for most, as they won't be clearing the spawn like a lot of the first-comers can, but we can't gloss over the fact that this quest is grueling, macro bots or not.
I must be missing something here. I'm 103 and running with a 100% 30 day xp rune, use freya scrolls, occasionally will use a 50% buff pot, Erupting pot, and maphr's when I have them for last boss when doing Altar and only get 1.6%. Also, take into consideration we have that 50% xp boost from the update. WTF am I missing?
Pretty sure Erupting does not work for Raids/Bosses btw.
They need to make the 10,000 Quest items obtainable from any more that belongs to a faction, or even a monster card for.
This and possible giving more than one quest item for harder mobs. For example killing a mob in upper gc or hb quary or circle 1 quest items per 5 mobs, killing in phantasmal ridge or GC lower, 2 quest items per 5 mobs because the mobs are just harder.
Thank you for your info about the rates of quest. Its going to be a pain in the *** but I'm sure the more older L2 players will somewhat enjoy seeing something as painful as the old quests come back and test the newcomers patience.
This and possible giving more than one quest item for harder mobs. For example killing a mob in upper gc or hb quary or circle 1 quest items per 5 mobs, killing in phantasmal ridge or GC lower, 2 quest items per 5 mobs because the mobs are just harder.
Thank you for your info about the rates of quest. Its going to be a pain in the *** but I'm sure the more older L2 players will somewhat enjoy seeing something as painful as the old quests come back and test the newcomers patience.
There was nothing in Old L2 like this. The 700 MOBs quest, for example, dropped an item from every single MOB and you could finish that easily in a day. If you were in a party, then everyone got the kills for each MOB.
Nothing about these quests should be attractive to any player... in any game...
Regardless of their age.
Newcomers aren't "impatient", they are just a bit less dumb about what they waste their time on.
The MMORPG market isn't as thin as it was in 2005. Choices do exist. Where do you think the many thousands of "older players" went?
The Quest should simply give progress for every MOB kill to everyone in the party. The fix is simple, at least for our market.
The way it's designed as little to do with what you're insinuating, and more to do with getting Koreans to sit at the PC outside of town as long as possible so that they can make more money there.
If they actually made adjustments for the various markets, then it wouldn't have come over in this form. Playtime is worthless here, especially when the majority of players will just bot it up, anyways...
3. ill give more details for the next quest cause i guess it would be harder cause we cant macro there it will be by hand on AF prolly or gos
The 104 quest is very easy. I've only done three days of faction quests (gos and AF, NOT EV) and I have 2000 proofs for 3.5 houra of work. Seems to go twice as fast as the 103 quest.
There was nothing in Old L2 like this. The 700 MOBs quest, for example, dropped an item from every single MOB and you could finish that easily in a day. If you were in a party, then everyone got the kills for each MOB.
Nothing about these quests should be attractive to any player... in any game...
Regardless of their age.
Newcomers aren't "impatient", they are just a bit less dumb about what they waste their time on.
The MMORPG market isn't as thin as it was in 2005. Choices do exist. Where do you think the many thousands of "older players" went?
The Quest should simply give progress for every MOB kill to everyone in the party. The fix is simple, at least for our market.
The way it's designed as little to do with what you're insinuating, and more to do with getting Koreans to sit at the PC outside of town as long as possible so that they can make more money there.
If they actually made adjustments for the various markets, then it wouldn't have come over in this form. Playtime is worthless here, especially when the majority of players will just bot it up, anyways...
Well even stabbing baium old days took months for some players, if wars up.
Well even stabbing baium old days took months for some players, if wars up.
That had nothing to do with the quest itself, but simply server politics. Stabbing Baium literally took < 5 seconds.
Yes, wartags were killed on sight. Why wouldn't they be? Aside from that, clans on most (if not all) servers are fairly reasonable about the Noble Quest.
In any case, you're comparing apples to oranges. This Exalted Quest isn't asking anyone to stab Valakas... It's asking them to kill 10,000 lowbie MOBs in 99/100 solo areas that give a really crap drop rate on the quest items. That's comparable to 700k MOBs back in the day, and it certainly wasn't difficult (even in its time) or in any way comparable to the current situation with these quests.
That had nothing to do with the quest itself, but simply server politics. Stabbing Baium literally took < 5 seconds.
Yes, wartags were killed on sight. Why wouldn't they be? Aside from that, clans on most (if not all) servers are fairly reasonable about the Noble Quest.
In any case, you're comparing apples to oranges. This Exalted Quest isn't asking anyone to stab Valakas... It's asking them to kill 10,000 lowbie MOBs in 99/100 solo areas that give a really crap drop rate on the quest items. That's comparable to 700k MOBs back in the day, and it certainly wasn't difficult (even in its time) or in any way comparable to the current situation with these quests.
My point is, things were harder those days, now you just farm items. Takes some time, so what.
My point is, things were harder those days, now you just farm items. Takes some time, so what.
Stabbing Baium was not hard. It was trivial.
If you meant getting wartags to let you in on their raid to finish your quest was hard... Maybe...
But that has literally nothing to do with the quest itself. That was a product of your own political situation on the server you played. Nothing else.
Things were not really "harder" back then. These current 10k quests are just stupid, and they're completely out of line with anything that existed back then. It's not just the fact that it requires that many MOBs, it's the design of the quest itself and the craptasic drop rate you get as a consequence of that...
This game is not "difficult," and never was. It just has a high ask IRT the amount of time you are required to put into it (well, it did until people were allowed to automate that as well). Most of that time was spent doing nothing but monotonous chain clicking. I never heard of a Nostromo until I played this game, because people used it to spam buttons to decrease the amount of ergonomic damage they did to their bodies while playing it (i.e. having it spam F1 on a nuker so you did nothing but click to change targets while XPing, or spam CP Pots during PvP). The only difficult thing was finding the time to fit it in your schedule to a degree that you could actually progress toward competitiveness at a viable pace. The fun was always in the political aspects of the game and the personal relationships forged therein.
There is no item farming. The only time involved there, is the time between paychecks. The very vast majority of players eBay their items in game now. People in lower clans get the "new players," not the end game clans. They're often dinging 85 straight into 4-5 Boss Jewels and OE'd Sets and weapons. Yes, I've had newbie Academy Members link me AQ/Baium Soul and even Valakas and Antharas jewels, along with +6 Sets, etc...
The Drop Rates are too low to viably compete by "farming." It just doesn't happen anymore, unless you plan to buy that +++ Weapon by selling Rune Stones and BEAR/EWR on the AH or in Giran...
i just did 8k HB quest few days ago
for a looser like me (100lvl in seraph :rolleyes:) it took 1 day of afk macro
auto-macro is the sole best thing in a line of failures NCSoft did since GOD:cool:
HB 8K quest only takes a few hours in Phantasmal Ridge with a decent group of clannies. AFK Macroing it in a day is just horribly inefficient, and that isn't a shining example of how it's "better" than anything. People are abusing Macros to XP their characters all over the map, not just complete a few "inconvenient" quests. I think you people are using one situation to try to paint the entire topic with a nice color. People are abusing the Macros because it allows their characters to gain XP 24/7, at any time the servers are up, even when they aren't at the PC or even in the same house as their PC.
You get like 2-3 items per kill in Phantasmal Ridge.
Seraph isn't much worse than Eternal without Dark or Bloody on it, so I'm not sure what your armor is supposed to say about your situation other than the fact that maybe you can do basic math ;-)
I had Eternal armor and sold it because it was worthless to invest in it if I wasn't going to eBay the Bloody or Dark (cause there's no way I could legitimately farm this stuff up in game otherwise).
You could do the HB quest in Immortal Armor with 0 issues, if you stick to Magic Circle or Quarry.
I think the Macro situation has seen enough talk in this thread. Please try to keep the baiting comments to a minimum moving forwards.
Discussion is about the 10k Proof quest, which needs to see its areas of completion expanded to include XP areas for the players who will be doing it, or have the drop rate raised [substantially].