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bkc56

Harvest level and mini-events

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Disclaimer: I admit this suggestion is somewhat self-service. That's OK, I still think it has merit.

 

When harvesting mini-events were added we were told it was to help deal with the gold farming problem. This included the concept that mini-events made it hard/impossible to use a bunch of alts to do mass harvesting because the mini-events would be stopping them all the time. I believe that's true although I don't know if the mini-events have truly slowed or stopped the harvesting-based gc farming (perhaps Entropy could comment on their success in this regard).

 

It does seem to me that many (most?) people don't like the mini-events. <insert argument about EL is not an afk game here> <insert counter argument that the nature of leveling requires massive harvesting here> (these arguments have been well explored elsewhere, there's no need to repeat them again here).

 

So assuming they are helping the gc farming problem, and given their focus is to reduce the use of alts for mass harvesting, is there really any value to the game for them to hamper a legitimate main characters resource gathering which is required to work on skills? I suspect most/all alts used for gc farming do not have the high harvesting levels that your typical main character has.

 

So I propose the following: The frequency of mini-events be tied to a characters harvest level and that starting as some level (for example 50) their rate begins to drop until the character reaches some higher harvest level (for example 100) at which point they totally stop.

 

This allows mini-events to continue to server their purpose against the use of multiple gc farming alts, but will free up higher-level main chars to more successfully harvest the large amounts of raw-ingredients they need. Granted, new players will still have to deal with them, but knowing that hard work on the harvesting skill can reduce or eliminate the mini-events will provide a reward to those who put in the effort.

 

I believe this will better focus the mini-events where they are needed without penalizing those people who are trying to play the game as intended. And if there were any long-term players who were driven off by mini-events (comments by some on the PK server would lead me to believe this is true) the above rate reductions might cause some of them to return again (which is always a good thing).

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Perhaps past level 50 or so you may choose whether you would like to decrease or keep the amount of minis the same. Similar to the choosing how summons act. if decrease, decrease with the correlation you've given.

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A word about harvesing (yes, i did some harvesting in the past):

 

Thats the most boring skill in game, because it forces you to sit in front of your monitor and wait, that something happens, like a harvest event or a mini-event. And then start harvesting again.

 

The difference to other skills is, that you must WAIT for something to happen, like a harvest event, instead of doing something, like casting a spell in combat, using a ring, or whatever. Even mixing FE's might be more interesting.

 

My main concern about the game is: wasting players time whle waiting.

 

We have cooldown on pots and rings, harvest cooldowns, harvest limits per hour, when you can get XP again, respawn times of creatures, mostly all has to do with waiting!

 

I personally dont like to wait, when i play a game, i want to do something, if i want to wait, i could go outside and watch grass grow or stare at a wall and watch color dry...

 

And the mini-harvest-events just force you that to do: stare at a monitor and wait, that something happens.

 

Ok, i'm not going to compare EL with companies, which can hire 10000 artists to do animations, but while harvesting nothing happens. There is not even an animation, there is not even something, where you can see, how long you have to wait, until you can harvest again, when a harvest event stops you.

 

Suggestions:

 

Change harvesting completely.

 

Lets get rid of the 120 items per hour xp harv limit, if needed, lower the xp you get from harvesting.

 

Running out resources.

 

Changing resource spawns, if a resource runs out, choose a different spot to respawn it.

 

Still my 2 euro cents, hope they help somehow :)

 

Piper

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When harvesting mini-events were added we were told it was to help deal with the gold farming problem. This included the concept that mini-events made it hard/impossible to use a bunch of alts to do mass harvesting because the mini-events would be stopping them all the time. I believe that's true although I don't know if the mini-events have truly slowed or stopped the harvesting-based gc farming (perhaps Entropy could comment on their success in this regard).

From the original mini-event thread.

This is not only for farmers, it is to reduce the AFK harvesting in general, which makes no sense.
<insert argument about EL is not an afk game here>

It's not an argument, it's just a statement from Entropy indicating the intended purpose of mini-events. So reducing or removing them (not arguing for or against, really) doesn't fulfill that intent.

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I suspect most/all alts used for gc farming do not have the high harvesting levels that your typical main character has.

On the contrary. Go back to when WV titanium mine was full of harvesting alts All those alts had 70 or 80 harvesting level, some A/D levels done to get the initial p/c for EMU, some magic levels from the healing/restoring because of all the damage mother nature did there and zero all other skills.

If mini events stop at 100 harvesting, the only harvesting alts will benefit.

 

Here's what actually happens in EL.

There are two categories:

1. Players who can't afford or are not willing to spend their real life money on an online game.

2. Players who are willing to spend very much. They may buy stuff from EL shop for themselves or for their friends. This helps the game because Entropy gets the profit. But there's only so much they want to buy.

 

People in category 1 create harvesting alts and sell gcs to people in second category for real life money so they can get their p2p chars or buy stuff from EL shop. This increases EL shop traffic,

But this doesn't mean that people who sold gcs for real life money will actually always spend that money in EL shop so this is ultimately not a very good thing because it means cutting into Entropy's profit.

On the long run, these harvesting alts may reach 90 or 100 harvesting levels and there will be more gcs to sell if mini events stop completely at level 100 harvesting. Unless another solution is implemented for gcs farming, mini events as bad as they are, remain the only partial solution.

Edited by hussam

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harvesting alts can still be used while playing on main character, you focus on the game (your main) anyway so its easy to keep track of when your alt stops harvesting (if you keep 2 windows open next to eachother)

 

did that for a while on my own alt, harv on alt, train on main, the mini events were no problem at all, the mapchanging was more time consuming.

going by that could it be possible that the statistics show a drop in gc income by harvesting cause of regular (main char playing) players who either quit or stopped harvesting?

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In my opinion the only 1 true fail-proof way to stop gold coin farming is for radu to sell gold coin at the shop.

 

As long as there is no other way to obtain gold coin other than working in-game then there will always be someone willing to do it for a rl profit.

 

I look at it this way...

 

Player A makes an alt called Player B.

 

Player A trains while harvesting with Player B.

 

Player B sells the harvest items for gold coin and sells the gold coin to a buyer for rl $$.

 

Player A then takes that $$ and buys back gold coin.

 

You would think that this would be illegal multi but I doubt there is any real way to monitor it.

 

I believe 100% that if mini events were removed and radu made gold coin available at the shop then quite a few problems would be solved.

 

Now for all those that say "omfg this would ruin the economy!", you should really think about that for a second first.

 

1. People willing to spend rl $$ have been around EL for a long time already and have had a advantage over other players anyway.

 

2. When mini events came into the game myself and others noticed a huge drop in sales of certain items on the market.

 

In my time here in EL I cannot say I have found the market to be as bad as it is now but I have only been around a couple of years so someone correct me if they remember a time more difficult to buy/sell items please.

 

Also I do think mini events dealt a hit to gold coin farmers as was the goal but it has not stopped it completely. But it also had a negative effect on a lot of people who used to like harvesting and now do not.

 

For myself I will deal with whatever happens with the mini events. Would be nice to not have them but I have dealt with them for a while and got somewhat used to them. I would suggest that the rate of mini events on flowers be reduced though as it seems to happen after just a couple harvest and is really bothersome. Now that the blue lupine bush was made normal in Portland I don't think people will be harvest flowers to farm gold coin.

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In my opinion the only 1 true fail-proof way to stop gold coin farming is for radu to sell gold coin at the shop.

If we could, I'd prefer to keep focused on the concept of a possible relationship between harvest levels and mini-events. There are plenty of other threads about gc farming, we don't need this one to morph into yet another.

Edited by bkc56

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In my opinion the only 1 true fail-proof way to stop gold coin farming is for radu to sell gold coin at the shop.

If we could, I'd prefer to keep focused on the concept of a possible relationship between harvest levels and mini-events. There are plenty of other threads about gc farming, we don't need this one to morph into yet another.

 

OK then..

 

No I don't like that idea.

 

Harvest alts just harvest. They will all gain harvest levels quicker than others that work other skills for the most part. Then you will have an eventual problem when mostly harvest alts are the only characters "not" affected by mini events.

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Harvest alts just harvest. They will all gain harvest levels quicker than others that work other skills for the most part. Then you will have an eventual problem when mostly harvest alts are the only characters "not" affected by mini events.

That's a valid point, and to be honest I don't know enough about harvest alt usage to know if they would get those kinds of levels or if simple flowers harvesting will be to slow to gain higher levels.

 

Part of my motivation is that I'd like to see more advantages for high harvest levels. Faster harvesting (speed) is nice, but that seems to cap out. Reduced mini-events would be nice. A shift towards less negative / more positive events would be nice. I'd just like to see more reward for those who have spent years getting to levels above 100 (at 120 harvest per hour).

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What if it was a ratio of harvest combined with other skill lvls? Most of the time if it's a harvest alt it's a harvest alt, they don't put much into other skills and if they do then they are having to spend time on the alt at some point to get those skills up meaning that it becomes less of an alt and more of a second account.

 

The skills that should be weighted would be more on the mixing side: alch, pot, crafting, tailoring etc. as Attack and defense don't have a direct link to harvesting I think it should be left out of the equation or very lightly weighted if they are. That way it also encourages those that do level mixing skills and provides a market to the A/D players as they would receive more harvest events and prefer to buy ready made items from other players.

 

I think in a way this would help balance the game between the mixing classes and the strictly A/D players.

 

Discuss :)

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In my opinion the only 1 true fail-proof way to stop gold coin farming is for radu to sell gold coin at the shop.

 

As long as there is no other way to obtain gold coin other than working in-game then there will always be someone willing to do it for a rl profit.

Game theory would dictate your theory to be false, exactly for the reason you have given in your second sentence. For any gc/$ rate, the 'black market' gc sellers will simply undercut the EL shop. If the Shop rate is e.g. 5k gc/$, this sets the black market floor at (5k+risk)/{:content:}nbsp; note:("risk" being some increased factor for the chance of getting scammed). For any gc/$ rate from the shop, there will be black market sellers undercutting this rate. The only way to stop this problem is to cut off the supply of gc for sale.

 

What if it was a ratio of harvest combined with other skill lvls? Most of the time if it's a harvest alt it's a harvest alt, they don't put much into other skills and if they do then they are having to spend time on the alt at some point to get those skills up meaning that it becomes less of an alt and more of a second account.

 

The skills that should be weighted would be more on the mixing side: alch, pot, crafting, tailoring etc. as Attack and defense don't have a direct link to harvesting I think it should be left out of the equation or very lightly weighted if they are. That way it also encourages those that do level mixing skills and provides a market to the A/D players as they would receive more harvest events and prefer to buy ready made items from other players.

 

I think in a way this would help balance the game between the mixing classes and the strictly A/D players.

 

Discuss :o

This idea could be a start, but what happens when someone obtains an army of reasonably leveled alts for harvesting? I would prefer a solution which would not allow significant abuse by the same people who are currently undercutting the EL shop as it is. If a level requirement is imposted (e.g. alch 50) to enable a character to harvest with fewer mini events, the existing farming alts will just earn alch 50. It's not that tough to do while already afk-harvesting masses of ingredients - just a minor setback.

 

I would much rather see a policy where each actual player (note: not household or IP) is allowed to use (only) one character at a time. This, meaning that if someone wants to use an alt, s/he would have to log off the main character. With that said, this idea has been previously rejected.

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I would much rather see a policy where each actual player (note: not household or IP) is allowed to use (only) one character at a time. This, meaning that if someone wants to use an alt, s/he would have to log off the main character. With that said, this idea has been previously rejected.

Is there a method for implementing that?

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I would much rather see a policy where each actual player (note: not household or IP) is allowed to use (only) one character at a time. This, meaning that if someone wants to use an alt, s/he would have to log off the main character. With that said, this idea has been previously rejected.

Is there a method for implementing that?

 

There would not need to be much of a method. The mod team must already make the determination of whether two characters belong to e.g. two brothers, or one player and his ficus. If this idea were deemed acceptable by an overwhelming majority of the player base, AND it were know that attempts to bypass this rule would mean the risk of permanently losing both main character and alts, this could work.

 

With this method, I'd imagine the number of resources entering the game would decrease by a decent margin and virtually eliminate farming alts, while simultaneously making the average player better able to harvest without as many dreaded mini events.

 

Note: to head off the inevitable argument about whether this would mean more work for moderators, mods can decide this without any additional input on the subject. Please address only the points above.

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I would much rather see a policy where each actual player (note: not household or IP) is allowed to use (only) one character at a time. This, meaning that if someone wants to use an alt, s/he would have to log off the main character. With that said, this idea has been previously rejected.

Is there a method for implementing that?

 

There would not need to be much of a method. The mod team must already make the determination of whether two characters belong to e.g. two brothers, or one player and his ficus. If this idea were deemed acceptable by an overwhelming majority of the player base, AND it were know that attempts to bypass this rule would mean the risk of permanently losing both main character and alts, this could work.

 

With this method, I'd imagine the number of resources entering the game would decrease by a decent margin and virtually eliminate farming alts, while simultaneously making the average player better able to harvest without as many dreaded mini events.

 

Note: to head off the inevitable argument about whether this would mean more work for moderators, mods can decide this without any additional input on the subject. Please address only the points above.

At the risk of making enemies with some people. I feel that this would be a good idea. However, what percentage of players online are alts? Is that known?

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At the risk of making enemies with some people. I feel that this would be a good idea. However, what percentage of players online are alts? Is that known?

I would say not everyone has an alt but there are always people who 10+ alts.

 

asgnny, how about verification methods on registering new players? Is it possible for EL client to read something from a player's machine like MAC address and restrict the number of connections per machine? (I'm not a techie so I don't really know whether that's possible or not).

Edited by hussam

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This idea could be a start, but what happens when someone obtains an army of reasonably leveled alts for harvesting? I would prefer a solution which would not allow significant abuse by the same people who are currently undercutting the EL shop as it is. If a level requirement is imposted (e.g. alch 50) to enable a character to harvest with fewer mini events, the existing farming alts will just earn alch 50. It's not that tough to do while already afk-harvesting masses of ingredients - just a minor setback.

 

What I ment was more then just alch 50 or something to that effect.

If we take the 7 different non-combat skills and then set a final mark at which harvest events become null it would look like this:

Player A has these lvls= Manu 32, Eng. 24, Tailoring 10, Crafting 50, Pot 75, Alch 91, and Harvest 105

We set the goal at 700 (lvl 100 for each skill included, this is an example it could be any lvl or combination of lvls, tailoring being more difficult and all) so...

 

32+24+10+50+75+91+105=387

387/700=.55

 

So this person would get 55% less harvest events then normal and they have some fairly decent lvls.

 

You could also set a mark where this formula starts say harvest lvl 50 or something. They have to get to that before this "discount" is even considered in game play.

 

A "reasonably" lvled alt would have to have some very good lvl's to get to 0 mini events, at that point making the alt more of a secondary stand alone player then just a harvest alt because of the amount of time it would take to get there.

 

And the neg. perks idea would fit into this by simply adding them to the formula in a way that they are negative. so if a person has godless they get -7 added meaning it takes slightly more lvling to compensate for taking a neg. perk but they can still eventually gain no mini event status to. Just thought I'd throw that in there since someone mentioned the possibility above and many harvesting alts max out neg. perks.

 

If that makes sense to anyone but me :)

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This idea could be a start, but what happens when someone obtains an army of reasonably leveled alts for harvesting? I would prefer a solution which would not allow significant abuse by the same people who are currently undercutting the EL shop as it is. If a level requirement is imposted (e.g. alch 50) to enable a character to harvest with fewer mini events, the existing farming alts will just earn alch 50. It's not that tough to do while already afk-harvesting masses of ingredients - just a minor setback.

 

What I ment was more then just alch 50 or something to that effect.

If we take the 7 different non-combat skills and then set a final mark at which harvest events become null it would look like this:

Player A has these lvls= Manu 32, Eng. 24, Tailoring 10, Crafting 50, Pot 75, Alch 91, and Harvest 105

We set the goal at 700 (lvl 100 for each skill included, this is an example it could be any lvl or combination of lvls, tailoring being more difficult and all) so...

 

32+24+10+50+75+91+105=387

387/700=.55

 

So this person would get 55% less harvest events then normal and they have some fairly decent lvls.

 

You could also set a mark where this formula starts say harvest lvl 50 or something. They have to get to that before this "discount" is even considered in game play.

 

A "reasonably" lvled alt would have to have some very good lvl's to get to 0 mini events, at that point making the alt more of a secondary stand alone player then just a harvest alt because of the amount of time it would take to get there.

 

And the neg. perks idea would fit into this by simply adding them to the formula in a way that they are negative. so if a person has godless they get -7 added meaning it takes slightly more lvling to compensate for taking a neg. perk but they can still eventually gain no mini event status to. Just thought I'd throw that in there since someone mentioned the possibility above and many harvesting alts max out neg. perks.

 

If that makes sense to anyone but me :)

 

I like the idea of such an effect being based off of the skills average. This could be a way to reward all-arounders (who would likely be the ones who need to harvest the most anyhow). I'd also love to just see a rule forbidding harvest alts, but I don't see that happening anytime soon :P

Edited by asgnny

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one player on at a time per IP is perfect idea, allowing for family members of course.

 

shame it got rejected by Radu awhile ago, it makes perfect sense to stop the GC farming.

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We set the goal at 700 (lvl 100 for each skill included, this is an example it could be any lvl or combination of lvls, tailoring being more difficult and all) so...

 

...

 

You could also set a mark where this formula starts say harvest lvl 50 or something. They have to get to that before this "discount" is even considered in game play.

I think 100/skill is a bit high. I think 50/skill on average indicates a well developed character. But since the benefit is for harvesting, perhaps we set a minimum of level 100 for the harvesting min (instead of only 50).

 

But in principal, I like the idea. It rewards the right people (not harvesting alts) for playing the game for a long time (developing multiple skills). I think this a a better developed idea that a simple relationship to harvest level that I started with.

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small sidenote: If you refer to non-combat skills, don't forget that the magic skill belongs there too atm.

So it boils down to 8 skills. The noncombat-ranking is calced this way too, so don't shoot me :)

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Personally, I think tying it to harvest exp level doesn't solve anything, it just means if a person is persistant enough with their 'gold farmer' that when they get it to a high enough level, then they have an uber gold farmer (a step in the wrong direction, imo.) This also doesn't help the experienceless newbie, which would concern me more when talking about these mini-events.

 

I hate to throw a curve at your suggestion, but here's my what bubbled up for me...

 

Why not just let 'experience' harvests be mini-event free? There's already an event on the server side that indicates max harvest experience for that hour, why can't that be the on/off switch for mini-events?

 

This way people can get their harvesting experience fairly painlessly. Then, the mini-events could be turned up (yes I said up) for the 'farmers' to make it even more difficult to harvest unless it's for experience.... If anything, there should be 'more' mini-events per harvest level, not less as the reward is far greater as your harvest level grows.

 

This would also reduce the number of newbie complaints about harvesting, I think.

 

(The extreme end of this suggestion would be to just limit harvests to 120 per hour and let that be that... Consider this before going 'gah'. It would have some pretty interesting effects on the economy/resources and would make you have work pretty darned hard to get the stuff you needed. It would also make the prices of resources jump through the roof as they would be limited (kinda like piper suggested.))

 

My 2gc :)

 

DB

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Why not just let 'experience' harvests be mini-event free?

 

Initially thought that would be interesting (even the absolute harvest limit). However, if I was a farmer I'd just build ten characters in place of one, and cycle through them (still only needing one logged in at a time...).

 

 

An MMORPG really needs to be designed from scratch to avoid the problem of farmers -- and that mainly means no character advancement through grind (in wealth or experience) which the farmers can exploit.

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Why not just let 'experience' harvests be mini-event free?

 

However, if I was a farmer I'd just build ten characters in place of one, and cycle through them (still only needing one logged in at a time...).

Yeah, it might not fix it totally, but if it makes it more difficult for the farmer, and yet eases the pain for the regular player, isn't that a good thing? :D

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