Leeloo Report post Posted July 19, 2004 How do other games handle this type of situation? What type of situation? Noobs whining because they can't use their favorite macro-program to get high exp level overnight? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
The_Piper Report post Posted July 21, 2004 Just a quick idea to detect macroers who try to get high harvest levels over night: If i get it right, macros repeat events, like click 30 times on harvestable item, click on inventory and drop items to bag, click on fruit to eat, and so on. Why not scan the incoming commands/events from the client and try to detect such loops? If you find a loop which repeats - harvest nnn items - drop nnn items to bag - eat something for more than 20 times, or for several hours, youve found a macroer. This can be made by setting up a stack or a queue which holds the latest 128 commands and their counts. In this example, the stack would look like: HARVEST 223 DROP 1 EAT_FRUIT 1 HARVEST 223 DROP 1 EAT_FRUIT 1 HARVEST 223 DROP 1 EAT_FRUIT 1 HARVEST 223 DROP 1 EAT_FRUIT 1 HARVEST 223 DROP 1 EAT_FRUIT 1 HARVEST 223 ... Now scan this stack periodically for repeating patterns with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,... commands and in this example you will find a pattern of 3 commands which repeats a lot of times. And you have got it. Maybe scan every 5-10 minutes, maybe every hour. I dont think that these scans cost a lot of time. What do you think about it? Piper Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Grum Report post Posted July 21, 2004 Though I kinda like the idea, I think that continuously checking and updating these stacks for a few hundred people may be a lot of work for the server. Especially since you have to check for pattern sizes, different patterns, etc. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Undrtakr Report post Posted July 21, 2004 I like the idea of increasing your harvesting exp limit successes per hour. Maybe 20 or so more would be good for every 10 levels though. Like keep it 120 at 0-10, then 140 at 10-20, 160 at 20-30, 180 at 30-40, 200 at 40-50 and so on. Also, make mercury harvestable. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Quinticus Report post Posted July 21, 2004 I think changing the harvesting limit is a good idea...but i would since i'm one of those people who doesn't concentrate on mangling the other players. It's just annoying to have to wait 50 minutes so i can spend the next 10 getting SOME exp. but i do understand the need for it. Well i'm off to see if my unborn child is a boy or a girl. yay sonograms Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
president Report post Posted July 21, 2004 Just forget the whole stupid :twisted: idea except the part for time limit and make it like 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
The_Piper Report post Posted July 22, 2004 @grum it wont take much time for some 100 ppl to update that stack or queue. Its only moving 32 bytes extra for every event which comes from the client. if(stack.event[sp]==incoming_event){ stack.count[sp]++; } else{ sp++; if(sp > STACKSIZE) sp=0; stack.event[sp]=incoming_event; stack.count[sp]=1; } and the checking for patterns shouldnt be done EVERY event, but only maybe every 15 or 30 minutes. and this is fast too because the stack must not be very big to catch 2-5 item large patterns. you can easily reduce it to 64 or 32 slots. Piper Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Leeloo Report post Posted July 22, 2004 You think macroers don't know how to use rand()? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Geelef Report post Posted July 22, 2004 We've kinda had this discussion ages ago, many things were suggested, and it turned out that a harvesting limit was the best way to handle macroers, believe it or not. And Ent stretched the exp limit already, it used to be lower (although that was really long ago), so this is about as much as you will get... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
fred_penner Report post Posted July 22, 2004 How do other games handle this type of situation? What type of situation? Noobs whining because they can't use their favorite macro-program to get high exp level overnight? No, my orange haired friend, I mean how do other games handle a situation where a macroing player can gain alot of experience by doing the same thing over and over? How do they stop it? Do they even try to stop it? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
fred_penner Report post Posted July 30, 2004 What about putting a limit on a per-item basis? Once you harv 200 of one thing, you get no more exp for that hour on that item. But if you go harvest something else, you get exp for t he first 200 of that item in that hour. Might be a bit more data to keep track of on the server, but I think it makes it hard enough to dissuade macroers, and still lets the average player get harv exp and not be punished for what other players "might" do. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Curor Report post Posted July 30, 2004 How do other games handle this type of situation? What type of situation? Noobs whining because they can't use their favorite macro-program to get high exp level overnight? No, my orange haired Runescape has monsters which pop out after you harvest for a while. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
princessarora Report post Posted July 31, 2004 To a certain degree i agree about the harvesting xp. However i don't think the limit should be taken out. But making the limit a little higher would be nice . Also, harvesting is not the only thing in this game with a limit. If you think about it, alchemy has a limit too in the way of failing but mostly, in the way of losing ingredients......This, i don't understand. We work for a long time getting ingredients for alchemy just to have them disappear on us because we failed. This i don't think is fair. It's hard enough to do alchemy as it is because of all the food you have to eat but it's really really frustrating when you lose ingredients you spents so long getting! It would be really nice to see a change in that.....but hey, i'm just one voice :oops: . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
duran Report post Posted August 1, 2004 the chance is about 30% of a fail so for every 30 out of 100 fails you risk destroying what your makeing. its perfectly acceptable in my view as your basicly trying to mix stuff together and if it fails your got a lot of mixed together stuff that do nothing what so ever... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
princessarora Report post Posted August 1, 2004 Call me stupid.............but WHAT?????? :? What's your point? I didn't understand that reply at all. It made no sence to me. Your right that when we fail and lose, we end up with a bunch of stuff we don't need. But that statement only enforces my point that it's not fair that we should spend all that time gathering ingredients just to have it taken away because we fail and lose, we don't end up making the amount that we intended to. It's hard enough as it is when we fail as often as we do........As i said before, just one persons oppinion. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
duran Report post Posted August 2, 2004 in fact you get of easy when the stuff only becomes lost 30% of the time you fail a skill test. in the real world you would loose it 90-99% of the time. allso its a matter of failing the test, so make sure you have atleast the recommended level in the skill before you try. then you have a 50% or better chance of success... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites