Gold Farming Bots/People

[Muljo_Stpho]

Now obviously, it's not up to players to police the game in such a way, but if players can't grab a chest of opportunity in passing, then all BW are doing here by not dealing with the bots is favouring the select few using them. There is, of course, an easy way to fix this. Get rid of fixed chest locations in public non-story areas, and single-spawn only chest in story areas. Randomised chest spawns in public areas, same number of chests as present with same respawn timers except they respawn somewhere at random once the timer ends. Somewhere accessible, obviously, but random nonetheless. Scripts rely heavily on predictability. Remove that, and you make it that much less worth the effort for them.

 

I had a thought on this that came up out of something from another thread. The discussion was for tweaking the HK parts hunt and the idea that came up was to make a revised version of the Burba excavator into an ability (remove the item version of it that we currently have) available to all characters at some point early in the game (level 10, or maybe even right away at level 1) and make it possible to collect the parts along the way while leveling long before you actually pick up the mission for HK.

 

A suggestion that I had to explain what I meant for this revised excavator, aside from the obvious thoughts that it should give a clearer indicator more in line with how they did it for the seeker droid and it should flash a message about being in the right area like the seeker droid does ("your excavator detects an HK part in the area"), is that they could allow it to uncover other types of treasure as well and they could add in even more locations where it can find things.

 

That thought immediately made me think of the security chests. Suppose they removed all or most of the current public security chests and then made them into things that the excavator ability can uncover?

 

This would inherently have some of that random factor in it that you're asking for. HK parts usually seem to have a number of specific hotspots within their region where they can possibly be (it's only at one of them at a time) but they randomize the exact location somewhere within those hotspots. Presumably they would do the same for where other treasures can be uncovered.

 

And on top of having a somewhat randomized location you also have to use a tool and interpret its output (which hopefully gets some sort of directional indicator added to help guide our searches) to narrow in on it instead of just having it out in the open.

 

I suppose it would be a bit different though. Perhaps the name "hidden cache" and a smaller box design would fit this idea better than the security chests. But either way, you could be on your way to a mission and the excavator could point out that you are near HK hotspots or that you're near hidden cache hotspots or that you're near... whatever other kind of hotspots they can think to include (as I think about this idea again I'm wondering if some of the resource nodes could be hidden away like this as well... it would have to only alert you to and let you uncover the nodes if you have the right crew skill for them though...) And if you feel like it you can take some time to scan around a bit to uncover some treasure.

 

Short of doing all of that though, it would also be fine if they were to just have some randomized locations for the out-in-the-open chests like you said. Either approach would make the task less straightforward for the botters.

 

I'd imagine that there would be some similar considerations for the developers in setting this up regardless of whether they put things randomized out in the open or randomized hidden to be uncovered. They would want to pick accessible hotspots where the exact location can be randomized within the hotspot and the treasure won't end up inside an object / wall. They would have to have zones designated where they can lay down some spawn rules.

 

For spawns out in the open they might do like someone mentioned is apparently the case for Outlaw's Den on Tatooine where there are 12 possible spawn locations but a maximum of 5 can be available at the same time. So only some maximum fraction of the hotspots in the same zone can have a chest spawned at the same time.

 

For spawns that would have to be uncovered, the behavior with the HK parts is more like only one of the hotspots in the zone can be active and then it randomizes to a new hotspot after that one is uncovered. Do they copy that behavior or do they allow more hotspots to be active at the same time and add hidden cooldowns for when the system can activate a new hotspot and when the same hotspot that was just uncovered can be activated again? (Whichever way it goes, I can't picture this copying the seeker droid's mechanic of having it possible for a zone to enter a "depleted" state so that no hotspots are allowed to be active just because one "special" treasure was uncovered.)

Edited May 27, 2015 by Muljo_Stpho

[Legolose]

I had a thought on this that came up out of something from another thread. The discussion was for tweaking the HK parts hunt and the idea that came up was to make a revised version of the Burba excavator into an ability (remove the item version of it that we currently have) available to all characters at some point early in the game (level 10, or maybe even right away at level 1) and make it possible to collect the parts along the way while leveling long before you actually pick up the mission for HK.

 

A suggestion that I had to explain what I meant for this revised excavator, aside from the obvious thoughts that it should give a clearer indicator more in line with how they did it for the seeker droid and it should flash a message about being in the right area like the seeker droid does ("your excavator detects an HK part in the area"), is that they could allow it to uncover other types of treasure as well and they could add in even more locations where it can find things.

 

That thought immediately made me think of the security chests. Suppose they removed all or most of the current public security chests and then made them into things that the excavator ability can uncover?

 

This would inherently have some of that random factor in it that you're asking for. HK parts usually seem to have a number of specific hotspots within their region where they can possibly be (it's only at one of them at a time) but they randomize the exact location somewhere within those hotspots. Presumably they would do the same for where other treasures can be uncovered.

 

And on top of having a somewhat randomized location you also have to use a tool and interpret its output (which hopefully gets some sort of directional indicator added to help guide our searches) to narrow in on it instead of just having it out in the open.

 

I suppose it would be a bit different though. Perhaps the name "hidden cache" and a smaller box design would fit this idea better than the security chests. But either way, you could be on your way to a mission and the excavator could point out that you are near HK hotspots or that you're near hidden cache hotspots or that you're near... whatever other kind of hotspots they can think to include (as I think about this idea again I'm wondering if some of the resource nodes could be hidden away like this as well... it would have to only alert you to and let you uncover the nodes if you have the right crew skill for them though...) And if you feel like it you can take some time to scan around a bit to uncover some treasure.

 

Short of doing all of that though, it would also be fine if they were to just have some randomized locations for the out-in-the-open chests like you said. Either approach would make the task less straightforward for the botters.

 

I'd imagine that there would be some similar considerations for the developers in setting this up regardless of whether they put things randomized out in the open or randomized hidden to be uncovered. They would want to pick accessible hotspots where the exact location can be randomized within the hotspot and the treasure won't end up inside an object / wall. They would have to have zones designated where they can lay down some spawn rules.

 

For spawns out in the open they might do like someone mentioned is apparently the case for Outlaw's Den on Tatooine where there are 12 possible spawn locations but a maximum of 5 can be available at the same time. So only some maximum fraction of the hotspots in the same zone can have a chest spawned at the same time.

 

For spawns that would have to be uncovered, the behavior with the HK parts is more like only one of the hotspots in the zone can be active and then it randomizes to a new hotspot after that one is uncovered. Do they copy that behavior or do they allow more hotspots to be active at the same time and add hidden cooldowns for when the system can activate a new hotspot and when the same hotspot that was just uncovered can be activated again? (Whichever way it goes, I can't picture this copying the seeker droid's mechanic of having it possible for a zone to enter a "depleted" state so that no hotspots are allowed to be active just because one "special" treasure was uncovered.)

HOLY WALL POST BATMAN!!! Didn't even want to jump in and try and read all this just want to post my daily Batman saying

[Muljo_Stpho]

HOLY WALL POST BATMAN!!! Didn't even want to jump in and try and read all this just want to post my daily Batman saying

 

Oh you know it could be so so SO much worse. I have paragraphs and punctuation in there, after all.

 

Still, string together anything more than one and a half sentences long and this is the reaction you get from people...

[GraceMBarta]

Exactly. It is only inefficient for a person to do this. It is free money for those that run a bot program and allow it to do its thing.

 

This, and the answer is simply for Bioware to make the boxes Random. Location and time. That can defeat bots, and make them available to their customers in turn.