Max_Killjoy Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) This really isn't a bug (something that doesn't work) or an exploit (something wonky that actual players can take unfair advantage of). It might well be a bad design decision. I'd go back and expand on my suggestions from earlier: 1) more node spawn locations, spawning more randomly in location and timing, and never with a PC or companion within X distance -- this would make it harder for the bots to be in the right place at the right time to instant-gather. 2) place more of the nodes in places where mobs will agro, flagging the bots for combat and complicating their timing and movement. 3) change the contents of slicing nodes to no more than one credit box, with the rest of the "payout" in sliced tech parts, schematics, and crew skill mission unlocks. 4) engage in a far more robust effort to target the actual botters, instead of making things harder for real normal players. Edited February 26, 2016 by Max_Killjoy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanArgent Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 This really isn't a bug (something that doesn't work) or an exploit (something wonky that actual players can take unfair advantage of). It might well be a bad design decision. I'd go back and expand on my suggestions from earlier: 1) more node spawn locations, spawning more randomly in location and timing, and never with a PC or companion within X distance -- this would make it harder for the bots to be in the right place at the right time to instant-gather. 2) place more of the nodes in places where mobs will agro, flagging the bots for combat and complicating their timing and movement. 3) change the contents of slicing nodes to no more than one credit box, with the rest of the "payout" in sliced tech parts, schematics, and crew skill mission unlocks. 4) engage in a far more robust effort to target the actual botters, instead of making things harder for real normal players. Reasonable, targeted, and measured responses, all. Which makes it vanishingly unlikely BW will do them individually or collectively, without overreacting first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Reasonable, targeted, and measured responses, all. Which makes it vanishingly unlikely BW will do them individually or collectively, without overreacting first. I know -- but all I can do is suggest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForjKlahaa Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 When I first read this thread I thought I'd give it a try because who doesn't like easy money? Well This is my experience: I spent roughly an hour on Yavin 4 at 4am and there were around 12 people in that instance. I made about 800K which is about the same as I would get in the same time running heroics solo, vendoring everything including excess legacy armour (still trying to complete some sets) and selling mounts/decos on the GTN. If I weren't using the comp gifts I could sell them to for a lot more. If I had just one more person running the heroics with me I could easily make 1 million (extra bonus and mission money) in an hour if we were quick and didn't end up tripping over each other. Even at that ungodly hour I was fighting over nodes and trying not to get pulled into combat to speed it up. It was boring and stressful at the same time and I don't think I'll bother again. This is a really crap way way to earn credits and it would have been even worse if there had been just one more slicer in the instance. I suppose if you got extremely lucky and the place was completely empty you could make more but I can't see it being any quieter at any other time of day. You couldn't make any real money doing this during normal playing hours and who would want to anyway? Heroics are more interesting and are far more reliable but if someone wants to do the most boring thing I can think of to earn money, then I say let them. It still leaves nodes out there for us "normal" slicers to click on when we come across one as a bonus. There are lots of ways to get rich in this game if you want to put the effort in. I honestly don't see the difference between clicking buttons to craft and clicking nodes to harvest. It's all repetitive nonsense that requires no skill. You can do any gathering profession and sell the mats for more than you would get from slicing nodes and it is the exact same thing except you have to take that one tiny extra step and list them on the GTN but that is offset by not having to fight over nodes. As for botters, I didn't see any and I checked a few people because they kept beating me to nodes. I just checked for achievements and they had them so I couldn't tell beyond that. Regardless, BW should tackle the bot issue separately and leave the nodes as they are for regular slicers to enjoy when they come across one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanArgent Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Try Zakuul - the map is tighter, and the node density is less, but the nodes are "richer." And you don't have to be in KotFE to go to the zone with slicing nodes. (though you pay a landing fee - you can't get there but by ship) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaygreb Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 shhhhhhhh..... This is a dream come true for credit selling bots. Not quite as good as the item dupe a few months back but still quite good. yeah i bet they hate that this thread exists. this really needs to be addressed quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PennyAnn Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Reasonable, targeted, and measured responses, all. Which makes it vanishingly unlikely BW will do them individually or collectively, without overreacting first. Especially when a classic Bioware overreaction is being REQUESTED by threads like this. "Bioware plz nerf!". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) Especially when a classic Bioware overreaction is being REQUESTED by threads like this. "Bioware plz nerf!". "Bioware please nerf! Must fix now or game doomed! Someone's getting something in a game that I think is totally unfair, game cannot last if not changed within an hour!" Sorry if that's a bit mean, but the total over-reaction to things like this was old a year ago when it was about some Ops "exploit", and it's even sadder now when it's about a few 1000 "unfair" credits or some crap. Sure, it's a problem if there are botters farming these, but the solution isn't another kneejerk bandaide, another excessive change in the face of ridiculous outrage. Edited February 26, 2016 by Max_Killjoy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horrorfaneightys Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 "Bioware please nerf! Must fix now or game doomed! Someone's getting something in a game that I think is totally unfair, game cannot last if not changed within an hour!" Sorry if that's a bit mean, but the total over-reaction to things like this was old a year ago when it was about some Ops "exploit", and it's even sadder now when it's about a few 1000 "unfair" credits or some crap. Sure, it's a problem if there are botters farming these, but the solution isn't another kneejerk bandaide, another excessive change in the face of ridiculous outrage. I only hope Bioware actually reads your post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanArgent Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 The other solution is to get more draconian about nailing credit buyers - if there is no market for what the bots sell, then the botters go elsewhere. (There's significant problems with that, of course) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSeer Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 When I first read this thread I thought I'd give it a try because who doesn't like easy money? Well This is my experience: I spent roughly an hour on Yavin 4 at 4am and there were around 12 people in that instance. I made about 800K which is about the same as I would get in the same time running heroics solo, vendoring everything including excess legacy armour (still trying to complete some sets) and selling mounts/decos on the GTN. If I weren't using the comp gifts I could sell them to for a lot more. If I had just one more person running the heroics with me I could easily make 1 million (extra bonus and mission money) in an hour if we were quick and didn't end up tripping over each other. Even at that ungodly hour I was fighting over nodes and trying not to get pulled into combat to speed it up. It was boring and stressful at the same time and I don't think I'll bother again. This is a really crap way way to earn credits and it would have been even worse if there had been just one more slicer in the instance. I suppose if you got extremely lucky and the place was completely empty you could make more but I can't see it being any quieter at any other time of day. You couldn't make any real money doing this during normal playing hours and who would want to anyway? Heroics are more interesting and are far more reliable but if someone wants to do the most boring thing I can think of to earn money, then I say let them. It still leaves nodes out there for us "normal" slicers to click on when we come across one as a bonus. There are lots of ways to get rich in this game if you want to put the effort in. I honestly don't see the difference between clicking buttons to craft and clicking nodes to harvest. It's all repetitive nonsense that requires no skill. You can do any gathering profession and sell the mats for more than you would get from slicing nodes and it is the exact same thing except you have to take that one tiny extra step and list them on the GTN but that is offset by not having to fight over nodes. As for botters, I didn't see any and I checked a few people because they kept beating me to nodes. I just checked for achievements and they had them so I couldn't tell beyond that. Regardless, BW should tackle the bot issue separately and leave the nodes as they are for regular slicers to enjoy when they come across one. You said it better then I could have. If you were alone you could make good money but your never alone. I also came up with similar results sometime lower when I tried to make these millions of credits. I actual made more with bio, selling the material need to get Loki and they were easier to gather. Fact is there a ton of ways to make easy credits in this game and the most profitable is the GTN (mainly reselling cartel items) which isn't going away.So I wish people would stop screaming for a nerf as they always go way overboard and will make the skill complete useless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elly_Dawn Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 (edited) i have an idea based on what they do for harvesting nodes in STO... they have a mini-game tied into the harvesting procedure where you have to match a waveform within an allotted time limit, this waveform is randomly selected, forcing human interaction... now ours is slicing, make some mini-game that would be relevant to slicing a node, like entering a displayed code number in an allotted time limit, with the number being randomly selected when you click on the node... don't change the contents change the method of obtaining them to require human interaction... now on STO the Real Money Traders are still there but they're reduced to asking to buy credits off of players to sell to other players, to offset their farming loss since farming with bots won't work... really changing the contents won't change anything since they'll find other means like they did in STO, all you do by changing the contents is punish the legitimate players... Edited February 27, 2016 by Elly_Dawn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleurdelis Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 I tried slicing on Yavin and Zakuul but the mobs and other farmers made it not worth it. I had much more fun making credits running the H2's last night with a friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaygreb Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 wow, still not fixed. why does it take weeks to fix economy breaking exploits in this game? you do realize this costs you cartel coin sales because people just buy from the exploiters since they produce credits so much cheaper right? meanwhile this makes rare items much more expensive than they should be on the gtn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Maybe in their data or in their opinion it's not the game-breaking, shut-down-the-servers issue that you see it as. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaygreb Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Maybe in their data or in their opinion it's not the game-breaking, shut-down-the-servers issue that you see it as. you're absolutely right. probably the same guys who looked at the data of people exploiting comm crystals bugs and making billions of credits a day for 6 weeks and watched credit spammers go down to 50 cents per million and which cost the company hundreds of thousands worth of cartel coin sales. all they need to do to temporarily fix it is make this stuff give mats instead of credits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 (edited) The more people post freaked-out hyperbole about these "cheats" and "exploits" and "game-destroying" whatever... the less I give even a single damn. Every time Bioware listens to the overblown, melodramatic nonsense about this or that thing that's going to "ruin" SWTOR, we end up with a complete over-reaction that's far worse for 95% of the players than the actual problem ever was. Edited February 27, 2016 by Max_Killjoy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mezarkan Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 every day the credit spammers lower their price. the currency is being devalued day by day. credit spammers prices are dropping so fast that soon there won't be much point to buying cartel coins since cartel coins will cost much more by comparison because of those nodes giving credits and huge amounts of it those bots are doing the following 24 hours a day teleport 14k, teleport 15k, teleport 15k teleport 13k, teleport 16k, teleport 12k, teleport 15k teleport 15k, teleport 15k, teleport 14k teleport 13k, teleport 16k, teleport 11k, teleport 9k teleport 15k, teleport 11k, teleport 15k teleport 14k, teleport 16k, teleport 15k, teleport 15k teleport 15k, teleport 15k, teleport 15k teleport 13k, teleport 16k, teleport 12k, teleport 15k teleport 15k, teleport 13k, teleport 15k teleport 12k, teleport 16k, teleport 14k, teleport 11k teleport 15k, teleport 15k, teleport 15k teleport 13k, teleport 16k, teleport 12k, teleport 15k plus there might be other exploits going on, why do they take so long to fix exploits??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 If they haven't eliminated whatever it is that allows teleports (if indeed that's actually happening), then what makes you think they'll ever be able to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nothing_Shines Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 It's not an exploit. Stop stamping your feet and crying like a baby because others have more toys than you. Go play the game. Nothing bought on the GTN is required to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Also... does the amount you get from each case vary depending on companion "affection", or something? Because with 550 Slicing and a "20" Mako along, I'm not getting anything like 14k per node. More like 7500 to 12000 at very very max -- 2500 to 4500 per case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mezarkan Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 (edited) If they haven't eliminated whatever it is that allows teleports (if indeed that's actually happening), then what makes you think they'll ever be able to? teleporting can't be stopped in 3d games, it can only be stopped in 2d games. but the nodes can be fixed. nothing should give pure credits like that which can be exploited by teleporting. if instead it gave items or resources or something then it would limit the damage greatly because the more they do it the lower the value of the item because of increased supply and they would eventually stop doing it. Edited February 27, 2016 by Mezarkan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 (edited) teleporting can't be stopped in 3d games, it can only be stopped in 2d games. but the nodes can be fixed. nothing should give pure credits like that which can be exploited by teleporting. if instead it gave items or resources or something then it would limit the damage greatly because the more they do it the lower the value of the item because of increased supply and they would eventually stop doing it. So if a character is at X,Y... and then is at X+100, Y+129 in under one second... the game can't red-flag that as suspicious? Either way, I did post several suggestions earlier in one of these many threads on the topic. There has been a lot of talk lately about the bots slicing on Yavin 4 and Zakuul. Some of the suggested "fixes" from players have been draconian overreaction, to say the least. Instead, here are my suggested steps for making sure this isn't a problem: 1) more node spawn locations, spawning more randomly in location and timing, and never with a PC or companion within X distance -- this would make it harder for the bots to be in the right place at the right time to instant-gather. 2) place more of the nodes in locations where mobs will agro, flagging the bots for combat and complicating their timing and movement. 3) change the contents of slicing nodes to no more than one credit box, with the rest of the "payout" in sliced tech parts, schematics, and crew skill mission unlocks. 4) engage in a far more robust effort to target the actual botters, instead of making things harder for real normal players. Edited February 27, 2016 by Max_Killjoy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanArgent Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Credit sellers lowering their prices is as likely to be a good thing as not. Means they can't sell at the higher prices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivanhedgehog Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 you're absolutely right. probably the same guys who looked at the data of people exploiting comm crystals bugs and making billions of credits a day for 6 weeks and watched credit spammers go down to 50 cents per million and which cost the company hundreds of thousands worth of cartel coin sales. all they need to do to temporarily fix it is make this stuff give mats instead of credits. they still havent fixed the exploit of death from above doing too much damage. that one is just as important as your "exploit" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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