How best to stop Hammer spamming and ops farming

[AndrewAlberts]

It is no secret that, since adds could drop Conquest and Renown XP, that there have been groups of players farming ops mobs to fast-track conquest reward acquisition and the gaining of renown rank. Also, it is no secret that, since 6.0 launched, that there have been a significant number of players just farming Hammer Station non-stop to fast-track the acquisition of the tech fragments needed to get top quality gear, as well as achieve a higher iRating faster than normal means. Those of us that do not wish to engage in this behaviour, but still want to do random FP's on GF regardless, are grouped up with these people on a regular basis. Some have even up and quit and take the lockout rather than do what they do. I am here to pose a few suggestions as to how we can best stop this toxic behaviour, and it is toxic because A: the devs themselves have come out and said that this is wrong (at least, that's what I hear, they said it on Discord, or something, I don't know) and B: I don't care what excuses they give, NOTHING justifies exploitative behaviour. That being said, here are my suggestions:

 

1: Ban anyone that has done this. Not only will this send a clear message that yes, the devs DO think this is wrong, but it will also act as a deterrant to anyone wanting to try this again. They tried reducing the mob numbers in KP to cut the farming, but all the farmers did was move to EV. How long can you keep that up, eh, BW? Admittedly, pulling this off in current circumstances does seem highly impractical, but if it gets rid of toxic players, I wouldn't mind.

 

2: Lock the GF filters so randomisation is the only option. Again, this is a bit extreme, but as we've seen, players are willing to run the same boring, dull, bland FP over and over again to gain a quick and easy lead, while those of us that genuinely want to do random FP's end up stuck with these speedrunners. Taking away their ability to spam may cause them to leave in frustration, while also giving us randomers some much needed freedom from the dread of ending up in another HS spam run.

 

3: Make it so that adds no longer reward Conquest and Renown XP. Take away the resource that they are farming, and the farming will stop. Yes, this will mean that reaching Conquest goals and gaining Renown ranks will take longer, but at least the behaviour that the devs seemingly think is wrong will stop. It is regrettable, but the farmers have forced their hand if this happens.

 

4: Get rid of Conquest and Renown altogether. I really don't see this happening. At all, actually. But you cannot exploit a system without a system to exploit. While we're on this subject, I realise that Galactic Command wasn't everyone's favourite, but at least it was better than...........whatever Renown was supposed to be. What was the logic behind that decision, BW?

 

5: Encourage proper play. I've spoken with a fair few people that do this. They're not all bad, some just feel that the rewards for going above and beyond (like doing the bonus bosses in FP's) aren't worth the trouble, and, from what I've seen, I have to agree. So, you could make the bonus bosses drop a piece of set bonus gear for each player, as well as the end boss, and/or enhance the daily GF reward so it is more lucrative to randomise. I don't want a war between the farmers/spammers and those that want to play properly, so maybe appeasement and encouragement of proper play would work out for both sides of this coin.

 

Because of all this toxic behaviour, I have started thinking that the people who say this game is dying may be right, but not for the reasons they think. I have an inkling that this game may be dying not because of a lack of content or a dwindling player base, but because all this toxicity is poisoning the game from the inside, killing it slowly, and if nothing is done soon, it WILL die, or at least become something else that I really would not want to be a part of. Come on BW, we need to stop this.

[DarkTergon]

First of all, spamming HS isn't an exploit, it's just how people prefer to earn their ranks, gear etc. If you've a problem with that, note which people keep popping up, and a) block them straight away, or b) ask them if they are just quing for HM. Either way, you can block them, and it should stop you getting grouped with these people.

 

As for the mob farming, they never said it was an exploit, they just said it wasn't working as intended, which is why the nerfs happened. It may be semantics, but i'll leave that up to others to argue.

[LD_Little_Dragon]

Your entire premise is that running the same content over and over is somehow wrong or an exploit. It isn't.

 

I

Ban anyone that has done this.

You can't ban someone for playing the game in a way you don't approve of. What's next? Ban people who do nothing but run heroics all day? Do dailies on all their toons? Only play solo when you think they should be grouping up?

 

Just no.

 

2: Lock the GF filters so randomisation is the only option.

The filters are there for a reason. You can run the easier flashpoints with lousy gear or mediocre skills, but I don't like getting one of the harder fp with players in lousy gear or who don't really know their class. Leave the filters alone. If you don't like hammer, filter it out.

 

3: Make it so that adds no longer reward Conquest and Renown XP.

I already accept that my prog team nights are going to be low conquest numbers nights. Now you want to make them next to no conquest numbers nights? If you take away points from adds then you need to buff the boss points a lot.

 

4: Get rid of Conquest and Renown altogether.

Renown is largely useless, but there are a lot of players doing conquest. I think removing it would result in even less players doing group activities.

 

5: Encourage proper play. I've spoken with a fair few people that do this. They're not all bad, some just feel that the rewards for going above and beyond (like doing the bonus bosses in FP's) aren't worth the trouble, and, from what I've seen, I have to agree. So, you could make the bonus bosses drop a piece of set bonus gear for each player, as well as the end boss, and/or enhance the daily GF reward so it is more lucrative to randomise. I don't want a war between the farmers/spammers and those that want to play properly, so maybe appeasement and encouragement of proper play would work out for both sides of this coin.

This is fine, more rewards are better than punishment. There should be a benefit to running the longer/more difficult flashpoints as opposed to just doing the easier ones. (although what is 'playing properly' is subjective. spamming hammer/athiss/czerka is no more wrong than spamming meridian is)

[SteveTheCynic]

the devs themselves have come out and said that this is wrong (at least, that's what I hear, they said it on Discord, or something, I don't know)

No. They didn't say that. They said that for both Hammer Station and Red Reaper, spamming speedruns through them wasn't what they intended, even more so for spamming the trash mobs before the first boss in KP.

 

And since your whole suggestion is based on an inaccurate premise, I shall not comment on the rest of it, except to say that removing Renown XP and Conquest points from trash mobs will do absolutely nothing to discourage HS/RR spamming. People pick those two so because it's relatively easy to "run between the raindrops" and end up skipping or stealthing past 99.437% of the trash mobs.

[AndrewAlberts]

I have thought more of this, and I have decided that there can be room for everyone to get what they desire. It is just that certain changes may need to be implemented to appease both sides of this argument. Here are some other suggestions, as well as some that others have put forward.

 

1: Give us the option to filter out one (and only one) FP without affecting whether or not we get the Daily bonus. If we can still get the GF daily bonus while filtering out one FP, I can filter out HS and my complaints about HS spamming will cease, because I will not have to deal with it anymore.

 

2: I read this in another post and it has merit. Have GF tell us which FP we'll be going into before we hit accept. That way, we can decline pre-emptively without getting locked out. I coould decline HS runs, and maybe Umbara on MM because that droid is a nightmare. Harder than some Ops bosses, I swear.

 

3: Further to my suggestion that bonus and end bosses of FPs have their rewards increased, I would like to put forward some suggestions. For VM, have the bonus and end boss drop 3-4k tech fragments each, or some other value that seems appropriate, and have the MM FP bonus and end bosses drop the set bonus gear. While we're at it, why not have Ops bosses drop set bonus gear, like in 5.0. I liked that about Operations pre-6.0 and I would raid every day (except when Gods was on the rotation). Why they got rid of that, I'll never know, but it can still work in addition to the current method. I say this because the appropriate difficulty should yield the appropriate rewards.

 

4: I've heard others say this, and this has merit too. Have all ops mobs drop Conquest and Renown XP, but only after the end boss is defeated. The farming stops, and mobs still drop XP. Everyone wins. I'm sorry, but I'm not budging on ops farming. Just because it 'wasn't what the developers intended' does not excuse this behaviour at all. What, do the farmers want all Operations to be trash-free? Because if they continue, that is what may happen.

Edited April 12, 2020 by AndrewAlberts
Giving proper credit

[xordevoreaux]

Your entire premise is that running the same content over and over is somehow wrong or an exploit. It isn't.

 

I agree. The OP's argument stating the given level of harm to other players for this behavior is weak, and that's a generous assessment.

 

I personally solo Korriban Incursion over and over again to get trash gear drops for tech frags. It's easy, it's brainless, and I don't mind doing it. It's how I choose to play. My play style harms no one. My Incursion farming is no different than Hammer farming, it's just on a different scale.

 

I don't particularly feel like being banned from the game because I'm doing the same content over and over again just because someone waltzes out onto these forums and poses a desperately weak argument about how repeating content is somehow wrong.

[xordevoreaux]

4: Get rid of Conquest and Renown altogether. I really don't see this happening. At all, actually. But you cannot exploit a system without a system to exploit. While we're on this subject, I realise that Galactic Command wasn't everyone's favourite, but at least it was better than...........whatever Renown was supposed to be. What was the logic behind that decision, BW?

 

5: Encourage proper play.

 

I see where this is going. You're sore because you miss Galactic Command. Your statement hollows out all arguments you've posted.

 

I also see that you are the self-ordained arbiter of what constitutes proper play in this game. I wish I had known that sooner, for I would have consulted with you back in 2013 when I started playing SWTOR as to what constitutes proper play and would of course have followed your every edict as to what proper play is without question.

 

Tell me creating an all-gay guild is not proper play.

Tell me sitting in my stronghold all day playing space barbies is not proper play.

Tell me having 167 characters across 5 accounts is not proper play.

Tell me enjoying the game how I see fit is not proper play.

 

You're not the first person on this forum to anoint themselves as the playstyle police.

I do hope you recognize that revealing yourself as someone who holds what proper play is counts you among their number.

Edited April 12, 2020 by xordevoreaux

[xordevoreaux]

4: Get rid of Conquest.

 

You have been posting on these forums since 2012.

 

You, above all people, should not need to be reminded that the conquest system is the means by which guilds grow, and that camaraderie in an op, when people know at the end of the operation that their guild might gain another level, and thus get a higher percentage of xp, rp, and other perks, is a strong play incentive.

 

You, of all people, should know a guild unlocks its flagship by farming command, logistical, or engineering encryptions by endlessly running commanders.

 

You, of all people, should know that guild participation focused on conquest helps build a guild, and that the act of doing so is one of the great draws why people decide to remain or join a guild -- to watch it grow. It's why my guild members have stuck by me through thick in thin over 6 years. This month is our guild's 6 year anniversary. That didn't come about because we wallowed about and did nothing. Conquest is the driving energy behind us getting together -- both for growing our guild and for advancing our characters through renown.

 

So it is with great incredulity that I read your suggestion that conquest needs to end, and it stretches the imagination that you would do so with no suggestion whatsoever as to what system might replace it.

 

For all your years of experience in this game, to suggest such a thing, demonstrates either an utterly profound lack of understanding of the underpinnings of why conquest exists, or a dedicated effort on your part to ignore why so that you may support your premise.

 

Whichever the case, I doubt few will ever agree with you that conquest needs to go away.

Edited April 12, 2020 by xordevoreaux

[BlackSilverFire]

OP - No. Just complaining about people playing more selectively and trying to make them do content they don't want will just make far less people que/ use GF. This is just a very a bad idea thread.

[BlackSilverFire]

Your entire premise is that running the same content over and over is somehow wrong or an exploit. It isn't.

 

 

You can't ban someone for playing the game in a way you don't approve of. What's next? Ban people who do nothing but run heroics all day? Do dailies on all their toons? Only play solo when you think they should be grouping up?

 

Just no.

 

 

The filters are there for a reason. You can run the easier flashpoints with lousy gear or mediocre skills, but I don't like getting one of the harder fp with players in lousy gear or who don't really know their class. Leave the filters alone. If you don't like hammer, filter it out.

 

I already accept that my prog team nights are going to be low conquest numbers nights. Now you want to make them next to no conquest numbers nights? If you take away points from adds then you need to buff the boss points a lot.

 

Renown is largely useless, but there are a lot of players doing conquest. I think removing it would result in even less players doing group activities.

 

 

This is fine, more rewards are better than punishment. There should be a benefit to running the longer/more difficult flashpoints as opposed to just doing the easier ones. (although what is 'playing properly' is subjective. spamming hammer/athiss/czerka is no more wrong than spamming meridian is)

 

Omg, ikr, you said it. Couldn't agree more.

[Lhancelot]

didn't BW already address this issue? I thought people could choose what FPs they want to queue for now in the group finder / activity window where the option is to click on / off for what FP you want / don't want.

 

So, in theory wouldn't the FP you want to run actually pop if so many other people wanted to do that FP instead of spam running HS? By design, they have made it so people get to choose what FPs they want to participate in, and I have to say I like how they do this.

 

Inf act, I wish they did this same design on PVP.

 

I am sick and tired of Vandin HuttBall WZs popping non-stop 24/7 consisting of at least 75% of the pops I take wasting my time all day because I always leave this POS WZ along with other HB maps now too just because they all sicken me from over-saturation.

 

Even the classic HB map, I am tired of that one now.

 

BW, adjust it so we can either choose our WZ maps, or at least give an option to eliminate some maps from our queue to give us some control over what WZs we queue for. So much time is wasted in the game dropping matches after waiting for them to pop, only to be a WZ we do not want to play in! Why make people waste their time this way?

[DeannaVoyager]

didn't BW already address this issue? I thought people could choose what FPs they want to queue for now in the group finder / activity window where the option is to click on / off for what FP you want / don't want.

 

So, in theory wouldn't the FP you want to run actually pop if so many other people wanted to do that FP instead of spam running HS? By design, they have made it so people get to choose what FPs they want to participate in, and I have to say I like how they do this.

 

Yes, you can select the fps you want to run, but then you won't get the GF reward. So in that sense OP is right: people who farm only HS and use GF to do it are ruining the game from those who want to play other content too, because most of the times GF pops it's HS. I will drop those groups immediately because not only the people who farm it are bad, they are also incredibly toxic.

 

Lately I've seen a lot of people LF group for HS farm on fleet, and I wish more people would do that instead of trying to force other people to join their farming. However farming EV mobs is optional. Nobody is forcing anyone to join it.

[DarkTergon]

Yes, you can select the fps you want to run, but then you won't get the GF reward

 

That's the point of the GF reward, if you want the reward, it's a chance you take. People who only want to run HS are entilled to do that, just as you are entitled to not run it. You can pick and choose, everyone can pick and choose. But if you want the reward, it's pot luck. As i've said before, if you see the same person popping with HS only popping, try blocking them, and see if it changes.

 

people who farm only HS and use GF to do it are ruining the game from those who want to play other content too, because most of the times GF pops it's HS.

 

Maybe you are ruining the game for other people who just want to farm HS, but do it through gf to get a full group? It all depends on perspective.

 

 

, they are also incredibly toxic.

Says who? You? I don't think i've met a single toxic person in GF in ages, wether I got stuck with HS or not. Sometimes you get quiet groups, sometimes chatty, it depends, but you can't say everyone who spams HS is toxic.

 

 

Lately I've seen a lot of people LF group for HS farm on fleet, and I wish more people would do that instead of trying to force other people to join their farming.

 

Finally, maybe you should take a leaf out of their book, and organise a group on fleet for doing GF, explain it's a random group, picking all options, and see how that goes for you, see what fp's pop, etc.

[JediQuaker]

The simplest way to stop this is to just eliminate the bonus for selecting "random". The main reason why people won't deselect HS or RR (or any FP) seems to be because they want that bonus.

So eliminate that bonus and maybe spread some extra goodies through the FPs

[xordevoreaux]

The simplest way to stop this is to just eliminate the bonus for selecting "random". The main reason why people won't deselect HS or RR (or any FP) seems to be because they want that bonus.

So eliminate that bonus and maybe spread some extra goodies through the FPs

 

I agree with that. You mention FPs, we do it for ops. My guild, for any 8-man op, first splits into a group of 6 and a group of 2. Both groups then queue, and if we get what we want, we enter, if not, we drop queue, and this continues until we get what we want, all for the sake of the bonus.

 

So you have a bunch of people sitting there drinking their rumchata, wine, or coffee (we admit to all three) while the leaders of both groups click through the choices until we get want we want (and both groups are actually dumped together in the queue).

 

Killing the bonus would kill this behavior, and I agree that it's perhaps better to spread the bonus around within the op itself.

 

The incentive for the bonus was to make us choose randomly, but its failure is in not taking into account human nature, in that we showed up intending to do what we want to do and not anything else, so we'll do what's necessary until we get what we want.

 

It's not malicious. It's not meant to disturb anyone's game play. It's the line of least resistance to get the bonus AND do what we want. Doesn't get any deeper than that.

Edited April 13, 2020 by xordevoreaux

[DeannaVoyager]

That's the point of the GF reward, if you want the reward, it's a chance you take. People who only want to run HS are entilled to do that, just as you are entitled to not run it. You can pick and choose, everyone can pick and choose. But if you want the reward, it's pot luck. As i've said before, if you see the same person popping with HS only popping, try blocking them, and see if it changes.

 

I am just as entitled to leave the group I don't like as they are entitled to wreck the GF with their selfish needs.

 

I have blocked a lot of farmers, but as long as there is no legacy wide ignore, it won't make much difference.

 

Says who? You? I don't think i've met a single toxic person in GF in ages, wether I got stuck with HS or not. Sometimes you get quiet groups, sometimes chatty, it depends, but you can't say everyone who spams HS is toxic.

 

I guess you have been really lucky with HS farmers then, I have not had such luck. The people I met were toxic, and I only ran into those jerks in HS groups. That is the reason why I now drop a HS group when it pops. All other fps I've played with pugs have been fine, people have been nice or not said a word at all.

 

Finally, maybe you should take a leaf out of their book, and organise a group on fleet for doing GF, explain it's a random group, picking all options, and see how that goes for you, see what fp's pop, etc.

 

That's what I have been doing. Not all the times, just most of the times. I'd still like to be able to use GF sometimes too, because that's what it's intended for, and I'm not always in the mood to form a group myself. I've seen other people do it as well. It's a shame really, because the less people are using group finder, the longer it takes to pop for the who do.

[DeannaVoyager]

The simplest way to stop this is to just eliminate the bonus for selecting "random". The main reason why people won't deselect HS or RR (or any FP) seems to be because they want that bonus.

So eliminate that bonus and maybe spread some extra goodies through the FPs

 

^^ This.

 

And what xordevoreaux said too.

[DarkTergon]

I am just as entitled to leave the group I don't like as they are entitled to wreck the GF with their selfish needs.

 

I have blocked a lot of farmers, but as long as there is no legacy wide ignore, it won't make much difference.

 

 

 

Excatly, leave if you want, but if you select everything just to get the rewards, then that's the chance you take. All you can do is hope you can block all the farmers, and get a better shot.

 

maybe they view you as being selfish, after all, you want the reward, you want more then they do, yet you want them to play it your way..

 

 

 

I guess you have been really lucky with HS farmers then, I have not had such luck. The people I met were toxic, and I only ran into those jerks in HS groups. That is the reason why I now drop a HS group when it pops. All other fps I've played with pugs have been fine, people have been nice or not said a word at all. .

 

Sorry to hear that, toxic players suck, maybe a legacy ignore would help with that, but as has been said on many of the threads here, it could also cause other issues, but will leave that for those threads

At least when you get groups together on fleet you can choose random, and get a pop more often,

[AndrewAlberts]

Here's a thought. Currently, the only ways to get fragments needed to buy gear from the vendor are FP's, Ops, and the Onderon weekly (I don't do PvP so it may be viable to gear there, I don't know), but what if the other daily area weeklies gave the same fragment reward as Onderon? What if the weeklies for BH/SX/Oricon etc. all gave the same amount of fragments that Onderon does? I have multiple toons I can do these weeklies on, and it simultaneously rewards the fragments and credits needed to purchase the gear you'd like. If the devs did at least that much, I'd be content with doing weeklies for my gear and letting the HS/RR spammers and ops farmers do what they will. I'll just do all those weeklies by myself and they wouldn't have to put up with me anymore, nor I them. How does that sound?

 

Edit: Why not have the Operations weeklies drop fragments as well? If ALL weeklies, dailies, FP's, Operations and PvP weeklies dropped fragments, we could, for definite, play the way we ALL, as individuals and as groups, play the way we want. Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't do this when 6.0 launched. It makes the most logical sense, if BW were to promote the 'play your way' message.

Edited April 15, 2020 by AndrewAlberts
Sudden epiphany.