Tree of Savior Forum

[Discussion] About "Z-bots"

General Discussion
#55

I agree with this…

But I think the problem people are having with it is they think it is cheating.
But this can be subjective as depending on the person they can consider this fair or cheating.
One can argue “no one is stopping you from doing the same” then they counter it with “this is cheating and I don’t cheat”
I guess this comes down on how they view this entire thing.

In that article about the Loot Cave

“The time of the loot cave was the highest peak of players reporting each other for cheating,”
Hopson said.
Hopson described situations where players would angrily report
other players for using the loot cave. Sometimes, these players would
take matters into their own hands and actively stop enemies from
respawning in the cave—thereby stopping the more loot from appearing.
And when players did this, the players who wanted to use the loot cave
would report the jerk players. It was a mess—so they got rid of it.

I think the moral of that story is…
If enough people complain about it and report players they will probably remove it.
Even though the devs themselves were aware of it and think it was not broken.

I personally do not have problems with it…
I even loot that area when I pass by it for some extra cash.

#56

the red kepa is the “dumb” one, i myself found several other places that support the Z holding and gives HUGE xp and gold, i’m talking about millions of silver a day or more, there are actually places that give better xp/hour than demon prison, and everyday i see more people in it, i actually hope they don’t fix it in OBT just to find out how gamebreaking this Z issue can be when everyone knows about it.

#57

An argument without proof is just nothing.

#58

I’m sorry but how is this even a question? Everyone is trying to use whatever means they can to gain as much advantage as they can. If there was a button on the screen which gives the player 10m silver on click, do you think people wouldn’t press it just because it’s game breaking? Of course not, everyone would press it. That doesn’t make it a good mechanic.

The thing about Z-farming is that it’s a really stupid mechanic. In order for players to play the game efficiently they have to Z-farm whenever they are not playing actively. This basically means that every single player that wants to play this game more than casually have to have their computer on all day long with a button pressed down. If Z-farming is actually going to be a mechanic that’s part of the game then it should at least be possible to do with the game minimized. But that would just be utterly stupid. What’s the point of “playing” the game when you are not even going to play it?

Z-farming is really no different from botting. And there is a very good reason why botting is not allowed.

2 Likes
#59

when I see 90+ player getting 4 or 5 rank ups over the duration of a night its a huge boost. All you need is the right spot to “z”, which most people will discover soon enough if they havent yet.

if a person is "z"ing over all nights of the week he might get an advantage of 20, 30 or even more ranks over a player who isnt doing that method

noone who wants to be competetive should be forced to do the same, if he wants to stay on the top of the playerbase

#60

To each their own, I won’t argue your points as the community seems pretty split on it.

But… I still feel what would need addressed, if anything, is that players can gain while afk, not that they’re holding Z to do it. Which takes me back to the statement that was earlier quoted “…I think what needs to be looked at instead is why so many players elect to do it.” If players are doing this to gain an advantage then the advantage needs to be addressed, not that they are holding down a key.

So. Let’s say they fix holding the Z key so that it only allows up to a few auto attacks. And let’s say they update their terms of service to disallow all forms of macro playback (even to include gaming mice and their ability to remap keys to rapid press etc). Let’s say they also go so far as to say that you’re not even allowed to rig a device to your keyboard to press keys for you in attempts to circumvent the third-party software limitations, and, they disallow custom or hand made input devices because those could include hardware modifications offering said advantages. On top of all of this they have an amazing detection program that can figure out even complex macros or bots with a high level of accuracy.

So… would you agree that people would immediately complain that as a summoner type class I’m gaining an unfair advantage by leaving my minions running all night? I mean… I’d basically be one of the few player types who could clear tons of mobs in my sleep. Silver, drops, maybe even exp. I wouldn’t be breaking of the rules and yet I’d be benefiting from a system that not all classes would be able to with equal opportunity. Since I’m not holding Z, and they’re not allowed to, I’d be basically given the sole right as a summoner to afk farm where other classes don’t have the chance.

I still think the system isn’t bad the way it is. If someone is broke then I don’t mind them farming low mobs in their sleep to try and get a bit of silver. I’ll still kill them anyway. I’m always killing tons of afk players for giggles when I play. If they want some extra exp? Man I can’t blame them, sometimes you just need a small break from whatever you’re doing and even killing 10 mobs is better than killing zero. I still kill them even if I sympathize.

If I had to change it though, if the player base called out for a fix, I’d venture to say it’d have to be the dreaded captcha. Their detection methods would have to be spot-on, but, it’d stop afk summoners from gaining, it’d stop afk-z players from gaining, and it’d stop some macros or bots that may have slipped through the cracks.

But I hate captchas. And they’d require additional coding to allow forgiveness for when they undoubtedly make their way on the screen of a legitimate player who is mid-boss or something. Can’t punish them while they try to solve a mishmash pop-up. I’d venture to say even the Reaper idea wouldn’t work well since targeting is horrible at times. Want to hit monster X? Press Tab 4 times, hop in a circle, press tab 2 more times, press tab again when the tree root crystal is targetted, and voila! Now you can hit the mob you wanted. Reapers would probably get targeted by accident by legitimate players and, even then, they’d open up a whole other mess of bugs (what happens if you get hit by a reaper just as you transition? Can you somehow make the reaper visible to other players to kill them? Can you debuff this reaper through unorthodox means and have it kill mobs/bosses for you? etc etc etc).

But yeah XD Just my two cents lol I’d just fix the Z-axis spots where people can hop up and target monsters safely, like grand corridor, mage tower, etc. Dina bee farm maybe add a few more of the elite spawns in specific spots so players can’t chill without risk.

Does auto attack consider as botting?
#61

I dont see any problem with Z auto attack afkers… They’re so easy to kill in pretty much every map, as long as the person is well within the level ranges. (Not above 20+ levels on the mob) I’ve killed pretty much every AA Afker that attempted to farm in my grind spots without even using an orb lol.

Just gather 5+ mobs and then run right on top of him and the mobs will attempt to attack you but will cleave the afker as well. Just remember to pot up if you’re about to die.

Another easy way to kill afkers is to find an elite mob and leash it so he’ll auto attack the elite mob and eventually pull the mob. It’ll take about 2-3 elite until the player dies (Depends on the class too) but hey, he’ll eventually die since he’s just holding down Z and not a macro to pot on a timely basis.

*** Honestly too much hate for afk auto attackers, they dont even get a lot of exp and they are easy to kill, who cares.
You got to remember they are building for afk auto attacking (Specifically archers). They are gimping themselves hugely for late game.
The only reason why people hate AA Afkers is because you’re too P***Y to kill another player or you’re too dumb to figure out a method to kill them. Which this game offers plenty of methods.

Im all for leaving it alone, nothing needs to be changed. IMC Ignore this QQ post >.>.
There are bigger things to work on then auto attack afkers, fix the potential cheaters/hackers/exploiters/bugs.

P.S. I do support it, they are building for it. If you don’t like them afk auto attacking your place then just kill them.
Just remember when you’re recruiting for a dungeon and you happen to see that afker, hes a weak dps. He built for afk AAing. Dont bother adding him to the party because he’ll probably do half the damage then someone that is built correctly for dps.

#62

Before you fix z-atk afkers, fix necromancer afk farming. Oh. Might as well get rid of Squire/Pardoner/Alchemist afk shops too. Gotta be gone with offline buy shops as well. Anything that doesn’t need player input should be gone.

#63

The advantage they are gaining is that they gain more experience, items and silver without any real effort from their side. This is not something has to be in the game. If the “problem” is that the exp gain is too low (which, by the way is entirely subjective), then a better solution would be to implement some kind of rested system. So a player gains more experience after being absent for a while. Then there wouldn’t be any need to afk-farm for extra experience.

I think you are overcomplicating things. They basically just have to disallow unathorized third party program. This is in the terms of service for nearly every online game, for obvious reasons. There is no need for any “amazing detection program”, players who are using macros or bot programs are usually easily detected by other players and can be reported and banned.

Of course summoner classes shouldn’t be able to afk-farm either, but that is a much easier problem. First of all there arean’t too many classes that can do this as of now that I’m aware of. Sorcerer’s grimoire for example, drain sp and therefore can’t be used forever.

The issue is easily solved by either adding a maximum duration to every summon, or even better by adding a simple afk-timer that kicks player that stay online without input for x amount of time. This is used in a lot of mmo’s to, among other things, reduce the server load.

Then just take a flippin break. Since when has it become a standard to be able to progress even when you are not playing? Right now it sounds like you are promoting botting. Because this is excacty what botting is about.

If they are actually building for it then they need to make it a more refined mechanic. There is absolutely no reason for requiring a button to be pressed down using a weight. In that case auto attack should instead be toggleable. Nor is there any reason to prevent the user from using the computer for other tasks while afk-farming, by not allowing afk-farming while the game is minimized.

That isn’t the problem here. The problem is the use of bot-like behavior. If you think Z-farming should be allowed, then why shouldn’t straight up bot programs be allowed as well?

#64

I think that auto-attack afking will be become a thing for only low level characters. One you start to get into to high-level dungeons the mobs do too much damage and take too long to kill, you need to use skills and be present to survive.

So what if from 1-100 people can make levels and gold off this, all of the players who actually play will be making tons more of both by actually playing the game.

1 Like
#65

While it might be true that enemies get much more difficult later on it doesn’t stop the fact that, let’s say a level 600 character will not have any trouble farming enemies that is x levels lower. This is not a problem that will simply dissapear later on. Even at max level any player who wan’t to stay somewhat competitive is forced to keep his character online all day just to make items and money, not to mention that things like support classes who can’t afk-farm efficiently will get miles behind anyone else in terms of money and items. The market prices are based on how much money people are able to make, and a player who afk-farms will make millions more than anyone not doing it and therefore be the only once able to afford anything. That just doesn’t make any sense.

I’ve already discussed what I think of the “active players are more efficient”-argument so I’m not gonna bother repeating myself.

1 Like
#66

Eliminate funds gain from enemies you are 20 levels higher than, and boom that problem is solved. Item drops are not always collected by the AFKer, in fact a good portion of them are collected by players walking by, so they can actually help real players.

#67

Time to make a sorcerer class for afk farming to avoid all the Z-bots discussion.

#68

Same thing happened in RO with alchemist/biochem and no one cared then.

#69

That doesn’t solve anything. Afk-farmers are still getting lots of items, even if they don’t pick up all the loot. And the items are the main source of money. A single recipe sells for something like 25k~ at only level 120, and they drop frequently. Not to mention that monster gems can be worth anything from 200k to a couple of millions.

And how did that turn out? Ragnarok has one of the worst economies I have ever seen. But I guess that is what you want.

#70

Pretty much this, archer isn’t even a problem. Archer afk auto attacking is so easy to kill and yet a necromancer is extremely hard.

And here we are everyone complaining about auto attackers… Necromancers doesnt even need to auto attack, so what can we do to fix necromancer? Just scrap the whole class? Ban everyone that plays it and afks in a bunch of mobs?

Stop complaining about auto attacking afkers, literally useless topic.
Most of the people here probably aren’t even 160+ to know that there are barely any place to auto attack afk farm anymore. Even if you do you’d find 1-5 mobs and they dont spawn there again. Also there are either range mobs or elites.

#71

RO econ was not bad because of that, lol. Really discredits your argument if you think that is the case. RO still used Zeny as its main currency, that is the definition of a good MMO Econ. Once you stop using the currency of the game and move to barter, that is when you know an econ is bad.

I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill.

#72

Add a maximum duration to summons.

What? So you are saying that because this game uses silver as it’s main currency nothing can go wrong? I’m not following you.

And since you seem to have very insightful knowledge of why ragnaroks economy is broken (except you are claiming it’s not?), why don’t you tell me how it happened.

#73

RO’s econ got broken when Lucky Boxes were introduced and people spammed RL money into the economy since you could sell a good portion of the items that came out of them. This happened very late in RO history, so for the most part RO had a fine Econ.

When you got in the God Item, MVP card market in RO that was when it was super broke since the value of those items were too much comparatively. You had to barter and do trades in the Billions but that is just how it works when an item is just too damn strong.

#74

Ah yes of course, it’s all because of those damn lucky boxes. …Except where exactly did all that money come from in the first place? The boxes themselves didn’t give zeny or items selling for millions to a vendor. Sure, the items could be sold to other player for a huge sum; but they themselves didn’t cause the inflation. The way new zeny is introduced to the game is through item drops that are sold to a vendor. And where did a large part of those items come from? Yeah.

Also, this is getting out of topic and has little to do with the issue at hand.