Tree of Savior Forum

[Discussion] About "Z-bots"

General Discussion
#41

is this really a huge problem? genuine question

They are unflexible and relying on “spawn-luck”. There are times that auto-target won’t work for them and they will die.

I tried the mini boss keppa couple of times and I was overweight less than 30mins.
The silver is not that big compared to farming at tenet chappel/garden considering you need to dispose items every 30mins.

Though I can’t say anything on higher levels, but I see a lot of “fails” since afkers always die due to auto-target doesn’t work well when mob is behind you.

I dont know but, i believe IMC foreseen this? and designed the game as is? :3 Since everybody can do it. There’s even a macro setup. As if they are trying to encourage us to do this.

#42

macro just for gesture/pose
cmiiw

#43

:confounded:

@.@
@.@

i invoke my right against self-incrimination

#44

Also for afk farmers, you can steal some of their items if its out of range if they are a ranged based class or they are over their weight limit. Ive encountered it a few times and got a few recipes out of them

#46

Maybe they would argue that Holding down the Z Key to AFK Farm is a ‘feature’,
Then you can just do the same like in Granado Espada and use a game feature to steal their AFK spot.
In this case use a Red Orb maybe…

That was what I did in Crystal Mines…
There was an AFK Farmer and I
would just gather all the loot until I hit 100% then I would go back to
town to sell loot then I would go back and repeat the process…

#47

If you google for “Tomazelli” you will realize that it’s a common surname, probably Italian.

I’m not defending anyone, just pointing out that you may be judging too quickly… :confused:

#48

nope, it was probably me, i did it on last friday (or thursday?)

i remember the first day of beta, where walkers and meteors were quite a thing, and i wanted to see how a low level character would benefit from it

i got like 4 rows of equipments and went from level ~15 to 30 in one night, for leveling it’s not very effective, since you could prob get lv 50 and dungeon to 6x in the same time, the loot is limited to your weight limit, but this could easily be solved by teleporting to city every 1 hour or so

i didn’t mention that at first because i already sound like i’m defending it, but i do understand why people would do that, and if IMC don’t fix this until launch, this might become a “feature” since a lot of players will do it just to not be left behind

#49

I think they should fix the way Big Red Kepa Spawns…
They should make it spawn randomly and far enough so that the AFK Farmer won’t reach it when it spawns.
I think this is similar to the Destiny Loot Cave thing before it was nerfed…

This particular paragraph…

“Hopson theorized that players shot into the loot cave mostly because it
was low effort, not because it was actually better than other locations.
Somehow, some players convinced themselves that the Loot Cave was
amazing, but that wasn’t actually the case—or so Bungie says.”

This is probably the same with the Big Red Kepa farming.
It was probably because of the low effort needed to do it.

#50

Or have it spawn randomly anywhere in the map. Well, maybe not in the entire map. Maybe just a specific part of it or something.

#51

As mentioned beforer, the problem is not only about bosses with fixed spawns.

You can also afk-grind all aggressive mobs.

#52

Oh, right. Well, so far , I agree with having the z attack do only 5-7 attacks while pressed down and needs no be released and pressed down to repeat(or whichever number of attacks you guys prefer).

#53

it should be something like 30 attacks, you’ll hardly ever need more than that, and you can’t afk farm with only 30 attacks

#54

I personally don’t see a problem with it.

Let’s look at what happens. A player gains a passive and rather low amount of silver per hour (depending on the area this ranges from ridiculously low to only marginally rewarding depending on drops etc) and either no or sub par exp. In exchange the player is able to lose all durability and likely be killed once all of their stuff is broken if they are grinding for exp, and if they are grinding for drops or silver on super low level mobs then they already aren’t getting a lot. Even if a player grinds allllllllll night AFK and gets lucky with 3x monster gems… so what? I can make several times that in one world boss. Any active player can. It’s not as though an active player who doesn’t afk-z can’t keep up with an active player who does. At a very early level this isn’t even very detrimental (what, flood the market with Jukopas Necklaces and Kepa Stems?) and nearing the highest levels of this beta it still doesn’t amount to much as enemies are eventually going to eat you. Especially once your items are all broken. This isn’t even counting the number of players who go around and are able to mess with these AFK players. Heck that’s one of my favorite things to do.

Specific spots, yeah, I agree those should be adjusted. Like spots that allow you to be outside of enemy attacks, like the alter in Grand Corridor. Having players sit safely with no risk is likely a problem. But if anyyyyy of those players could be hit by the enemies? They’d all be dead and it wouldn’t be such a great spot.

In a game that boasts such high end-game levels I don’t think that it’s horrible that people are able to “hold z” and get the equivalent of a slight rested exp bonus or a bit of silver. What I do think that sucks is we haven’t heard word yet which way IMC wishes to take this; either like in GE where a passive auto mode was possible (no skills, just auto attacks, like we see now in ToS by holding Z) or discouraging it entirely (reaper, captcha, debuffs over time when stationary, etc). The only actual bannable offenses should be bots and macros, which, could be more easily spotted automatically server side.

And, to be quite honest, I think the option needs to remain present for some characters to even the playing field. Or, what, only summoners will be able to afk grind? They’re not even holding Z and summons are even grinding their demon prison levels effectively. Or pets? You won’t be allowed to sit down and let your pets kill things overnight for some silver just because you’re not a vendor class that can sell a service all night while away from the keyboard?

I don’t feel it’s game breaking, at all, and there are very few viable spots for it anyway. If anyone disagrees and thinks it is game breaking then I think what needs to be looked at instead is why so many players elect to do it.

2 Likes
#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.