Request to remove diminishing returns on loot.

Jim_McMasterub17_ESO · May 2014

Atzenxb14a_ESO wrote: »

This whole thing came about because of a bunch of hoarding dresser motif farmers.

This is why we cant have nice things. Want to blame someone? Blame them.

But yes, it needs to be reworked

+1

Turkeysammich · May 2014

I see nothing wrong with farming, for one, the other trades get loot that respawns, you can literally get a little over 700 ore in under an hour, in the right spots and routes, nodes respawn so fast. Logging out and back in shouldn't be seen as an exploit, as that's the way they designed the loot, if you weren't meant to reloot it, then it wouldn't be made to respawn. If resetting the loot instance is considered exploiting, then so should gathering ore from nodes that have respawned. The main issue is provisioning loot shares a table with motifs.

Second, the other trades don't have set spots. For instance, iron ore nodes, spawn in the starter area, and continue to give out iron ore the further you venture through the zone. When you change zones, that's when you start getting high ore. Yet, Provisioning has a set area for leveled ingredients and recipes. You want that certain level recipe? Then you only have a limited area to find it in, and your only choice is to log out and reset the containers. If you head toward the starter town from that spot, then you'll start getting level 1 ingredients and recipes, if you go towards the zone's end, the level of ingredients starts to go up.

But this diminishing results, doesn't just affect people logging out and back in, if I loot an area, leave that area to go somewhere else, diminishing results automatically kicks in.

Jim_McMasterub17_ESO · May 2014

Turkeysammich wrote: »

I see nothing wrong with farming, for one, the other trades get loot that respawns, you can literally get a little over 700 ore in under an hour, in the right spots and routes, nodes respawn so fast. Logging out and back in shouldn't be seen as an exploit, as that's the way they designed the loot, if you weren't meant to reloot it, then it wouldn't be made to respawn. If resetting the loot instance is considered exploiting, then so should gathering ore from nodes that have respawned. The main issue is provisioning loot shares a table with motifs.

Second, the other trades don't have set spots. For instance, iron ore nodes, spawn in the starter area, and continue to give out iron ore the further you venture through the zone. When you change zones, that's when you start getting high ore. Yet, Provisioning has a set area for leveled ingredients and recipes. You want that certain level recipe? Then you only have a limited area to find it in, and your only choice is to log out and reset the containers. If you head toward the starter town from that spot, then you'll start getting level 1 ingredients and recipes, if you go towards the zone's end, the level of ingredients starts to go up.

But this diminishing results, doesn't just affect people logging out and back in, if I loot an area, leave that area to go somewhere else, diminishing results automatically kicks in.

I respectfully disagree with you, & stand by my belief this is gaming the system to get the rewards you want.

Ore, plants, everything along that line legitimately has a reason for re-occurrence.
Items in containers that respawn are a game loot mechanic that has been exploited by people to the point regular players are now suffering the consequences right along with the exploiters.

The change was necessary because of this, but has as often does; had further reaching consequences than I'm sure were expected,

Loot & move on; & this wouldn't have happened.

crush83 · May 2014

Reading the first few posts only, it seems that the real problem here is what is affected by diminishing returns.

What diminishing returns should affect:
- blue/purple drops
- From the same container only

This would prevent bots, for example, from using the login/logout bug to farm the same containers over and over again, but still allow the chance that a blue/purple drop would occur while out exploring the world.

I also find it strange that they implemented diminishing returns for containers, but didn't apply it to dungeon boss loots...where it was actually needed. (no the 10 minute timer is not diminishing returns)

ChairGraveyard · May 2014

crush83 wrote: »

Reading the first few posts only, it seems that the real problem here is what is affected by diminishing returns.

What diminishing returns should affect:
- blue/purple drops
- From the same container only

This would prevent bots, for example, from using the login/logout bug to farm the same containers over and over again, but still allow the chance that a blue/purple drop would occur while out exploring the world.

I also find it strange that they implemented diminishing returns for containers, but didn't apply it to dungeon boss loots...where it was actually needed. (no the 10 minute timer is not diminishing returns)

Please stop pretending that diminishing returns stop bots - they don't.

What you guys seem to be missing is that bots are AUTOMATED. They don't care if there's a DR timer of 10 minutes on a given dresser, they can either add more bots, or have it wait and only loot every 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, it screws players, doubly so because the supply of these items continues to shift into the hands of bots, as they will always always always be looting more than regular players, regardless of DR, due to the way that botters either add more bots or set it up so they loot it in the most efficient way.

Players, on the other hand, will just loot less items over all because of being discouraged by the timer, and won't ever be hitting that timer exactly 10 minutes every time, like the bots will.

Further, bots/RMT sites already have huge supplies of these items from before the nerf, so DR just means that the vast majority of supply will remain in their hands.

Which means demand for their services stays high, as do the gold price of the goods, which they looted when they were cheaper/continue to loot as players stop due to DR.

DR like this will ONLY HURT PLAYERS, and help RMT sellers.

crush83 · May 2014

ChairGraveyard wrote: »

crush83 wrote: »

Reading the first few posts only, it seems that the real problem here is what is affected by diminishing returns.

What diminishing returns should affect:
- blue/purple drops
- From the same container only

This would prevent bots, for example, from using the login/logout bug to farm the same containers over and over again, but still allow the chance that a blue/purple drop would occur while out exploring the world.

I also find it strange that they implemented diminishing returns for containers, but didn't apply it to dungeon boss loots...where it was actually needed. (no the 10 minute timer is not diminishing returns)

Please stop pretending that diminishing returns stop bots - they don't.

What you guys seem to be missing is that bots are AUTOMATED. They don't care if there's a DR timer of 10 minutes on a given dresser, they can either add more bots, or have it wait and only loot every 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, it screws players, doubly so because the supply of these items continues to shift into the hands of bots, as they will always always always be looting more than regular players, regardless of DR, due to the way that botters either add more bots or set it up so they loot it in the most efficient way.

Players, on the other hand, will just loot less items over all because of being discouraged by the timer, and won't ever be hitting that timer exactly 10 minutes every time, like the bots will.

Further, bots/RMT sites already have huge supplies of these items from before the nerf, so DR just means that the vast majority of supply will remain in their hands.

Which means demand for their services stays high, as do the gold price of the goods, which they looted when they were cheaper/continue to loot as players stop due to DR.

DR like this will ONLY HURT PLAYERS, and help RMT sellers.

I guess you rejected my advice about discussing things civilly.

Yes, you're right. Diminishing returns will not completely curb the bots. You're wrong if you think it won't slow them down one bit.

With DR, they'd have to employ 10 times the number of bots in order to make up that 10 minute timer. Now maybe you think that bots have inexhaustible resources - and they might have plenty of stolen credit cards to buy new accounts with - they still need computing power to run all those bot clients.

Furthermore, if they could run 10 times the number of bots IF DR were to be employed, why wouldn't they go ahead and run 10 times the number of bots without DR employed and get 10x as much gold?

That said, the only way to get rid of bots is to get rid of the demand for their product. I'd rather Zenimax focus more on tracking real money buyers of gold/items.

My suggestion was merely a way for the terrible implementation not to affect players as harshly as what they've implemented has done. DR shouldn't be affecting your standard provisioning ingredients. That's absurd.

BaddLarry · May 2014

For me, it seems simple. I don't get the impression from ESO that it's a traditional farming game. As a matter of fact, it appears to me that once you loot a basket, you're supposed to move on. This is evidenced by the fact that provisions won't respawn until you've logged out and logged back in. If you're continually logging out and logging back in, you're exploiting the system. Even when it comes to quests, most of the bosses are killed to further a story line. If you're still in a quest area and killing a boss over and over again you're not only exploiting, you're ruining the XP of the person that triggered the boss event in the first place. The only notable exceptions are open area bosses, but any boss you can kill solo should rarely give good items anyway.

What's with this mad dash to have everything in this game now? It's an MMO and it's only been live for a month. I would think it reasonable that they don't want you to have every recipe or easily get every ingredient in the game within a short amount of time because it hurts their profits in the long run and puts them in a quandry of having to click out new content super fast. The way I see it, exploration with a couple of happy surprises every now and then appears to be the type of gameplay ZMX was going for.

crush83 · May 2014

BaddLarry wrote: »

If you're continually logging out and logging back in, you're exploiting the system

I completely agree with you here, but ZOS has officially stated that it's not considered an exploit...

BaddLarry · May 2014

crush83 wrote: »

BaddLarry wrote: »

If you're continually logging out and logging back in, you're exploiting the system

I completely agree with you here, but ZOS has officially stated that it's not considered an exploit...

Of course they can't consider it an exploit because there's no reasonable way to enforce it. The best way to limit it is what they've done in response to it. But everyone should keep in mind that it's reasonable to assume they only took this action because the very nature of the logging violated the spirit of the game, was detrimental to the economy, and ruined the whole "exploration" aspect.

Vartra · May 2014

crush83 wrote: »

That said, the only way to get rid of bots is to get rid of the demand for their product. I'd rather Zenimax focus more on tracking real money buyers of gold/items.

My suggestion was merely a way for the terrible implementation not to affect players as harshly as what they've implemented has done. DR shouldn't be affecting your standard provisioning ingredients. That's absurd.

I think you two are on the same page, just different sides of it. No one wants legit players screwed over by bad implementation and faulty mechanics. DR isn't fun for anyone. Instead of wasting time and resources at the players' expense to marginally slow down botting gains, let's combat them in more effective and direct ways.

Example: instead of hard capping travel so low levels can't get to Coldharbour, let's fix being able to create a character, complete a non-combat quest in a level 40+ zone for rewards and immediately delete that character again by limiting character deletion. That's outside of the normal scope of gameplay, and if more than say 2 characters need to be deleted in 24 hours an email code pops to verify it.

Now to try and think outside the box a little for this specific discussion, how about simply keeping track of the zone/interior the character logged out from and ONLY triggering the DR ruleset for containers in that immediate area? It could then unlock the loot to normal rules once the character has traveled far enough away or zoned to other areas not subject to the DR rules.

In this setup, a player would only see reduced rewards specifically when logging out and back into the same worldspace, and a buffer of 1 logout could be left in to take into account relogging to fix display problems, bugs or sudden disconnects.

crush83 · May 2014

Vartra wrote: »

Now to try and think outside the box a little for this specific discussion, how about simply keeping track of the zone/interior the character logged out from and ONLY triggering the DR ruleset for containers in that immediate area?

I thought I mentioned this in my post. This is what I meant in my revised DR rules. I agree completely.

Vartra wrote: »

It could then unlock the loot to normal rules once the character has traveled far enough away or zoned to other areas not subject to the DR rules.

What areas would those be?

Rhoric · May 2014

Diminishing returns was supposed to be in at the start but it wasn't working or something and now that they have put it in, people don't like it. It was put in to prevent farming. I for one like it otherwise I could sit in a dungeon that I could faceroll and farm the boss all day.

crush83 · May 2014

Rhoric wrote: »

Diminishing returns was supposed to be in at the start but it wasn't working or something and now that they have put it in, people don't like it. It was put in to prevent farming. I for one like it otherwise I could sit in a dungeon that I could faceroll and farm the boss all day.

I think it's a good system, but implemented sloppy. It shouldn't affect common provisioning ingredients. It should only affect rare loots, and it shouldn't be global. It should be per container.

TheGodless1 · May 2014

I get decent loot all the time..but then again the OP states they go through the same dungeon over and over...that's what they are trying to discourage the bots from doing so the op does what they try to keep the bots from doing then complains...try another dungeon! Go to a main city and hit their docks...I get blue recipes and even purples sometimes...not as much as I might like but then again...I don't sit in the same dungeon and watch my drops dwindle...get in, get your stuff and get out...move on...complain after you get out of that dungeon for the 50th time! You all complain about the silliest stuff...are you sure you are any sort of pro?!

TheGodless1 · May 2014

Soemone else tried to validify the QQ session by saying "provisioning is the only profession to have recipes"...true...but they are also one of the only that has no breakdown mechanic as well...that there are tons more crates, barrels, urns, and sacks than there are nodes and others...my bags are consistently full of provisioning plus it's the easiest craft to max out at low level due to the ease of finding mats. I guess you all have been spolied by the whole blue drops should be common rule that rare no longer means what it supposed to. Blue is rare...harder to find than green...uncommon...harder to find than common white....not buying any of the excuses here just crying to have an easy button put in...so sad

Vartra · May 2014

crush83 wrote: »

What areas would those be?

Ah, lack of clarity on my part with that long ramble. I don't mean that there are arbitrarily assigned areas that do and don't use the DR rules. By default, ALL areas would be DR-free until triggered by activity like relogging multiple times.

Clearing the DR flag from a worldspace would be triggered by simply playing normally, leaving the area for a while and/or zoning somewhere else entirely. Two hops seems sufficient, e.g. leave Vukhel Guard bank, leave Vukhel Guard itself, and enter a delve. I only bring that up to prevent bots from just stepping outside and clearing the DR flag effortlessly. That's just one proposal, but anything that follows the rule "don't screw over regular players" is fine in my book.

I only advocate against using DR globally, not against using it when triggered by activity or abuse. I'd suggest making provisioning supplies worth 0 gold to vendors, as the true value is to players skilled in the craft. Personally I'd be perfectly okay with ALL crafting materials having zero vendor value to further encourage player trade, but that's a bit of nostalgia from the SWG days speaking perhaps. Besides, the guild stores need a lot more work before they're ready for the full weight of every crafter selling stuff exclusively to players for profit!

edit: Also I would like to mention that I fully agree regarding the boss timers and would much rather see a guaranteed blue/whatever drop the first kill and regular "junk" thereafter.

clocksstoppe · May 2014

crush83 wrote: »

ChairGraveyard wrote: »

crush83 wrote: »

Reading the first few posts only, it seems that the real problem here is what is affected by diminishing returns.

What diminishing returns should affect:
- blue/purple drops
- From the same container only

This would prevent bots, for example, from using the login/logout bug to farm the same containers over and over again, but still allow the chance that a blue/purple drop would occur while out exploring the world.

I also find it strange that they implemented diminishing returns for containers, but didn't apply it to dungeon boss loots...where it was actually needed. (no the 10 minute timer is not diminishing returns)

Please stop pretending that diminishing returns stop bots - they don't.

What you guys seem to be missing is that bots are AUTOMATED. They don't care if there's a DR timer of 10 minutes on a given dresser, they can either add more bots, or have it wait and only loot every 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, it screws players, doubly so because the supply of these items continues to shift into the hands of bots, as they will always always always be looting more than regular players, regardless of DR, due to the way that botters either add more bots or set it up so they loot it in the most efficient way.

Players, on the other hand, will just loot less items over all because of being discouraged by the timer, and won't ever be hitting that timer exactly 10 minutes every time, like the bots will.

Further, bots/RMT sites already have huge supplies of these items from before the nerf, so DR just means that the vast majority of supply will remain in their hands.

Which means demand for their services stays high, as do the gold price of the goods, which they looted when they were cheaper/continue to loot as players stop due to DR.

DR like this will ONLY HURT PLAYERS, and help RMT sellers.

I guess you rejected my advice about discussing things civilly.

Yes, you're right. Diminishing returns will not completely curb the bots. You're wrong if you think it won't slow them down one bit.

With DR, they'd have to employ 10 times the number of bots in order to make up that 10 minute timer. Now maybe you think that bots have inexhaustible resources - and they might have plenty of stolen credit cards to buy new accounts with - they still need computing power to run all those bot clients.

Furthermore, if they could run 10 times the number of bots IF DR were to be employed, why wouldn't they go ahead and run 10 times the number of bots without DR employed and get 10x as much gold?

That said, the only way to get rid of bots is to get rid of the demand for their product. I'd rather Zenimax focus more on tracking real money buyers of gold/items.

My suggestion was merely a way for the terrible implementation not to affect players as harshly as what they've implemented has done. DR shouldn't be affecting your standard provisioning ingredients. That's absurd.

Except they dont have to deploy 10 times more bots. Their uptime is literally infinite and that means that, no matter how low the loot is after DR, it still tends towards infinity.

Players on the other hand don't have unlimited uptime. This is why the bots dont give a *** anout DR but players get wrecked

Abigail · May 2014

TheGodless1 wrote: »

Blue is rare...harder to find than green...uncommon...harder to find than common white....not buying any of the excuses here just crying to have an easy button put in...so sad

Well, goody gumdrops. How do you differentiate between hard to find and too hard to find?

As I've said before, I don't expect easy, but I do expect possible; at the very least I expect a reasonable return on my investment in time.

Thus far, I have invested 36 hours doing nothing but looting (doing so on four different alts, and NOT re-logging). It takes me just at two hours per alt, and my approach is like Dennis the Menace gone to the beach -- I leave no tern unstoned -- it's scorched earth all the way. Contrary to what YOU may think, it's not easy; and, yes, it was relatively easy to max out my level-12 provisioner to 50. However, what I need is recipes comparable to her level, of which I'm still missing half. Blue recipes and motifs are a mere bonus, but given the time investment, they have become a sticking point.

After 36 hours of doing nothing but looting (no re-logging):

Still missing seven green recipes
Only two motifs have dropped (both duplicates)
One blue recipe

At the current rate, had I been more casual it could easily have taken me a month to acquire these things -- and frankly, that's totally unsatisfactory. I'm not a PvP'er and after 12-plus years of MMOs questing doesn't particularly spin my cookie. What I do enjoy is crafting -- gathering, grinding and, in this game, looting. Between the bots slowly taking over nodes and ZoS's draconian measures against normal, non-exploiting, non-cheating players this is becoming increasingly less rewarding, thus less fun.

Frankly, missy, you can take your holier-than-thou 'easy button' and shove it up your rear extraction port, along with a goodly dose of hot grease.

Turkeysammich · May 2014

Jim_McMasterub17_ESO wrote: »

I respectfully disagree with you, & stand by my belief this is gaming the system to get the rewards you want.

Ore, plants, everything along that line legitimately has a reason for re-occurrence.
Items in containers that respawn are a game loot mechanic that has been exploited by people to the point regular players are now suffering the consequences right along with the exploiters.

The change was necessary because of this, but has as often does; had further reaching consequences than I'm sure were expected,

Loot & move on; & this wouldn't have happened.

Except there's no other way to get ingredients and recipes, Provisioning is their reason for occurring, there's no other way to get them, as they rarely drop from enemies, I, myself have never gotten a drop that way. If you loot and move on, then you're missing out on those recipes and ingredients, the next area doesn't drop those specific items at all. You don't have to stay in one spot collecting ore or plants, you can go further up and there's still that same ore and same plants and to top if off they respawn fairly quick. You can't do that with Provisioning, you're not guaranteed a certain ingredient like you are mining or gathering, you have so many things in that container loot table, if you simply loot and move on, then you won't have enough to make anything with, and if you don't log out, then those containers stay empty. We've got 80% empty containers, with provision ingredients and recipes fighting for the spots of that 20% against the other items they share a table with; racial stones, motifs, ore, and plants.

So explain to me how Provisioning is being rewarded in this way? It's a legitimate trade skill, so how is it that it doesn't legitimately have a reason re-occur, when every other trade skill does. Not only does it not re-occur if someone doesn't log out, specific level items dealing with provisioning only have a limited area to spawn, AND they share a loot table with many other types of items.

Skirmish840 · May 2014

The mistake was not being able to harvest ingredients in the world nodes like every other craft, man if I could go hunt a deer and roast it on a spit

They need to implement Provision Nodes, and stop making provisioning rely on contained loot drops. Mind you I gave up Provisioning as a bad joke, I wanted to make all the food and quickly realised what a daunting task it was going to be to get all the recipes and store all the ingredients, Enchanting is bad enough. I love to craft so 8 characters are enough to "netflick manage" storage issues and what not with 5 crafts.

gladen5rwb17_ESO · May 2014

Abigail wrote: »

TheGodless1 wrote: »

Blue is rare...harder to find than green...uncommon...harder to find than common white....not buying any of the excuses here just crying to have an easy button put in...so sad

Well, goody gumdrops. How do you differentiate between hard to find and too hard to find?

As I've said before, I don't expect easy, but I do expect possible; at the very least I expect a reasonable return on my investment in time.

Thus far, I have invested 36 hours doing nothing but looting (doing so on four different alts, and NOT re-logging). It takes me just at two hours per alt, and my approach is like Dennis the Menace gone to the beach -- I leave no tern unstoned -- it's scorched earth all the way. Contrary to what YOU may think, it's not easy; and, yes, it was relatively easy to max out my level-12 provisioner to 50. However, what I need is recipes comparable to her level, of which I'm still missing half. Blue recipes and motifs are a mere bonus, but given the time investment, they have become a sticking point.

After 36 hours of doing nothing but looting (no re-logging):

Still missing seven green recipes
Only two motifs have dropped (both duplicates)
One blue recipe

At the current rate, had I been more casual it could easily have taken me a month to acquire these things -- and frankly, that's totally unsatisfactory. I'm not a PvP'er and after 12-plus years of MMOs questing doesn't particularly spin my cookie. What I do enjoy is crafting -- gathering, grinding and, in this game, looting. Between the bots slowly taking over nodes and ZoS's draconian measures against normal, non-exploiting, non-cheating players this is becoming increasingly less rewarding, thus less fun.

Frankly, missy, you can take your holier-than-thou 'easy button' and shove it up your rear extraction port, along with a goodly dose of hot grease.

What she said, brilliant

Jankstar · May 2014

Don't worry. James has assured me that by implementing these timers they have stopped the bots. I was worried, but when I get home I will have a bot free experience. That is worth it to me.

gladen5rwb17_ESO · May 2014

Jankstar wrote: »

Don't worry. James has assured me that by implementing these timers they have stopped the bots. I was worried, but when I get home I will have a bot free experience. That is worth it to me.

Yes you can go into the dungeon, by pass all the bots killing all the spawns so now there is no need to kill anything at all other than the boss. They leave the boss because they 'fixed' the boss loot drop. /sarcasm off

Bolo_Bob · May 2014

Jankstar wrote: »

Don't worry. James has assured me that by implementing these timers they have stopped the bots. I was worried, but when I get home I will have a bot free experience. That is worth it to me.

until you do a quest and find bot trains farming all the mobs.

bots have just moved to new locations, before long these diminishing returns will be in every part of the game and people wont be able to even pay repair fee's.

there are even auto quest bots, they teleport to quest objectives without any combat and get paid.
so its likely we will see those quests only give experience or nothing at all in the future, because a bot can farm them.

so its not really a fix.

Rhoric · May 2014

I have seen two whole bots since 5 days early access, reported both. Even in dungeons I never saw a single one, the only people I saw in dungeons were those that were farming the boss and the names on these players were regular names not the gibberish names that bots use.

djwolfnrb19_ESO · May 2014

Rhoric wrote: »

I have seen two whole bots since 5 days early access, reported both. Even in dungeons I never saw a single one, the only people I saw in dungeons were those that were farming the boss and the names on these players were regular names not the gibberish names that bots use.

A lot of bots now have normal to semi-normal names and there are many ways to determine them to be bots - the harvesting ones are the most obvious since they move in a fixed pattern between only a few harvesting nodes and try to harvest nodes that you are already harvesting. The fact that many travel underground or teleport between nodes is another indicator. The dungeon bots often travel in groups as if they were stacked upon one another.

Identifying them by name is no longer the only means since their activities have caused them to level. It appears that their agenda is to sell accounts with ready made high level characters and no one is going to want to buy a character called "jjuytrntj".

Rhoric · May 2014

Like I said, I have ONLY seen 2 bots. One was harvesting in Stonefalls area and the other was in coldharbour as a lvl 3 toon

djwolfnrb19_ESO · May 2014

Rhoric wrote: »

Like I said, I have ONLY seen 2 bots. One was harvesting in Stonefalls area and the other was in coldharbour as a lvl 3 toon

That's fine. You haven't seen them either because you aren't observant, they weren't where you were, they were the geared-up properly named versions, they were underground, or for any number of reasons. However, the inference you were drawing was that because you hadn't seen them they weren't there and that was what I was responding to. However, the fact that my mail gets spammed by different gold sellers every 20 minutes trying to sell Daedric and Primal motif books tells me they are there.

Ausare · May 2014

My vote with a purse:

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Jankstar · May 2014

Despite the assurance I received from customer service, I did see bots when I logged on tonight. Guess the timers did not work.I am not sure why they thought it would, but I trusted them. That trust was broken, and good faith no longer exists because surely they could foresee that it would take more than this change to prevent the issue of bots. I think they were just saying things to appease me, but even in the best case scenario that they honestly thought it would work they have demonstrated that their judgement is off base. I have learned a lesson, that Zenimax just isn't Bethesda, and this game is not for me.