Guild Wars 2

Premise
Note that this is a serious idea and might take a programmer to fully understand.
I’ll still try to explain it as easy as I can so everyone can get an idea of what I’m talking about.

The idea
This idea zapped into my mind when analyzing the properties of Karma items.
These interesting items are flagged with properties that make them completely unable to affect the economy.
These properties are: unsellable on TP, unsellable to NPC, unsalvageable, usable for crafting, deletable,
This is the concept I will apply to solve overgeneration of gold.

Currently, we have the standard loot table and then a diminished loot table (triggered by DR) that is used to limit overgeneration of gold, but it does not prevent it completely.
This is a great system, but it can be improved to make the second table use the same flags that karma items use, thus making any item obtained after DR not touch the economy but still have an use for players.

Basically, once a character hits DR, a clone of the standard loot table is triggered except all items in this table are flagged like Karma items; they are soulbound, cannot be sold to NPC, cannot be salvaged: they can only be deleted or used for crafting.
Of course, any item that is crafted using materials from the second table also needs to have the same flag.
This last part is the only thing so far mentioned that is not already part of Anet’s technology, at least to my knowledge.

All it needs to be done to implement this is cloning the current standard loot table, flag the items contained as karma (or a new flag bearing these same properties if you so decide) and use that as the table that DR triggers.
It might also be needed to create clones of the current recipes that allow “karma” mats to be used and result in an item flagged as “karma” as well.

Bottom line: What does this lead to?
1) When a bot incurs in DR, he completely stops generating any revenue as items have no value just like Karma items. A bot making zero gold is an useless bot.
2) When a player incurs in DR, he will not have impaired loot rates but will loot items normally that may be usable such as crafting materials or lodestones; since they are flagged as karma no money can be made out of them.
3) Players can then effectively farm their own materials to craft items if they so decide, and since items obtained this way are also flagged as karma they would only be able to use them and not generate any gold.

It seems a pretty final solution to these two major issues (bots and player vs DR), and would also allow Anet to be in much greater control of the generation of items – and therefore of the market fluctuations.

I like the idea behind this suggestion, but what’s to stop bots from moving around and avoiding DR altogether?

Not to mention how annoying it would be for regular players hitting diminishing returns and then not being able to sell rarer loot drops they do not want at all.

I can see this leading to players who either avoid crafting or are running out of inventory space throwing away a large number of loot drops, particularly since they are not only unsellable but also unsalvageable, making them utterly useless.

No offence meant, but in my opinion this seems like a rather heavy-handed approach to dealing with botting.

TwoBit.5903:

I like the idea behind this suggestion, but what’s to stop bots from moving around and avoiding DR altogether?

The fact they are bots.
A bot is an automated program, it cannot move around maps; it stays in one spot to automatically kill mobs – and since this makes DR-obtained items unsellable they would generate zero gold by doing that.
Even if the RMT was to order his employees to play bots manually, his employees would still only be able to get loots like a normal player would before incurring in DR.

The effectiveness of botting revolves around leaving a very large amount of automated chars in the same zone for hours/days to gather maths, this prevents the whole system from being effective altogether.

Drakonhammer.2148:

Not to mention how annoying it would be for regular players hitting diminishing returns and then not being able to sell rarer loot drops they do not want at all.

I can see this leading to players who either avoid crafting or are running out of inventory space throwing away a large number of loot drops, particularly since they are not only unsellable but also unsalvageable, making them utterly useless.

No offence meant, but in my opinion this seems like a rather heavy-handed approach to dealing with botting.

You did not understand the concept I explained.

Currently when a player hits DR he gets only trash items worth nothing, and therefore is forced to stop looting or he would get no gain.
With the new system they’d have two options when triggering DR:
1) move to another zone without DR.
2) continue looting normally and still get mats they can use (ores, lodestones etc), so all those players who like to farm for crafting are now allowed to do so.
Currently, only option 1 is available.
It’s pretty safe to say that any player would choose to have another option on top of what’s currently available over not having any choice but move away.

Why code this when you the player just have to right click and report them. 95% of the time when we find bots on our server the map chat lights up with “Bot’s by x Poi or Waypoint ect” There is then a influx of players swarming that area and reporting. Usually within 5 minutes of that the bots start to disappear.

I don’t even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, red-head.

Pure Heart.1456:

I don’t even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, red-head.

LOL nice Matrix quote

/notsigned

I just want to play this game and not have to worry about DR.

occurs to me you ahve no idea how complex you can make a bot, would not be a problem to make a bot farm and area got x minutes (x being just below eht amount of time needed to hit DR) then have the pot use a waypoint to another area and then do it again there, wp to new area farm there etc etc, would take a little work on the bot developers to get figure out the most efficient time needed and how many places they need to visit before it can restart from beginning, but in a few weeks they do it, and be not affected at all, so would be a LOT of coding for a rather temporary gain

Red Falcon.8257:

You did not understand the concept I explained.

Currently when a player hits DR he gets only trash items worth nothing, and therefore is forced to stop looting or he would get no gain.
With the new system they’d have two options when triggering DR:
1) move to another zone without DR.
2) continue looting normally and still get mats they can use (ores, lodestones etc), so all those players who like to farm for crafting are now allowed to do so.
Currently, only option 1 is available.
It’s pretty safe to say that any player would choose to have another option on top of what’s currently available over not having any choice but move away.

I thought when DR triggers currently the player just gets less loot, rather than trash items?

GummiBear.2756:

occurs to me you ahve no idea how complex you can make a bot, would not be a problem to make a bot farm and area got x minutes (x being just below eht amount of time needed to hit DR) then have the pot use a waypoint to another area and then do it again there, wp to new area farm there etc etc, would take a little work on the bot developers to get figure out the most efficient time needed and how many places they need to visit before it can restart from beginning, but in a few weeks they do it, and be not affected at all, so would be a LOT of coding for a rather temporary gain

or just switch between different characters parked at different spots?

I just want DR explained in detail so that I know if I’m hitting it or not. Although, I find it interesting if I want to help my bf get his sunrise, we have no choice but to farm up air elementals in orr, yet we’re punished for doing so. Why is it bad for me to do the very thing that I have to do in order to help him get what he wants? (I’m going for bifrost so for me I can get the materials just about anywhere). If they want to punish us for farming then they need to make it so charged lodestones can drop from any mob in orr.

Drakonhammer.2148:

I thought when DR triggers currently the player just gets less loot, rather than trash items?

You do still get loot, but at a significantly lower rate, MF gear turns to 0%, Im not sure if crafting mats rate is adjusted though.

Although Im not sure how this solves much, essentially all this does is make the bot loose out on junk and make it go to the Mforge to get rid of bound status. The only players it helps directly are those that stay in the exact same area to farm for crafting mats purely, but currently its better to farm your crafts hit DR then go farm gold to buy mats elsewhere.

Khisanth.2948:

GummiBear.2756:

occurs to me you ahve no idea how complex you can make a bot, would not be a problem to make a bot farm and area got x minutes (x being just below eht amount of time needed to hit DR) then have the pot use a waypoint to another area and then do it again there, wp to new area farm there etc etc, would take a little work on the bot developers to get figure out the most efficient time needed and how many places they need to visit before it can restart from beginning, but in a few weeks they do it, and be not affected at all, so would be a LOT of coding for a rather temporary gain

or just switch between different characters parked at different spots?

hmm true didn’t think about that, but yeah that likely ever easier to make for a bot programmer :P

We really need to move away from DR… right now.

It is so ridiculous.