Incoming Aggro Change for Groups on Test

[Blackguard]

<div></div>We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items. This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns: - Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members. - Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members. That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so). This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them. <div></div>

[Neld]

<div></div><p>aw i kinda like that, heheheh</p><p>I wonder how people will get around that?</p>

[NocteBla]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.<hr></blockquote><p>Could we get that tweaked to say "unless the target is green to the lower level player"?</p><p>The reason for this is that it would get quite annoying to run around as level 60, with a level 59 player, and have to stop to kill all the grey mobs (to the 60) that are still green to the lvl 59 that would continue to aggro. IMO, there should be a little bit of a buffer between this.</p><p>As for the not aggroing if it wouldn't aggro solo, I completely agree. No desired changes on my part there.</p>

[elbo]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items. This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns:- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote><p>Bravo :smileyhappy:</p><p> </p>

[Tappen]

This is a clever change, and I like it.  However most farming of named mobs in dungeons will probably continue unabated until you change it so named mob encounters auto-lock. Farmers will have to either invis or fight their way to the named mobs with this change, but once in a room the higher level of the (ungrouped) farming team will still be able to do 99.9% of the damage and the lower level still get the loot.<div></div>

[Shmogg]

<div>It should also make a bit harder the more common (at least more commonly reported) tactic of (1) grouping to get there and (2) ungroup to have the lower level tag (for loot credit) then (3) the upper level kills the named with comparitive ease. Time will tell.</div>

[Pixel Tr]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Neldar wrote:<div></div><p>aw i kinda like that, heheheh</p><p>I wonder how people will get around that?</p><hr></blockquote><p>Very easily, the level 60 farmer will just easily crush the mobs in runnyeye, varsoons, etc while their lower level toon hangs back. Then once they make their way to the named, it will be businesss as usual. It's just going to take them a couple more minutes to reach their spot, assuming they can't just invis there.</p><p> </p><p>Removing encounter locking and having the best stuff drop off from specific mobs... I guess they wanted to add camping and loot farming to EQ2.</p>

[Aar]

This fails to address the real issue:  Farming lower level dungeons is more profitable than farming t6.  By a big margin.So...people will train the greens...this means more of a disruptive problem.   Or...you just mentor to the point where only the namers are green.<div></div>

[Feltrak]

<div></div>Let's just get rid of the trivial loot code.

[Dasein]

<p>A level 30 mob is not a challenge for a level 60 (and soon level 70) player. A level 70 tank could pull all of a dungeon like Varsoons and not take a scratch, and a warlock could drop the mobs with a a couple of AOEs. All this means is that the farmers will now clear the entire zones instead of just the named mobs. Legit players, on the other hand, will be discouraged from grouping with their lower-level friends because it provides no real benefit. I see this change as only punishing legit players while doing nothing to curtail the real problems.</p>

[Blackguard]

An additional note: If you con grey to a mob, it will always see through stealth and invisibility (as they currently do). Also, being group-stealth or invisd by a high level player will not change that behavior, and mobs with see-stealth and see-invis will still see through it as normal. This should make it difficult to simply stealth over to a named creature (or certainly of the same difficulty that a group of the appropriate level will experience). <div></div>

[Dasein]

<div></div>The problem with this change is that it is entirely a reactionary measure. Rather than target the specific behavior that should be eliminated, these changes will negatively impact everyone and might, hopefully, reduce the farming that people are complaining about. However, it's a carpet bombing approach to fixing the problem when SOE should be using laser guided bombs. We see this all to often in decisions, from the use of no-trade flags to nerfs to the use of CC abilities on epic mobs to the change to the spell shield illusionist spell. Rather than make minor adjustments and tweaks to address the specific problem, the tendency is to go in and make massive overcorrections with all sorts of additional consequences beyond the original intent.

[Nerj]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Neldar wrote:<div></div><p>aw i kinda like that, heheheh</p><p>I wonder how people will get around that?</p><p></p><hr>Here is another way:<p></p><p>Conjuror -- Level 52 -- <strong>Call of the Hero</strong> -- Summons a party or raid member to the Conjuror's location. Target player must be in the same zone as the caster. Requires a softly glowing pearl.</p></blockquote><p>Now, don't let Blackguard find out.</p><p>P.S. -- Within a week the players will have a workaround for this.</p><p>Also like the idea of locking mentoring in combat too</p><p>Message Edited by Nerjin on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">06:00 PM</span></p>

[ArivenGemini]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote>Sure you will see a few less people doing this exploitation Blackguard, but it really wont make much of a change... maybe take the duo a bit longer to set up shop..  but the large chunk of the exploiting that I see is two types:1: lowbie pulls the mob, gets first hit and thus tag for credit/xp, then high leveler takes out the mob.2: High level sits in dungeon where named is barely green, named pops and high leveler takes out the mob, even heroic ones, for the loot.#2 is common in Runnyeye on Mistmoore, a level 50 can sit camping a named and if he is fast enough (I am not saying 3rd party macro.. -yet-) they can pop them before most normal groups can, preventing people who are doing it the right way to get much of a chance..#1 is the big issue IMHO, and this change you propose will do nothing to stop it at all.   as long as they can get there to set up shop, they WILL set up shop.  You will have to do something to change the mechanics of all this to prevent the exploitation....</span></div>

[Landiin]

<div>I am glad you guys are trying to address this and also keep auto locking out of the game. This will not stop people from doing it but it does add a bit of a road block. If you would make the higher lvl zones drop loot like the lower lvls ones do then you would solve 60% of this. Don't get me wrong; yes the higher lvl zones are dropping more loot but nothing like the lower level ones.</div>

[Eriol]

Ummm... you sure this wasn't already accidentally pushed to live... like before last week? Considering how this has been happening accidentally for a while...I noticed this with my crusader when I was betraying them to Qeynos from Freeport. I made a call in Nektulos for a high-lvl to group with so I could run through the "dangerous" part unharmed, but after I was grouped, while all the mobs were then grey, the red "agro" outlines on them remained, and they DID agro. Now I did make it through the forest (first try too), but still, to my understanding this shouldn't have happened until AFTER this change hit live.Or has it hit already?

[Dasein]

<div></div><div>A mob that cons red to the lowest level member of the group will still be agro. That's been live for months now.</div>

[Eileithia]

<div></div><p>The biggest issue is not that they cannot get to the named encounter, although this will slow them down.. most farmers do not Mentor to get the loot off the named.. what they are doing is dropping group.. having the lowbie tag the mob to engage the encounter, and the level 60 (or 50 or whatever) kills the mob and the chest still drops for the lower player.. Even if the lower player does 50% damage.. the 60 tank is holding the mob so that the lower player will never be hit..</p><p>I personally don't care if people use the high level tank / low level player to PL people.. but to loot farm it's a totally different story.. and I agree that any NAMED creature should auto-lock like epics do. even flag these named as Epic x1 so they are single groupable, but they cannot be farmed unless you bring a full group of apporpriate level players or mentoring in a full group to do it..</p><p>The above changes are good.. and a step in the right direction.. but something still needs to be done about the above method or it's just going to continue being a farm feast..</p>

[Landiin]

<div>It has been sort of like that for a while, if you are lower then so many lvls below the person greying out the mobs they will attack you ( the low lvl ) but not them ( the high lvl ). I think they are saying now if the mob would be green ( agro ) to any one in the group it will attack any one in the group not just the person the mob is agro to and no matter the lvl range.</div>

[Decad]

<span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:An additional note: If you con grey to a mob, it will always see through stealth and invisibility (as they currently do). Also, being group-stealth or invisd by a high level player will not change that behavior, and mobs with see-stealth and see-invis will still see through it as normal. This should make it difficult to simply stealth over to a named creature (or certainly of the same difficulty that a group of the appropriate level will experience).<div></div><hr></blockquote>I'm sorry, I totally do not understand this at all...If the mob is grey, what's the big deal if you stealth/invis past it or not???</span><div></div>

[Dasein]

<div></div>Auto-locking named encounters would solve the problem in a very specific manner. Encounters are still balanced against a group, so this wouldn't hurt legit players, nor would it prevent powerlevelling off regular mobs, nor would it penalize higher level people for grouping with lower level players. It is the sort of specific targetted fix that SOE should employ.

[Dontan]

The changes, while well intentioned, will not stop the farmers.  What Sony may not realize is that when these people farm they are not mentoring.  The low level player (who is not grouped with the high level character) attacks the named monster.  Right after that the high level farmer will attack and kill the named monster.  The lowbie loots the master chest.Then they move on to the next named mob.  Only now, the high level famer will lay waste to anything in his way.  Thus, causing even more grief to legitimate players.Solution: auto-lock named encounters just like you do with epics.  Also, remove loot from quest npcs please.<div></div>

[pera]

<span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items. This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns:- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<hr></blockquote>This is a great change since how rampant farming of named mobs has become in the lower level dungones.Quick question.  namely the part of <i>"</i></span><span><i> - Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of t he level of group members.</i>"<i>  </i>Just to clerify on what this means.If a higher level player mentors down to a lower level player to kill a normaly grey mob: A.) The mentoring player cannot grab inital agro, but can grab agro as the fight progresses?, B.) The mentoring player cannot grab agro at all?If a higher level player has a lower level player agro and encounter a normaly grey mob: A.) The higher level player cannot take agro for the lower level player? B.) No change to the current system after an encouther has been engaged.I'm asking my second question mainly because on highkeep, when we see this farming going, yes they do grey out the zone to get the lower level past the normaly agro mobs, but instead of mentoring down what they will do is disband group, have the lower level player enage the mob.  Once the encounter has been enaged the higher level player will pull agro off the lower player and kill the mob</span><span>, thus garenting that the loot would still drop</span><span>.  As long as the lower level player does not /lock on his encouther the higher level player can alwasy just kill the mob and the players will what ever was in the box. If for my second question A, is the case a nice change to this would be that ONLY the group that origianly engaged the encouther could gain any form of agro.  This would at least curb higher level players from being able to take agro away from the lower level ones to kill the mob and get the loot with out any risk to both players.</span><span></span><div></div>

[Dontan]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Decadre wrote:<span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:An additional note: If you con grey to a mob, it will always see through stealth and invisibility (as they currently do). Also, being group-stealth or invisd by a high level player will not change that behavior, and mobs with see-stealth and see-invis will still see through it as normal. This should make it difficult to simply stealth over to a named creature (or certainly of the same difficulty that a group of the appropriate level will experience).<div></div><hr></blockquote>I'm sorry, I totally do not understand this at all...If the mob is grey, what's the big deal if you stealth/invis past it or not???</span><div></div><hr></blockquote>What he is saying is that YOU are gray to the monster.  IE, you are a lower level than the monster.  And if you are gray then it doesn't matter is a level 60 casts invis on you...the monster will still see you.</span></div>

[Nerj]

<div></div>The downside to this is going to be the next fix. What will happen is that if an outsdie player damages the MOB and that MOB is grey to them then no loot will drop. This will make a great greifing tool, down the road that is.

[SunT]

<div></div><p>Wouldn't it be simpler and less invasive on those who do not do this to <strong>just make it so no chest drops if the person/group who aggroed the encounter does not do 51% of the damage</strong>?</p><p>When I was leveling my Defiler in the 20's I would grey out FG and go deep into the yellows, find a safe spot then mentor and commence two boxing and leveling him.  Not forloot but for better EXP.  With this change you are nerfing those who want to do this sort of thing. </p><p>The exploit can still be done because you can still invis a player and run him in, then uninvis and have him attack and they will still get the chest.  It will be an inconvenience to a farmer but certainly not a stop.</p><p>If you make it so they have to do 51% like the EXP calculation, then the farmer will be forced to mentor and fight the mob at the intended level.  Any 60 can kill any 35 mob.  But not any 35 mentored/boxed duo can. </p><p><strong>The root problem is that a Low toon can aggro and do nominal damage while the high toon kills the mob and a Master Chest still drops.</strong>  <strong>It is not that they can get there that is the problem, it is the fight mechanics.</strong></p><p>I suggested before weighted % chance of masters dropping vs difficulty in another thread.  That could also fix the issue.</p><p>I am happy to see you attempting to fix the farming, but not sure this is the best solution.</p>

[pera]

<span><blockquote><hr>Decadre wrote:<span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:An additional note: If you con grey to a mob, it will always see through stealth and invisibility (as they currently do). Also, being group-stealth or invisd by a high level player will not change that behavior, and mobs with see-stealth and see-invis will still see through it as normal. This should make it difficult to simply stealth over to a named creature (or certainly of the same difficulty that a group of the appropriate level will experience).<div></div><hr></blockquote>I'm sorry, I totally do not understand this at all...If the mob is grey, what's the big deal if you stealth/invis past it or not???</span><div></div><hr></blockquote>I think he means if you are grey to the mob, basicly if the mob is red.</span><div></div>

[Dasein]

<div></div><hr>Wouldn't it be simpler and less invasive on those who do not do this to <strong>just make it so no chest drops if the person/group who aggroed the encounter does not do 51% of the damage</strong>?<hr>No, because that would open up the ability for other players to grief by doing damage. A level 70 ranger or wizard or other high DPS class could easily kill a level 30 heroic mob before the agroing group had a chance to get off more than a taunt.

[Zutan]

While I understand the need to fix this issue this is NOT the right way to do this.  This effectively punishes legitimate groups who happen to have a person in the group low enough to agro mobs the group has no interest in killing due to their low (non-exp loot) level.  Group level "average" NEEDS to be taken into account or the current exp/loot and agro situation completely changes.The issue that needs to be fixed is encounter locking (or lack ther-of) allowing people to "agro" a named then kill it off with a higher level ungrouped toon.<div></div>

[Ki]

<div>Take this feedback for what it is worth.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Please install some mechanic that will make mobs hate gain drop to 5% or so from anyone not involved in the encounter.</div><div> </div><div>people are taking the level 60 characters into an area where they still have to fight to the nameds and the level 30 person starts the encounter, and then the level 60 guardian or whatever taunts the mob.  The mob sits and beats on air, because he can't hit the 60 character and the 30 does all the damage, thus getting a chest to drop.   </div><div> </div><div>That is the worst abuse i see of game mechanics.  And it only started when you took out the locking of encounters.</div><div> </div>

[Moonspark]

<div>Awesome, a fix that negatively impacts mostly everyone but doesn't actually fix the problem!</div><div> </div><div>Good job complainers, you just got stuff nerfed inadvertantly because of your jealousy.</div>

[Sem]

<div></div><div></div><p>I'm glad to see they're addressing the issue of skipping around to farm the masters and preventing proper hunt groups of appropriate age from getting them... but it is an odd approach. </p><p>There's at least  one use for "greying out" that I think was a sort of valid use - our guild has some folks who tradeskill primarily and gather all their own stuff with the notable exception of T5.  T1-4 and T6 all have safe-ish areas to gather in which provide enough for all the folks on a server who gather there but T5 sort of stands out as having very limited numbers of nodes in a very limited non-aggro area to harvest in if you aren't of an adventure level.  So I was always willing to help young adventurer/high tradeskillers in Rivervale and Feerrott by grouping and I'd go off to gather for them in deeper areas and they'd be able to widen the safe area they could harvest in.    T5 goes back to being a problem for them when this goes in.</p><p>Message Edited by Semma on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">06:25 PM</span></p>

[Moonspark]

<div>I'd just like to add, that as a level 60 zerker/warlock/dirge I could just clear the whole entire zone and prevent anyone from getting any experience or loot if I wanted to farm this way.  This is just ADDING to the problem, I hope people aren't so blind as to not see this.</div><div> </div><div>Now the farmers just have to kill everything, it won't be a deterant, it will just take all the experience away from adventurers at the same time.</div><div> </div><div> </div>

[Eriol]

<blockquote><hr>Caswydian wrote:A mob that cons red to the lowest level member of the group will still be agro. That's been live for months now.<hr></blockquote>Ah. Thanks. That definitely would have been it.

[Kriki]

<div></div><p>I agree with many of the other posters - the problem isn't greying out a zone or dungeon to get somewhere, the problem is the high level dropping group and killing the mob after the lowbie gets one whack in.</p><p>One good solution that has been put forward here is to autolock the named mobs - especially quest mobs.</p><p> </p><p>Just my 2cp.</p><p> </p>

[slubins]

<div></div>I agree with many of the posters here...if it has to be done (and I'm sure it will be done), please just auto lock named mobs. I feel that he game is better with toggled auto locks (most don't do it) and the ability to PL (which is not bad).

[Araxes]

<span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>[....]This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote>I think this is a very good idea.  I've thought this was a strange way to exploit the game's intended difficulty within any given dungeon for a long time, now.  It's good that players will now need to actually work together to achieve things for their younger partners.  I think it gives an added sense of teamwork and comraderie for guilds and social players, as well.However.  My one thought is this: in combination with the fact that encounters need not be locked anymore ... doesn't this make the mentoring system rather irrelevant in general?  A high level player can now simply join with a lowbie - and destory anything which shows aggro.  How are you going to account for this?  An experience negation perhaps?Thanks ~</span><div></div>

[Eriol]

I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I've never liked Trivial Loot Code. I think that if people want to farm lower-level stuff, let them. Increased supply will lower the prices on lower-level masters (and other named loot) to the point where that will be a viable section of the server economy. Since allowing high-levels to take out lower-lvl targets with lowbie alts/guildies, I've seen a DRASTIC increase of the availability of lower-lvl adepts and masters, with the masters almost to the point where if I was levelling up for real the first time nowadays, I could have actually afforded one or two of them, whereas when I WAS levelling up, they were so out of sight in price as to be laughable for trying to aquire them.So I've NEVER had a problem with people farming low-lvl dungeons. Stimulates the economy IMO. The ONLY problem is when you have people camping it so that somebody actually "running" the dungeon doesn't have to compete with a farmer. I don't know how to stop that, but stopping all farming of mid-low level gear by high levels seems like an overreaction.

[einar4]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:An additional note: If you con grey to a mob, it will always see through stealth and invisibility (as they currently do). Also, being group-stealth or invisd by a high level player will not change that behavior, and mobs with see-stealth and see-invis will still see through it as normal. This should make it difficult to simply stealth over to a named creature (or certainly of the same difficulty that a group of the appropriate level will experience).<div></div><hr></blockquote><p>So in order to address an issue that your team caused in the first place with making dungeons into lewt farms and removing encounter locks, you make a change that hurts the play experience for everyone.   You guys must fill in alot of TPS reports where you work.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>

[Tstorm]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.<div></div><hr></blockquote>I rather like this.  I'm a bit naive with regards to the exploiting going on with this, but the new method described here seems more realistic.I would suggest making sure that both high level and low level person have an indicator that aggro is possible.  For example, if I as a high level player am escorting a lower level player through an area, I'll want to see if I am personally aggro to something but I'll want a different indicator to let me know someone in my group is vulnerable to a mob so I can protect them.</span></div>

[Fabnusen]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Caswydian wrote:<div></div>The problem with this change is that it is entirely a reactionary measure. Rather than target the specific behavior that should be eliminated, these changes will negatively impact everyone and might, hopefully, reduce the farming that people are complaining about. However, it's a carpet bombing approach to fixing the problem when SOE should be using laser guided bombs. We see this all to often in decisions, from the use of no-trade flags to nerfs to the use of CC abilities on epic mobs to the change to the spell shield illusionist spell. Rather than make minor adjustments and tweaks to address the specific problem, the tendency is to go in and make massive overcorrections with all sorts of additional consequences beyond the original intent.<hr></blockquote>QFE

[WAPCE]

<blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items. This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns:- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote>Unfortunately, this change victimizes people who play legitimately and does nothing to stop the problem. What you've written isn't what is happening in the game at all, as others have stated, it's out-of-group players who are taking aggro and killing mobs that are trivial to them after being tagged by someone of the appropriate level. This change as you've described is ill-conceived and should not be implemented in its current form, as it does not address the problem at hand.

[Mon]

This is a terrible solution to a minor problem.  It is minor.  People will farm.  Im not going to go into a long discussion of why people like to trivialize content though.  If you are that thin skinned, you really need to go play a solo only game.  This "solution" multiplies the problem hugely.  Punishing everyone BUT the farmers.  Like others have said, they will just proceed to destroy everything in their way to the named.  What kind of solution is that? Here is your solution. Declare using a using a much higher level expressly to farm names an illegal activity.  Require GMs or whatever to observe this behavior.  Punish the guilty.  We dont need more ridiculous mechanics in the game.  I am "OK" with autolocking epic encounters, but good god, dont bring it back to names.  I hate the whole locking mechanic.  I also hate the movement debuff while in an encounter too, all these wierd mechanisms just make the game feel odd.  Im glad they have curbed them somewhat.<div></div>

[Ixnay]

<div></div><p>I LOVE THIS CHANGE.  This is a great step in the right direction to solve the current epidemic of higher level players farming lower level zones.  This should greatly curb the incidence of high level toons moving quickly between encounters in zones like Runnyeye and stealing named from low level groups of people who are (gasp) actually playing EQ2 as intended.</p><p>This change does not prevent anyone with a high level toon from powerleveling an alt or friend, which I think is fair.  This will only make it no longer feasible for a single player to farm all the named in low level zones at the same time by boxing just one high level and one low level toon.  This change only makes things harder for high level players to farm low level zones.</p><p>This change is a great idea, and won't have any impact on gameplay except to level the playing field between farmers and level appropriate players.</p><p>Good work, Eq2 team.</p>

[Godwrath]

<div>That wont stop the farming.</div><div> </div><div>They can still invis or whatever, or just kill everything otw, which would be even worse.</div>

[Loki_d20]

<div></div><span><blockquote><hr>Caswydian wrote:<div></div>The problem with this change is that it is entirely a reactionary measure. Rather than target the specific behavior that should be eliminated, these changes will negatively impact everyone and might, hopefully, reduce the farming that people are complaining about. However, it's a carpet bombing approach to fixing the problem when SOE should be using laser guided bombs. We see this all to often in decisions, from the use of no-trade flags to nerfs to the use of CC abilities on epic mobs to the change to the spell shield illusionist spell. Rather than make minor adjustments and tweaks to address the specific problem, the tendency is to go in and make massive overcorrections with all sorts of additional consequences beyond the original intent.<hr></blockquote>Do you have any clue about what you're talking about?  I would love to hear what these minor adjustments and tweaks are if the above described changes are not considered as such.Lock the encounter?  How is that supposedly an easier fix than the above?  Just because it sounds easier doesn't make it easier.  In fact, you have to associate and tag those who are considered lock-needed to make this occur, which is another database table (at the least) and another process rather than applying a typical rule within the already created process.There are no minor adjustments.===Anyway.Personally, I think we've taken the good with the bad.  I love the locked combat system, but others hated it.  They implemented a method to allow the outsiders to help based on player feedback.  But, now, we have the good (you can help others) with the bad (they can't remove chances of loot just because someone helps otherwise it's griefable and people would just use locked encounters).The only fix I see is just reverting back to locked encounters as a whole.  You can't really fix the situation without making it pointless, IMHO.</span><div></div><p>Message Edited by Loki_d20 on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:09 PM</span></p>

[Za]

<blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:An additional note: If you con grey to a mob, it will always seethrough stealth and invisibility (as they currently do). Also, beinggroup-stealth or invisd by a high level player will not change thatbehavior, and mobs with see-stealth and see-invis will still seethrough it as normal. This should make it difficult to simply stealthover to a named creature (or certainly of the same difficulty that agroup of the appropriate level will experience).<div></div><hr></blockquote>I think the point still stands that as L60+ char, I'll group with a L 30 char, and I really don't care if they take agro. I can pretty easily wipe out entire rooms in just a few minutes. Heck this actually helps me t little because I can just have the L30 char run out and grab agro and bring it all back to me... then AoE the whole mess to tranfser all agro to myself. Sure I actually have to bother killing stuff, but it's not like it takes that long, or that I'm worried at all of dying.Two suggestions to really deal with the problem.1) As someone said earlier... Program an exception to the encounter locking code, such that if a person that would otherwise not receive exp from that encounter casts a spell on a target that is locked in an encounter with someone that would... The encounter voids the interference. Same thing with any buffs cast during that lock.So if a L60 Templar heals a L30 char while they're in the middle of a battle with a L30 mob, the heal will not land.If a L30 tank pulls a mob and starts trying to kill it, and a L60 wizard comes by and casts a 5k nuke on the poor mob, the nuke does not hit.This seems most fair. In the 1st case, the healer can always rez the player IF he dies, but he can't trivialize the encounter while it's occuring. If the templar wants to really be a part of the encounter force him to Mentor down and really be a part of it.In the 2nd example, we wouldn't want to make it so the encounter didn't give loot just because someone nuked the mob. That might punish the tank if he really didn't need the casters help... But it does fix the problem so that if the tanks only means of winning was with the nukage of the L60, this takes away that potential.2) Fix mentoring so that it takes a little time to transition... IE... if I enter Varsoons and immediately mentor down to L30, the when I unmentor, either make the unmentoring require a 10-20 minute delay, a zone change, or death.Now I can't simply toggle mentoring between the named and un-named encounters. But if I actually need to drop mentoring to go someplace else, then I can just zone out.For people that need to re-mentor, code it such that rementoring also works...So If I join a group and mentor to L30, I'm stuck at L30 until I either mentor with someone else, leave the zone, die, or wait for the timer to wear off. Otherwise, once I'm L30 I can't simply hop back to 70 to clear and room, then mentor back down to 30 to kill the next named mob.

[Kendricke]

<blockquote><hr>Moonspark wrote:<div>I'd just like to add, that as a level 60 zerker/warlock/dirge I could just clear the whole entire zone and prevent anyone from getting any experience or loot if I wanted to farm this way.  This is just ADDING to the problem, I hope people aren't so blind as to not see this.</div><div> </div><div>Now the farmers just have to kill everything, it won't be a deterant, it will just take all the experience away from adventurers at the same time.<hr></div></blockquote><p>As a general rule, people are like electricity - they tend to follow the path of least resistance.  The reason we saw such rampant farming recently was the ease by which it could be perpetrated.  There was next to no real risk or effort, and the rewards were certainly well worth what little hassle there was. </p><p>By enacting this system, it won't eliminate the issue, but should cut down on it dramatically.  Farmers will go to where it's easiest and less of a hassle.  If they have to fight through everything - even with a level 60 - then that takes time, more time than perhaps many would be willing to spend for the same rewards.  It's not worth fighting other groups AND clearing half a dungeon just to get a lower level alternate to an enemy - at least it's not <em>as</em> worth it. </p><p> </p><p> </p>

[Qandor]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Caswydian wrote:<div></div>The problem with this change is that it is entirely a reactionary measure. Rather than target the specific behavior that should be eliminated, these changes will negatively impact everyone and might, hopefully, reduce the farming that people are complaining about. However, it's a carpet bombing approach to fixing the problem when SOE should be using laser guided bombs. We see this all to often in decisions, from the use of no-trade flags to nerfs to the use of CC abilities on epic mobs to the change to the spell shield illusionist spell. Rather than make minor adjustments and tweaks to address the specific problem, the tendency is to go in and make massive overcorrections with all sorts of additional consequences beyond the original intent.<hr></blockquote>Exactly. Always the sledgehammer approach. Reason being the sledgehammer approach takes less time and less thought.

[Sritt]

<div></div><p>This change I don't think will stop the farmers, what it will stop is players trying to get a friend to a quest mob they need without having to fight their way there. As others have stated the farmer's aren't mentoring and if the high level is most any priest class they ahve Call of Hero and can summon the low level from the entrance of the zone, bypassing this 'fix' altogether. Auto-locking the mobs might be a better answer though this would have made things rough for my roommate's betrayal as duo'ed we couldn't take out Dancoed with just the two of us so I let him 'tag' Dancoed then finished the gnoll off solo (is the only mob he couldn't handle solo in the betrayal). Making loot not drop if the group doesn't do 51% or more damage won't work as you just open up griefing and unintential quest mess ups when someone jumps in to help a low level who's almost dead finish off a mob they were fighting.</p><p>The most reasonable and least regular player impacting solution is probably the auto-locking nameds with loot drops (Dancoed as far as I know doesn't drop any loot so why auto-lock him) and remove non-quest related loot drops from quest mobs. A more complex solution is to let quest mobs drop loot but only if the person/group getting credit for the kill gets a quest update from the kill (but is a side issue to the main one of farming as MOST quest nameds don't drop loot currently).</p><p>This change makes it harder for regular players to do certain quests especially if they're only a level apart and that level makes the difference between grey and green. It will just make most groups say 'Lvl 60 lfg, other lvl 60s only please'.</p>

[Kendricke]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>WAPCE wrote:Unfortunately, this change victimizes people who play legitimately and does nothing to stop the problem. What you've written isn't what is happening in the game at all, as others have stated, it's out-of-group players who are taking aggro and killing mobs that are trivial to them after being tagged by someone of the appropriate level. This change as you've described is ill-conceived and should not be implemented in its current form, as it does not address the problem at hand.<hr></blockquote><p>Sure it addresses the issue.  Even if he misworded the mentoring tactic, the out-of-group tactic is just as affected.  You still have to get that level 10 or 20 or 30 down to the named in the first place.  With invisibility, it's easy and quick with next to no risk.  With that tool taken away, it becomes harder, more challenging, more time consuming, and to be quite frank, more realistic. </p><p>I can't be the only player who is frustrated by watching someone park their high level adventuring buddy in their group just so they can go around harvesting whatever they want with no risk, or who watches on in contempt as someone rips their low level buddies through the hard dungeon just to swoop in on some good quests without any chance of danger. </p><p>If you're low level, you shouldn't necessarily be in certain places - certainly not without any real fear of loss. </p><p>Now all that's needed is the implementation of an additional death mechanic and I'd be more for this than I already am.</p><p> </p>

[a6eaq]

<div></div><p>I have always felt that SOE really screwed the pooch when they took out autolocking encounters, then they made the farming worse when they allowed peeps to join/drop from groups already engaged in combat, etc.  Sure, they had good intentions for doing both, but those changes simply made life easy for the farmers. </p><p>You want to make farming a little more difficult....... remove the changes and go back to autolocking encounters to the first person that taunts or strikes a mob in any way. </p><p>There will always be people that exploit the game, every change that makes life easier for the legit players, makes it that much easier for the exploiters as well.</p>

[Petrogly]

<div></div>I dont like this change at all.  But as to the point of Farmers.  Why cant they just set any encounter that can drop a master chest to autolock.  Dont care if its a named,  non-named, epic or what have you.  That will put all the farmers out of that business and they will have to find a new way.   Like someone said earlier they do some global fix like this to solve a problem when something much more specific is needed.

[Drevva]

If you want to slow down, or halt farming named mobs, then you must lock named encounters so the farmers can't do the exploit as mentioned above.  The change you are doing will perhaps slow them a bit, but farmers don't move around that much,  this change also impacts the entire player base without really solving any of the problem.Locking named encounters doesn't really adverse the normal player base.  I mean named encounters are suppose to be tough, but will completely stop one of the major types of farming going on.Drevva

[a6eaq]

<div></div><p>Petroglyph wrote:</p><p>Why cant they just set any encounter that can drop a master chest to autolock.  Dont care if its a named,  non-named, epic or what have you.</p><hr>Because anything can drop a master chest.  I got a master1 from a sandcrawler trash mob in the Sandcrawler Cliffs in PoF.  So if you autolock any encounter that has the potential to drop a master chest, then you autolock everything.  That is unless they have changed the random number generator to stop trash mobs from dropping masters in the <em>extremely</em> rare chances it had in the past.

[Calthine]

<div></div>nice change <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Loki_d20]

<span><blockquote><hr>a6eaq wrote:<div></div><p>Petroglyph wrote:</p><p>Why cant they just set any encounter that can drop a master chest to autolock.  Dont care if its a named,  non-named, epic or what have you.</p><hr>Because anything can drop a master chest.  I got a master1 from a sandcrawler trash mob in the Sandcrawler Cliffs in PoF.  So if you autolock any encounter that has the potential to drop a master chest, then you autolock everything.  That is unless they have changed the random number generator to stop trash mobs from dropping masters in the <em>extremely</em> rare chances it had in the past.<hr></blockquote>They haven't.  At the same time it would require further checking at the moment of engagement (loot would need to be determined at the point of aggro gained).</span><div></div>

[AdamWest007]

<div></div><p>Wow...or should I say WoW.  This is the single worse "fix" ever.  These farmers have no respect for their fellow players.  So just like they had no problem hopping you to steal the named your legit grp was working for, so too will they have no problem wiping out the entire dungeon to get to the named faster than you could.  Great, now all of RoV/RE will be decimated by high level toons.  Were is my legit grp supposed to go for decent XP and good drops?</p><p>Here's a better solution.  Just have a rock at zone in to RoV and RE that any toon level 50+ can click ever 10 minutes to receive a master spell.  That's how easy it is for then now, but at least they will stay out of our way.  (Oh wait, you already tried this "rock" idea with the RoI...guess it didn't work too well at that.)</p><p> </p>

[selch]

<div>Very nice change...</div><div> </div><div>Even I have doubts on farmers to get there, it would be lovely to, unless players yelled for help removing all of their loot rights, 'mob' should not get 'damaged' from any other player no matter how high level player is..</div><div> </div><div>I'm L30 for example, I encountered with L28 mob.. No matter what happens, If I don't yell for help, even L60 player should see as 'not an enemy'</div><div> </div><div>Which is basically auto-lock. Ofcourse you might have your own reasons to remove it but there is always another way for farmers to continue, but that's one giant step for EQ2 community.</div><div> </div><div>Thank you.</div><div> </div>

[Achala]

I think this a great change.  It helps maintain an appropriate risk vs. reward for encounters and zones.  I think the aggro mechanics in FFXI worked this way; I was surprised when I first started EQ2 and found out that people could gray out whole zones so friends could harvest or make a beeline to some target effort free.I'm not sure I like the other suggestions about auto-locking named encounters (though I agree in principle that they should not be easily trivialized and auto-locking would prevent that) but only because I think that some mechanism for allowing outside help should be allowed and auto-locking prevents that.   Perhaps if outside help such as taunts and heals were scaled down in efficacy as if the caster was mentored?But whatever.  I would also welcome having many instances have soft level caps (auto mentoring down high levels to the target level to maintain an appropriate challenge for the encounter, like BCNM fights in FFXI) and things like that, so I'm probably in the minority here.  Any change that helps maintain an appropriate degree of challenge and prevent overly trivializing things is fine by me.  I like levelling and looting and farming and completing quests without effort as much as the next guy, but I play Progress Quest for that.  I come to EQ2 hoping for a challenge, and anything that helps maintain that challenge is great.  (And yes it does affect me how others choose to play the game even if I avoid these types of exploits myself, since we share the same world and the same economy, etc.)<div></div>

[Sritt]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>a6eaq wrote:<div></div><p>Petroglyph wrote:</p><p>Why cant they just set any encounter that can drop a master chest to autolock.  Dont care if its a named,  non-named, epic or what have you.</p><hr>Because anything can drop a master chest.  I got a master1 from a sandcrawler trash mob in the Sandcrawler Cliffs in PoF.  So if you autolock any encounter that has the potential to drop a master chest, then you autolock everything.  That is unless they have changed the random number generator to stop trash mobs from dropping masters in the <em>extremely</em> rare chances it had in the past.<hr></blockquote>The issue isn't ANY encounter that CAN drop a master chest. Its with named mobs that have a VERY HIGH chance of dropping a master or legendary chest. Just off hand I can think of 5 mobs in Freeport adventure yards that are almost always dropping a master or legnedary chest on every kill. Three are new on test and drop legendary chests with items that only they carry, the other 2 are in Sunken City and are level 10 heroics and I got got master chest off both of them (solo at 15 and it was a rough fight with them, plus they're immune to low-end weapons so had to buy a treasured off broker to fight them). I'm sure the heroics don't always drop masters but they each seemed to have unique legendary drops. THe farmers are going after nameds like these that drop unique loot (as in unique to that mob) in lengendary and master chests at a very high rate. SOme of these t4-t5 items are worth a lot, and actually go for more than some t6 stuff. Also most t6 legenedary/fabled comes off epics so aren't really farmable the same way (at least until the expansion).

[Sirlutt]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:An additional note: If you con grey to a mob, it will always see through stealth and invisibility (as they currently do). Also, being group-stealth or invisd by a high level player will not change that behavior, and mobs with see-stealth and see-invis will still see through it as normal. This should make it difficult to simply stealth over to a named creature (or certainly of the same difficulty that a group of the appropriate level will experience).<div></div><hr></blockquote>I dont think you read the few posts around yours.  This is going to hurt, not help.  The lvl 60's will now just clear the zone all the way down to the named and then camp there in one spot.  Lvl 60 Pally, Lvl 60 Warlock is all you need.  Hell just a lvl 60 Zerker would work fine.  The problem is you allow higher level players to help others.  What you need to do is not allow Char60 to help Char35 if what Char35 is fighting is grey to Char60.  This will cut it out entirely.  You wont be able to have Char60 clear the zone, because he now cant help you with BigBadBoss38^^^ and his Henchmen37^ x 4. As it stands now, Char38 just has to agro the boss, then let Char60 take agro.  Loot drops.  Rinse and repeat.</span></div>

[Loki_d20]

<span><blockquote><hr>AdamWest007 wrote:<div></div><p>Wow...or should I say WoW.  This is the single worse "fix" ever.  These farmers have no respect for their fellow players.  So just like they had no problem hopping you to steal the named your legit grp was working for, so too will they have no problem wiping out the entire dungeon to get to the named faster than you could.  Great, now all of RoV/RE will be decimated by high level toons.  Were is my legit grp supposed to go for decent XP and good drops?</p><p>Here's a better solution.  Just have a rock at zone in to RoV and RE that any toon level 50+ can click ever 10 minutes to receive a master spell.  That's how easy it is for then now, but at least they will stay out of our way.  (Oh wait, you already tried this "rock" idea with the RoI...guess it didn't work too well at that.)</p><hr></blockquote>The ability for higher levels to clear out a dungeon is not relative to this fix as even with the old system this could be done.  The only way to solve that would be to lock out higher levels from certain level dungeons at all, which would require a preventive measure to not allow them to unmentor once they're in.</span><div></div>

[Sritt]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Loki_d20 wrote:<span><blockquote><hr>AdamWest007 wrote:<div></div><p>Wow...or should I say WoW.  This is the single worse "fix" ever.  These farmers have no respect for their fellow players.  So just like they had no problem hopping you to steal the named your legit grp was working for, so too will they have no problem wiping out the entire dungeon to get to the named faster than you could.  Great, now all of RoV/RE will be decimated by high level toons.  Were is my legit grp supposed to go for decent XP and good drops?</p><p>Here's a better solution.  Just have a rock at zone in to RoV and RE that any toon level 50+ can click ever 10 minutes to receive a master spell.  That's how easy it is for then now, but at least they will stay out of our way.  (Oh wait, you already tried this "rock" idea with the RoI...guess it didn't work too well at that.)</p><hr></blockquote>The ability for higher levels to clear out a dungeon is not relative to this fix as even with the old system this could be done.  The only way to solve that would be to lock out higher levels from certain level dungeons at all, which would require a preventive measure to not allow them to unmentor once they're in.</span><div></div><hr></blockquote><p>ANd this fix hurts the solo'er trying to go back and wrap up some quests to an area that's gray to them now. It's still a sledgehammer fix to a screwdriver problem. Also how will this really effect any farmers, most of which are already in place. HEre's how it will work even with the changes:</p><p>Farmer dual boxes (or triple boxes depending on macro programs they got running).</p><p>Level 60 clears path for lowbie char on auto-follow and gets to named.</p><p>Break group.</p><p>Lowbie tags named for credit.</p><p>Level 60 kills named.</p><p>Camp and wiat for repop.</p><p>Repeat.Treasure given to Level 60 each time until inventory is full.</p><p>Lowbie is camped out to char select/desktop.</p><p>Level 60 runs to town to sell to vendor or add to store to sell to players.</p><p>Level 60 returns to camping spot.</p><p>Log back in lowbie.</p><p>Repeat again.</p><p>These changes just make the farmer run the aggro gauntlet once, after that they're set up and can camp infinitely as they can just turn off combat xp for the lowbie.</p>

[Kalkh]

<div></div>what about having  something like triggers a floor plate someone steps on that glows RED for Boss encounters, this causes boss to be what ever lvl the highest lvl of the group is and once boss pops you cant unmentor , have the plate flag encounter to once every 24 hrs or something like that so group can only do the encounter that one time.just an idea .This would not keep another group from doing the encounter if i guild or group is fighting there way there .

[GeneralChaos]

<div></div><div>Another possible problem- If you are a few levels lower than your group, you are going to get aggro that they are unaware of. Admittedly grey/low green aggro in lower level places, but it will still be an annoyance. Will you be able to see which mobs are aggro to your group even if they arn't aggro to you?</div>

[Daxtyr_AnnonTuri]

<div></div><p>this is a welcomed change and i look foward to it.</p><p>-Dax</p>

[Godwrath]

<div>That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect.</div><div>__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _______________________</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>My question is :</div><div> </div><div>Who does believe this will happen instead of avoiding the mob with invis/killing the mobs otw ?</div><div> </div><div>And yeah, i think some farmers will just clean everything ... which will be worse to fair lvl groups at that zones.</div>

[Pashta]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Duntzzzz wrote:<div></div><p>I personally don't care if people use the high level tank / low level player to PL people.. but to loot farm it's a totally different story.. and I agree that any NAMED creature should auto-lock like epics do. even flag these named as Epic x1 so they are single groupable, but they cannot be farmed unless you bring a full group of apporpriate level players or mentoring in a full group to do it..</p><hr></blockquote><p> Oh, sure.  Take away the possibility of a solo/duo to get some loot.  I never saw ONE Master spell or chest in playing since May of last year UNTIL they dropped the locking of groups.  Not one!!  Now I have a chance to go and help level my husband's alt and get our non-raiding guild some nice loot and whoosh... there it goes out the window again.  <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Even spending all day in Runnyeye trying to get nameds we only got a couple of master chests, I really don't think it needs tweaked anymore.</p><p> </p>

[civilgeek]

<div></div><div></div><div><p><span>I think this is a horrible change that will negatively impact grouping.  This change will make mobs as far as 18 levels agro to a group (can group with a character 8 levels or less plus the 10 level agro of the lowest character)... this is unacceptable and more a hindrance to groups than anything. This will shorten the range in which people will group and ultimately hinder everyone’s experience in general. This will not stop farming and will only spur training, clearing of zones, and other tactics that will not be desirable.  </span></p><p><span>First reinstate the Auto Lock feature on named mobs... this is absolutely the best solution for farming named mobs.  As far as content skipping </span><span>SOE</span><span> could implement a tactic in which anytime a character joins a group... the character level is checked against the groups lowest character. If the character joining is over 8 levels above the lowest member of the group then the joining characters level is automatically lowered to the highest level character within the group that is within 8 levels of the lowest level player. If it is only two people then the joining character automatically mentors the second person in the group.  e.g. 5 people wish to group... the group levels are as follows: 60, 30, 35, 33, and 40.  The level 40 (group leader) starts the group... and invites the level 60. the level 60 on invite would mentor the level 40 immediately. The group leader then invites the level 35 and 32 and no level changes would take place (they are within 8 levels). The group is now made up of two level 40 characters and a 35 and 33 level.  On the last invite of the level 30 the two level 40 characters (originally the level 40 and 60) would immediately mentor the 35 thus making the group 35,35,35, 33, and a 30. </span></p><p><span>To fill in some gaps... mentoring characters can never level while mentoring (can gain mentoring xp but can't actually level) and characters that level while grouped and fall outside the 8 level range will be level capped until they ungroup. E.G. A level 20, 28, and 60 group. On group you would end up with a 20, 28, and a 28.  The original level 28 levels thus breaking the cap, however, until the character breaks group they will not officially level. The mentoring character in addition cannot move beyond level 28.</span></p><p><span>The two of these together would solve all of the problems of content skipping and farming. In addition </span><span>SOE</span><span> has already addressed a ton of the issues needed to implement the second game mechanic with success.  They would need to implement a quick mentor (In which you don't need to unmentor to mentor somebody else), some level caps based on group, and the initial group checks when somebody enters a group or levels. In addition, LU19 is slated to highly simplify toolbars during mentoring making this mechanic much easier to swallow. As far as role players you could consider the added mechanic a hindrance to the high level characters for taking on a puny individual into the group <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.</span><span></span></p><p><font color="#000000" size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font> </p></div><div> </div><div> </div><p>Message Edited by civilgeek on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:00 PM</span></p>

[Sritt]

<div></div>Its not that flat a formula, as you go up in levels the grouping range increases. A level 60 can group with a 48 or 49 (not sure the exact cut off) without needing to mentor for the lower level character to stop getting experience and quest credit. Auto-mentoring isn't a good option imo. I still think the better solution is auto-locking nameds that drop legendary/master chests at a high rate as those are what are being farmed. It will have a lot less negative impact on regular players than the aggro change and will do more to stop famring than adding an extra 5 minutes or so to the farmers set up time (once they have their characters in place the aggro issue becomes a moot point).

[Kenazeer]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Neldar wrote:<div></div><p>aw i kinda like that, heheheh</p><p>I wonder how people will get around that?</p><hr></blockquote>Call of Hero would work?</span></div>

[Gallenite]

<div>Regarding this being taken as a "sledgehammer" measure -- This isn't being done solely becase of the farming that's having a negative impact on others' experiences.</div><div> </div><div>Yes, this will have a minor impact there, but it's a decision we've been weighing for a while.  The idea of someone helping a friend who is a couple levels away, through a zone?  No problem.  It was, however, a little more beneficial than it was supposed to be, even at launch. </div><div> </div><div>We evaluated it again with the release of DoF, and decided to keep it in due to some folks' dependence on it for shard retrieval.  Now that shard retrieval is gone, there doesn't seem to be much of a valid gameplay reason to keep it in a world that needs to feel appropriately dangerous.  Not "dangerous if my friend who is AFK on the other side of the zone LD's." <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></div><div> </div><div>Spells and abilities such as Invisibility and Sneak are meant to fulfill this role that "AFK buddy" is currently able to fill.  Protecting someone weaker than yourself on their way through the world?  Excellent. There are plenty of ways within a consistent world to help someone get from point A to point B, but there needs to be active participation for it to make sense.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>As far as farming goes, there are further changes coming to loot credit assignment and treasure chances that are intended to more directly address the farming problem. </div><div> </div><div>As a bit of background:  When we unlocked encounters and made loot credit work the way that it currently does on live, as many people pointed out (and as we were fully aware of), there were holes that we left there that people could take advantage of. </div><div> </div><div>We wanted to see what would happen with a non-restrictive, open set of rules first.   Game mechanics changes aimed at preventing negative behaviors are a last resort.  The behaviors resulting now unfortunately warrant further action to protect legitimate players. </div><div> </div><div>We'll have more details soon.  Thanks for your patience.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Good hunting,</div><div> </div><div>- Scott</div>

[Aquilist]

Since its inevitably going to be abused. Here's the new tactic - Call of the Hero.We, the conj community, did NOT want this spell added, but it was added it anyway...Now, the tactic will be:-group high level conj and low level.-conj runs to the named and clears an area just out of agro range-conj CoH the low level-disband-low level tags-High level conj kills.-loot...  <div></div>

[Almeric_CoS]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Gallenite wrote:<div> </div><div>As far as farming goes, there are further changes coming to loot credit assignment and treasure chances that are intended to more directly address the farming problem. </div><div> </div><div>As a bit of background:  When we unlocked encounters and made loot credit work the way that it currently does on live, as many people pointed out (and as we were fully aware of), there were holes that we left there that people could take advantage of. </div><div> </div><div>We wanted to see what would happen with a non-restrictive, open set of rules first.   Game mechanics changes aimed at preventing negative behaviors are a last resort.  The behaviors resulting now unfortunately warrant further action to protect legitimate players. </div><div> </div><div>We'll have more details soon.  Thanks for your patience.<hr></div></blockquote><p>As one who was really ticked off about combat unlocking, THANK YOU in advance.  I still don't like the powerlevelling, but if you're going to stifle the farming problems, you get my thumbs-up.</p><p> </p><p> </p>

[FlintAH]

Dont even have to go that far on it.  Have tank run in front and train it all and then when he gets to named let the lowbie get a hit in and immediately taunt it.  The lowbie will get 100% of the xp and loot and can kill high oranges this way with no risk.<div></div>

[Giral]

<div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Reinstate the Encounter lock but let buffs and heal's thru And if they Losing they "CALL HELP" and a Then we can assist with DPS</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>this stills allows people to be Helpfull : ) But doesn't let people be 2 Helpfull</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div>

[Sritt]

<div>Okay this makes more sense if the change isn't primarily a way to stop farming as it was originally presented. Though I'd still like it to take into account the average level of the group not just the raw levels, sometimes a couple levels difference in aggro can mean a lot.</div>

[Alrunes]

<div>error. sorry</div><p>Message Edited by Alrunes on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:53 PM</span></p>

[Alrunes]

<div></div><div>  Sorry, see post below.</div><p>Message Edited by Alrunes on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:54 PM</span></p>

[Quasicroa]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Zald wrote:2) Fix mentoring so that it takes a little time to transition... IE... if I enter Varsoons and immediately mentor down to L30, the when I unmentor, either make the unmentoring require a 10-20 minute delay, a zone change, or death.<hr></blockquote><p>and then what you just did is kill the whole thing many LEGIT players have been looking forward to with the fixes to mentoring vs. spell level. some of us want to be able to mentor in order to just hang out again and see areas we may not have the first time and be of some help to new players or i dont know actually be able to give new players on more barren servers ppl to play with to gain levels.</p><p>yah great idea its to bad that as it stands now as much as i enjoy helping ppl and dont mind mentoring i ussually wont stop and mentor becuase it takes to long(using the command to load in hotbars to date bugs them so that isnt an option for me).</p><p>now i can look forward to still not wanting to mentor because i am running through Antonica on a way to a guild function, etc and a group of 3 ppl "need one more" so being a nice person i would stop mentor, move on....but OH NO not with your idea cause then for a quick 5 min help i have to tell anyone my level "sorry i am locked at a mentored level for 20 mins".</p><p>i understand its just an idea, but at least think how your idea is going to inconvience legit players. with that idea they might as well remove mentoring permenantly because it will be dead. it doesnt fix an issue it kills a very good idea that had/has(due to changes upcoming) a lot of promise.</p><p>you want an honest opinion and an easy one? to bad even if you dont your getting it anyway....they need to just reinstert the lock mechanics on ALL ENCOUNTERS. that fixes the issue once and for all. it worked fine before and it would work fine again. for the few pluses not locking things added it added more issues and headaches by unlocking them.</p><p>better yet they can do what there competitor does and just make ALL MOBS even grey that would normally aggro players still aggro them even if 40 levels lower.....(not serious to see this but its coming watch)</p><p>the dev team just needs to get it over with already and just insert full lock code on all encounters again. thats my opinion and while many may not agree with it it is my right to have it.</p>

[Outerspace]

<div></div><span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:An additional note: If you con grey to a mob, it will always see through stealth and invisibility (as they currently do). Also, being group-stealth or invisd by a high level player will not change that behavior, and mobs with see-stealth and see-invis will still see through it as normal. This should make it difficult to simply stealth over to a named creature (or certainly of the same difficulty that a group of the appropriate level will experience).<hr></blockquote>But that's completely stupid though. </span><span>The concept doesn't affect me but I just get a little bothered by these exceptions that are always made to skills to cope with flaws in the game.</span><span> Why would a high level invis suddenly become useless because a lower level is under the invis "umbrella"? Invisibility works great EXCEPT when low levels are grouped? Another example would be high level cures which conveniently don't work against certain raid mobs but do against others - presumably to make the raid mob more difficult; or perhaps epic mobs being immune to most coercer spell lines just because the fight would be trivialised if they weren't.Anyhow I'm drifting off topic. How is this change going to stop me boosting lower levels by killing mobs for them? The answer is that it isnt, and basically it just means that if I wanted to farm a named I'll have to kill all the mobs toward that named which might take me 5 minutes longer, or I'll log my berserker and taunt all the mobs on to me so my group can run by. I'm not a loot farmer but I have boosted lower level alts of my guildmates in this way for XP because it's convenient to avoid the pain of pickup groups for quests you've done once or twice already, and I see no real reason why the /lock feature was brought in apart from to encourage people outside of a group to assist with the killing of mobs aggroed by said group.I've just read someone's already pretty much said the same as me, so sorry for repeating. To remedy this farming I would just remove all loot drops from named. Make <b>quests</b> to kill them and give decent rewards for doing so - one that you might actually use, or a decent monetary reward! Make the mob respawn within 5 or 10 minutes so they're always up!</span>I have to say with regards greying out of zones, this change could be a pain although on PvE servers it simply means the higher level will need to actively chaperone their lower level friend and kill the mobs on the way. On PvP servers people wont be able to gain advantage by being grouped with a higher level to avoid zone aggro. I presume thats the main reason this change is coming, because SOE don't really seem to care about farming bots on my server at least. If they did they would ban them. Out of interest, look at this and tell me which of the top 25 are NOT bots. I can count 4 players - <a target="_blank" href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/player_srankings_detailed.vm?serverId=303&action=CharacterAgg.getByRankServer&rank=npcKillsRankServer&type=MostNPCKills">linky</a><div></div><p>Message Edited by Outerspace on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:45 PM</span></p>

[Alrunes]

<div></div><div>    The problem with the farming is that the risk vs reward is skewed when the higher level comes into the lower area and uses a lower character to avoid the trivial loot code. You can not however simply eliminate the loot drop because of the potential for "griefing."</div><div> </div><div>     therefore, if you can not reasonably adjust the reward then Sony needs to adjust the risk. What I would suggest would be a system that monitors the kills and treasure drops in the areas of concern. When the system suspects farming, it spawns a very difficult creature,"a farmer killer," appropriate to the high level killer to literally kill/chase them out of the area they are farming; meaning the entire zone.</div><div> </div><div>For example :</div><div> </div><div>farmer in RE using the above mentioned tagging tactic. They do it once, and the system notes the time and continues to monitor for an unspecified and preferably random time frame for additional "farming kills." When second farming kill is detected by noting tagging, inappropriate high level killer, and a chest drop, then the system spawns a "farmer killer." A "farmer killer" would be appropriate to their level, and reflective of their group in case they bring additional 60 friends to try and deal with the "farmer killer." These killers would offer no loot, no exp and no agro to others in the zone except for killer and his party. Since the killer and his group have already received their reward, this would simply represent the risk catching up to them.</div><div> </div><div>These killers would despawn when the farmer leaves the zone, but go into a "holding cell" for say 24 hours, and if the farmer zones back into the zone, the killer would be  unleashed.</div><div> </div><div>Course this would not apply if the mentoring system is used, and the mentor level was locked for the entire encounter. It allows for the possibility of griefing by punishing the griefer not the victim. The system also would not trigger if a high level is simply killing grays for their own twisted pleasure as no chest would drop.</div><div> </div><div>A system like this maybe to resource intensive, and cause too much lag. I do not know since I am not a programmer. This is  the least intrusive system i can imagine that addresses the issue.</div><div> </div><div>Anyways just my suggestion,</div><div> </div><div>Alrunes</div><div> </div><div> </div>

[Galn]

<div>Please read all of the posts before posting on something like this. The reply from the Senior Producer addressed the complaint most people are still talking about here.</div><div> </div><div>One thing to keep in mind... a lvl 60 greying a zone to me thats red normally will give me very little benefit, and the benefits are not game breaking. Sure I can harvest "?'s" and travel through the zone, but I cant attack anything, dont get any credit for any kills, I probably cant harvest anything in the zone, unless I am a primary crafter, but in that case I have a right to be in the zone, and a lvl 60's greying it for me just makes it safer for me to harvest the raws I need for my profession. A normal lowbie thats lowbie crafter wont have a harvesting skill high enough to harvest. Perhaps this will be fleshed out on test. I have a bunch of lowbie toons there now since i'm testing the new archetype system, I"ll see exactly what I can and cannot do when this gets added there.</div>

[Red5]

I guess I've got a different perspective on this.  I've hit 60 and I'm playing alts again and saw just what we are talking about in ROV last weekend.  I thought what they were doing was very calculated, yet stupid.   I thought why in the world would they go thru the trouble for 30s loot.   As fast as the xp is at that level you could just find a good group and grind for a day and make all that junk in RoV obsolete.So are they doing it for money?  Naw that doesn't make sense.  At 60 I can make a plat a day cooking, or sometimes, just walking around the world and killing or harvesting random stuff.  Give me a Poets group and I'll probably make 2 plat that day; so cash isn't a problem.I can see why the devs came up with a fix for it yet I just don't care.  I figure that if someone makes it to 60 they can take a few short cuts with alts, I know I've bought a couple of Master spells for mine that they couldn't afford on their own.  So to take it further, If someone wants to take short cuts to the point of adding a whole new account and probably another computer, Then god bless you, you've sacrificed your real life so you can cheat a game and you deserve that shiny new imaginary necklace.   Good luck with it, let me know how life works out for you, when you get in the EQ hall of fame I'll ask for your autograph.And that's all I've got to say about that,Zarir60 Coercer/ProvisionerLegends of Crushbone<div></div>

[Sritt]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Red547 wrote:I guess I've got a different perspective on this.  I've hit 60 and I'm playing alts again and saw just what we are talking about in ROV last weekend.  I thought what they were doing was very calculated, yet stupid.   I thought why in the world would they go thru the trouble for 30s loot.   As fast as the xp is at that level you could just find a good group and grind for a day and make all that junk in RoV obsolete.So are they doing it for money?  Naw that doesn't make sense.  At 60 I can make a plat a day cooking, or sometimes, just walking around the world and killing or harvesting random stuff.  Give me a Poets group and I'll probably make 2 plat that day; so cash isn't a problem.I can see why the devs came up with a fix for it yet I just don't care.  I figure that if someone makes it to 60 they can take a few short cuts with alts, I know I've bought a couple of Master spells for mine that they couldn't afford on their own.  So to take it further, If someone wants to take short cuts to the point of adding a whole new account and probably another computer, Then god bless you, you've sacrificed your real life so you can cheat a game and you deserve that shiny new imaginary necklace.   Good luck with it, let me know how life works out for you, when you get in the EQ hall of fame I'll ask for your autograph.And that's all I've got to say about that,Zarir60 Coercer/ProvisionerLegends of Crushbone<div></div><hr></blockquote>Don't be so sure its not about money. Its easy loot and sometimes done by groups (not one person). Some of which get paid real dollars to do this as the money they earn gets sold online. Also most of these are running macro programs so can set it up and kill and loot unattended. THey don't want to group, they're not outfitting an alt. They're in it to farm money not earn money. This behavior isn't exclusive to EQ2 though for the most part I've only seen this kind of farming in minor MMOs around (most of them non-US releases that dont charge a subscription fee) but they show up in any MMO where there's a chance to earn real money off virtual real estate. Part of the problem is catching them doing it and proving that they're violating TOS with what they're doing. I've had a guildmate who actively harvests DoF zones while doing guild writs and has more than once been accused of being a farming bot yet he doesn't use macros and doesn't leave things unattended, nor does he dual-box.<p>Message Edited by Sritthh on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">09:15 PM</span></p>

[Mordith]

<span><blockquote><hr>Aquilistor wrote:Since its inevitably going to be abused. Here's the new tactic - Call of the Hero.We, the conj community, did NOT want this spell added, but it was added it anyway...Now, the tactic will be:-group high level conj and low level.-conj runs to the named and clears an area just out of agro range-conj CoH the low level-disband-low level tags-High level conj kills.-loot...  <div></div><hr></blockquote>Speak for yourself.  I have always liked CoH along with many many other conjurors.</span><div></div>

[Gallenite]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Red547 wrote:I figure that if someone makes it to 60 they can take a few short cuts with alts, I know I've bought a couple of Master spells for mine that they couldn't afford on their own.  So to take it further, If someone wants to take short cuts to the point of adding a whole new account and probably another computer, Then god bless you, you've sacrificed your real life so you can cheat a game and you deserve that shiny new imaginary necklace.  <hr></blockquote><p>For the most part, I agree with you.  If that's what was happening, fantastic.  If that's all it was, we wouldn't be having to make further changes, because the spawns wouldn't be monopolized this way 24/7.  People who are truly just helping/playing through on their alts like that tend to get what they come for, are frequently helpful along the way, then move along when they're done.</p><p>The problem is the people who monopolize the area in shifts, 24/7 for (most likely) the eventual EULA violating purposes that this kind of farming is aimed at.</p><p>Depending on the week, we ban anywhere from 50 to hundreds.  We already hit them from that angle.  If we need to hit them from this angle as well, which we do, that's exactly what will happen.</p><p>Hope that makes sense.  I don't want anyone to think that this is "The War On Alts."  Far from it.</p><p>- Scott</p>

[Zahmekos]

<span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote>So now only conjurer will be able to do that. Run in allone, CoH the lowbie and mentor down <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></span><div></div>

[Kendricke]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Zahmekoses wrote:<span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote>So now only conjurer will be able to do that. Run in allone, CoH the lowbie and mentor down <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></span><div></div><hr></blockquote><p>Put a restriction on Call of the Hero then to allow it to only affect level 40 and higher.</p><p> </p><p> </p>

[Bhee]

I like the changes. I would welcome encounter lock again <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>

[HolyAvengerOne]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items. This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns:- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote><font color="#339900"></font><font color="#339900">That's a very good change, IMHO. I just wish it was in earlier, but hey, you always can improve, it seems ! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> It just makes more sense from a realistic POV. Now I guess that the high level char will actually have to mow through the ranks of greys.</font><font color="#339900"></font><font color="#339900"></font><font color="#339900">Heh, and wasn't that a (minor and obvious) </font><font color="#339900"><b><i>exploit</i></b></font><font color="#339900"> you just posted, BG ?! :O</font><font color="#339900"></font></span></div>

[HolyAvengerOne]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>SadMouse wrote:I like the changes. I would welcome encounter lock again <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div><hr></blockquote><font color="#339900">Pssst... You can always lock your encounter by typing /lock during the fight or choosing the option to lock by default (somewhere in options menu).</font></span></div>

[Balmore]

Nice change! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>

[Giral]

<div></div><div></div><div></div><p>im also for reinstating the encounter lock and ALways have mine locked when im MT</p><p>that said a happy medium is this :</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><div>Reinstate the Encounter lock but let buffs and heal's thru And if they Losing they "CALL HELP" and a Then we can assist with DPS</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>this stills allows  Healer's and rogue's to assist people IN combat ,</div><div> </div><div>and it allow's Dp's and Tank's to help IF they  "Call help"</div><div> </div><div>i use to help many many many player's that "Call help" now people seem to only use it when running thru a zone to lose agro, why? becuase dieng doesn't mean anything so group's don't call help anymore they just try till the end and all are dead , revive rinse repeat</div><div> </div><div>anyway any idea's on why my Above idea wouldn't work? (beside';s the PPL power leveling alt's We all know your Vehemently against changing this Loop hole and making you Mentor  even tho they madeMentoring  Auto Adjust NOW  : )</div><div> </div><div> </div><p>Message Edited by Giralus on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">11:07 PM</span></p>

[Sritt]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Giralus wrote:<div></div><div></div><div></div><p>im also for reinstating the encounter lock and ALways have mine locked when im MT</p><p>that said a happy medium is this :</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><div>Reinstate the Encounter lock but let buffs and heal's thru And if they Losing they "CALL HELP" and a Then we can assist with DPS</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>this stills allows  Healer's and rogue's to assist people IN combat ,</div><div> </div><div>and it allow's Dp's and Tank's to help IF they  "Call help"</div><div> </div><div>i use to help many many many player's that "Call help" now people seem to only use it when running thru a zone to lose agro, why? becuase dieng doesn't mean anything so group's don't call help anymore they just try till the end and all are dead , revive rinse repeat</div><div> </div><div>anyway any idea's on why my Above idea wouldn't work? (beside';s the PPL power leveling alt's We all know your Vehemently against changing this Loop hole and making you Mentor  even tho they madeMentoring  Auto Adjust NOW  : )</div><div> </div><div> </div><p>Message Edited by Giralus on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">11:07 PM</span></p><hr></blockquote><p>Heh I was always like this, even when we had shards, group debt, etc. Removing shards didn't change my playstyle, it just made it less of a hassle to run back out and get a shard in an area I shouldn't have been in yet (and usually didn't realize I shouldn't have been in yet until it was too late). I once had to stop for 3 days to wait on 4 shards to absolve because I was stubborn and tried to retrieve shards at the entrance to RoV (wher ethe gobbies are at) because I was on a blue quest so felt I had to be doing something wrong to keep dying to reds. I've not seen anyone really playing differently with shards gone, usually its a 'glad I don't have to wait for it to go away because there's no way I'm getting close enough to it with that epic there that popped and killed me'.</p><p>As for encounter locking, I'm against forcing it on people. In 'the real world' you can't prevent someone from jumping in and helping you on a fight if they think you need it, and if you're worried about griefers just set your autolock options. Leaving it open has let me save those who really needed it as I wandered by, and let others save me without breaking the encounter on a rare spawn.</p>

[Magu]

Edit: n/m, points already raised and discounted...<p>Message Edited by Magus` on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">12:16 AM</span></p>

[AbsentmindedMage]

A lot of people are going to disagree with this change and I include myself among them.  It makes no sense.  If the creature is grey to me and I group with a very low level character, why is it that the creatures are going to start attacking me?  If you are going to do this, you might as well make the creatures that are aggro attack all the time whether they are grey or not!The problem is quite simple: the unlocked encounters!   THe solution is equally as simple return to encounters being locked.  People are using the unlocked encounters in very exploitive ways.  An example, very low level characters are getting the carpet 4 quest completed by using two groups on this one group encounter.  The outside group is healing them.The encounter locks or rather lack thereof is what has increased farming.<div></div>

[Carryne]

Rather than changing Call of the Hero to affect fixed levels it would be better if it only worked on characters who were in the grouping range (ie they would get quest credit when grouped with the mage). <div></div>

[Tabiani]

<div></div><p>Well, when the Community Manager and Senior Produce weigh in on this I think we can definitely call this one a done-deal. Ready or not, here it comes. Glad to see ya fess-up that it will have only a minor impact on farming, Gallenite, even as I'm kind of amused that<font color="#ffff00"> <em>Blackguard announced it as the solution to our concerns</em></font> about farming! Yes, he said, with <font color="#ffff00">highlighting</font> added by me:</p><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div><font color="#ffff00">We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items.</font> This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, <font color="#ffff00">we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns</font>:- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. <font color="#ffff00">One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs</font> (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).<font color="#ffff00">This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.</font><div></div><p><font color="#999999">Ryan "Blackguard" Shwayder</font></p><hr></div></blockquote><p>Look at what Blackguard said, particularly the parts I highlighed in <font color="#ffff00">yellow</font>. All about grouping to grey thigs out then mentoring down to farm and exploit sand how this change was being intoduced <em>as a solution</em> so the treasure would go to those who worked for it.</p><p>Now, just over five hours later we have a little different tune being sung. Again the <font color="#ffff00">highlights</font> are mine.</p><blockquote><hr>Gallenite wrote:<div>Regarding this being taken as a "sledgehammer" measure -- <font color="#ffff00">This isn't being done solely becase of the farming</font> that's having a negative impact on others' experiences.</div><div> </div><div>Yes, <font color="#ffff00">this will have a minor impact there</font>, but it's a decision we've been weighing for a while.  The idea of someone helping a friend who is a couple levels away, through a zone?  No problem.  It was, however, a little more beneficial than it was supposed to be, even at launch. </div><div> </div><div>We evaluated it again with the release of DoF, and decided to keep it in due to some folks' dependence on it for shard retrieval.  Now that shard retrieval is gone, there doesn't seem to be much of a valid gameplay reason to keep it in a world that needs to feel appropriately dangerous.  Not "dangerous if my friend who is AFK on the other side of the zone LD's." <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></div><div> </div><div>Spells and abilities such as Invisibility and Sneak are meant to fulfill this role that "AFK buddy" is currently able to fill.  Protecting someone weaker than yourself on their way through the world?  Excellent. There are plenty of ways within a consistent world to help someone get from point A to point B, but there needs to be active participation for it to make sense.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><font color="#ffff00">As far as farming goes, there are further changes coming to loot credit assignment and treasure chances that are intended to more directly address the farming problem.</font> </div><div> </div><div>As a bit of background:  When we unlocked encounters and made loot credit work the way that it currently does on live, as many people pointed out (and as we were fully aware of), there were holes that we left there that people could take advantage of. </div><div> </div><div>We wanted to see what would happen with a non-restrictive, open set of rules first.   Game mechanics changes aimed at preventing negative behaviors are a last resort.  The behaviors resulting now unfortunately warrant further action to protect legitimate players. </div><div> </div><div>We'll have more details soon.  Thanks for your patience.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Good hunting,</div><div> </div><div>- Scott</div><hr></blockquote><p>So now it's <em>not</em> the solution to farming, it will only have a <em>minor impact on farming</em> and there's <u>another plan</u> to "directly address" the farming? Now, if I'm reading this correctly, the change is just so people can't grey out the zone for things like travel, harvesting, and the J-Boot quest? So why was it announced as an "anti-farming solution" in the first place?</p><p>I don't see you reversing youselves on encounter locks and simply auto-locking named encounters. So I'm looking forward to what you come up with. I just hope it won't be too intrusive on normal game play.</p>

[Sritt]

<div></div><p>As was stated later after Blackguard's post the aggro change actually isn't addressing the farming problem (though it will probably slow it down some), its to add more 'danger' to travel for characters.</p><p>The mob's wont be aggro to and won't attack the higher level character in the group. They will however aggro the lower level character if they'd be green or higher to him if he was alone. Think of it this way: they don't attack you when they go grey because they recognize you as a threat that will likely kill them. Just because someone weaker is grouped with you doesn't suddenly make that person look stronger to the creatures so they will still attack them. Because you're grouped though they may still be grey to the group and not worth anything.</p><p>Same with invis/stealth. This is to keep a high level with group invis from getting around the aggro issue. Think of group invis and stealth being cast by the caster, but its effectiveness is based on its target, if the target isn't 'strong' enough the creatures around their strength level and higher can see through that invis. Even my 57 monk can see an stealthed player when near them if they're far enough level below him and he has no see invis/stealth abilities.</p><p>It'd be nice if the aggro and see invis changes were modifiable by group avg level to avoid the group of 5 level 60s with a single 50 in the group who suddenly have to contend with a lot more aggro than they do currently. My main concern with the changes is how it will effect grouping ranges especially in higher levels where people of a wider level range (10-12 by level 60) can group without getting the 'too low to get exp' messages. I'd like to see these changes take effect only when the group has people 'out of level range' and not come into play for those that are all in range (due to mentoring or just naturally being close enough in level to group) as there are times where that 1-2 levels worth of aggro can mean a lot to a groups ability to do what they are trying to do (especially on quests in high-aggro areas).</p><p>Restricting Call of Heroes won't have a noticable impact on farming, it was just an example of the way around the aggro change. The more likely scenario is clearing a path to set up camp and leaving hte lowbie in a 'safe' area near the named to camp when the high level makes a run back to town with bags full of loot.</p><p>At least we'll get to test things first and see how they work and how much impact it has on grouping and the system may get adjusted before it goes live. They've also given us warning so we won't suddenly find things different.</p>

[Magu]

Actually the most likely scenario is the lowbie using invis or stealth to avoid all the mobs anyway, making this change 100% meaningless to farmers. They just have to invis now instead of grouping.Once in a while if you hit a see-invis mob in, say, RE, you kill it, but other wise just invis everywhere.<div></div>

[SinIsLaw]

well that is step 1, of hopefully many more to come! Tx ... I think Lvl averaging will still be in place right? so if ur in a group of 4, like 32 34 34 and 36, then lvl group average is 34 and lvl 22 mobs are gray, right?!?!peeps who Farm with like a 60 and a 18 char in Fg for example can easily bypass these new changes still, let the lowbie follow the big guy. point at what mob sees invis and which one not, kill that invis see mob move on till the named. lowbie aggros named. Big one gets aggro kill for lowbie and loot for him ....I see that still at the biggest prob! Nothing wrong if ur having the high lvl toon to mentor down and help you on the kill .... still there is a good chance that u2 die! But beeing able to kill a named the same lvl then u are, by means of pulling and letting the high lvl toon getting aggro is plain wrong ...Imho if u need help killing xyz mob as you cannot do it on ur own/current group - then you don't deserve Loot. So if anyone form outside gets involved in ur fight, any chance of loot will vanish!! Quest updates are still possible. That would give encounter locking a reason as well, and also give a more clear meaning to mentoring<div></div>

[Besual]

This change is as needed as the "How can you harvest at this time?".Impact on farmers: almost nilImpact on normal players: ARGH! Why this change? I quit!...Auto-locking named mobs would be much more usefull. But why do usefull changes when you implement such "great" ideas? /boogle<div></div>

[Kessia189]

<div></div><div></div><p>I can understand the reason for the change being made, but it isn't going to stop loot farmers. If they want the loot they will just fight their way there and then camp mobs for an infinity as they always do.</p><p>Personally i hope this doesn't go live because i get tired of having to fight irritating encounters when i can simply bypass them (i'm not a loot farmer, can anyone say "I hate those mosquitos in Feerrott" :smileywink: ).</p><p>Message Edited by Kessia189 on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">11:13 AM</span></p>

[Atrix Wolfe]

<div></div><div>Why make a convoluted, half baked solution that completely ignores the problem and instead creates more of a pain in the neck for legitimate players? The problem is not going to be solved by this grief patch at all.  What you're going to do instead is make it that much more frustrating for legitimate players and the people farming the zone will continue merrily about their business of farming the zone. </div><div> </div><blockquote dir="ltr"><div>A better solution.  Turn off helping in dungeons.  I'm not talking about being able to rez another groups healer, but make it so that in these dungeons all encounters lock for the duration of the fight. </div><div> </div><div>If you could do it and there's room for another classification of npc <u><em>without</em></u> changing any of their other stats maybe you can flag solo named mobs as Epic x1 and initiate a locked encounter as soon as the mob is hit. </div><div> </div><div>Even better, why not just remove the code that lets you help in encounters anyway?  If you need help, then get a group problem solved.  That's what the game was about after all. </div></blockquote><div> </div><div>Three solutions that address the problem directly and none of them involve a convoluted round about shceme that will just make life more frustrating for everyone else.  Dev's at SoE need to remember KISS.. Keep it simple, stupid. </div>

[Neave]

I gave this some thought for a while and really do think it's a shame.When I am playing I like to help my friends who are lower level. With this change it is going to be more meaningless. I liked that you could grey out a zone and escort your friends and help them to books/quest npcs/mobs. It seems appropriate to me that a high level friend can help you through difficult challenges (and not with zero risk to themselves). Besides which, sometimes you just don't want to fight every single minute that you are playing.If a minority of people want to be anti-social enough to hog areas with named, then that is a seperate issue, and won't be addressed from making a heavy handed fix, which just makes more headache for genuine players.To be honest about it, what does it matter if a higher level player wants to help a lower level player? This is the way I view farmers, although it can be vexing, if they choose to play like that, then that's their prerogative :<div></div>

[xOnaton1]

Currently there is a problem in the newer zones like Fallen Gate. There is a named in just about every big room. These named drop master or legendary chests about half the time. What I've seen is one low player around 30 and one high player grouping together going to the named spawns. The entire zone is grey so this is easy. When they find a named they ungroup, the low player does one hit and the high player either taunts it off and kills it or heals the low player making it trivial to kill any heroic named. There is no challenge whatsoever and they can farm master and legendary chests for as long as they want.The players that are hurt are the actual groups working through these zones since they aren't likely to get the named before the farmers do.I think the best solution is to autolock named encounters. If you can't kill it by yourself or with your group you don't deserve the loot or experience. No outside help and no outside healing.<div></div>

[tebion]

well, i certainly couldn't care less for the loot, i absolutely am against this kind of farming.but what i certainly dont want to see is that i as lvl 60 char cannot help a lowlevel friend or just someone i am bypassing who is in trouble to get a questupdate by supporting him in killing a mob.if that mob doesnt drop a box (aside possible quest relevant drops of course), ok by me, but if the other one doesnt get a questupdate, well, that would be quite boring and lead the unlocking of fights ad absurdum imo.<div></div>

[BrickyardRac]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items. This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns:- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote><p>As many in this thread have stated, this really won't do much to get rid of farming, but it <strong>WILL</strong> annoy legit players quite a bit.</p><p>It will get rid of the farming of the type I saw once in Fallen Gate, where there was  group of five level 60's and one mid-20's, who grayed out the zone and got to a named, then the 60's mentored down, and they took on the named in a legit fashion (as a group, fighting at the level they should have been, where the mob was conning ~white to them).  To me, that is by far the lesser of two evils of farming, and while somewhat annoying, it isn't as bad as the other type.</p><p>Which is when you have a level 60 (or two) who are <strong>NOT</strong> grouped with an appropriate level character, and the appropriate level guy pulls the named, then the 60 proceeds to kill it rather easily.  Then the lower level character gets the drop.  This is the more highly abusive farming, and more prevelant, in my experience, and your change does absolutlely nothing to stop it.</p><p>But your change will annoy non-farmers either somewhat, or quite considerably, depending on where those non-farmers are, and what the level spread of their group is.  If I'm in a group, and I'm one of the higher level characters in the group, and a groupmate gets aggroed by something gray to me, but it would be green to him, I [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] well better get XP for killing it, or I'm going to be annoyed.  But beyond my being annoyed, you will see some people refuse to group with certain level characters below a certain point, where before this change is made, they would group with that level, simply to avoid annoying gray encounters that are the result of a change supposedly designed to limit farming of nameds (but won't do much at all to actually limit the farming of nameds, by Gallenite's own words).  The current system already handles group level disparity by using some form of group average level to determine conning (I assume this to be true, as in a zone such as the Feerrott, mobs that are gray to me while solo appear green to me when grouped with lower level people...as well as in Deathfist Citadel - THE WORST ZONE EVER, BTW, but that's for another thread).</p><p>If you want to stop the lamer of the two farming types, the solution is rather easy, and apparantly something you guys refuse to do, which is to bring back locked encounters.  I keep mine locked, but that doesn't do anything to prevent others from unlocking theirs and abusing the system, which is what happens.  There's a reason why a level 60 can't get a master drop off of a level 40 named - because the mob is totally unchallenging.  So why can a level 44 tag it once, then the level 60 kill it, then the level 44 get the master drop?  Because you guys unlocked encounters.</p>

[Sritt]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Magus` wrote:Actually the most likely scenario is the lowbie using invis or stealth to avoid all the mobs anyway, making this change 100% meaningless to farmers. They just have to invis now instead of grouping.Once in a while if you hit a see-invis mob in, say, RE, you kill it, but other wise just invis everywhere.<div></div><hr></blockquote><p>Magus, did you miss the part where it was said that if you were grey to a mob (basically its red to you solo) that it will see through your invis automatically. Those mobs won't need see invis to see you so if they're aggro they'll still attack. This cuts down on the level range that you can invis through as you have to be close enough to their level to not be conned grey to them.</p><p>Also as stated later in the thread by Gallenite that this change's main goal is to make travel more dangerous, not to stop farmers. He admits that it will only have a minor impact on the farmers. It would appear that Blackguard's wording of the intent of the change led to confusion and has everyone in an uproar. It would also seem that at least most of the fifth page of posts are people who only read Blackguards post then responded. It would be nice if people read an entire thread before posting.</p>

[md134]

<div></div>So what's the big deal if people farm masters?  Personally, I think chest should drop off grey mobs.  I think at lvl 60, I earned the right to go back and kick the crap out of that mob that wasted me 10 times at lvl 30 and get a little loot out of it.  What, all of the suddon I gain a level, the mob turns grey, and he hides his master chest!  I have never had a problem with farmers hoggin all the mobs.  Usually they will send me a tell askin if I need the mob.  Bottom line is there will always be greedy players and no matter what kind of (fix) you try to implement, there is always a way around it.  Every time SoE tries to fix 1 problem, they create 10 more.  Play the GAME and if you dont like it, play another one.

[Sali]

<div></div><p>Took me 10 minutes to read the whole thread.  Loads of duplication so I will add my 2cp worth.</p><p>I would prefer to auto-lock named encounters.  Sure it would take a while behind the scenes but would be worth it.  I don't have a problem with the group of Lvl 60's who mentor down to Lvl 20 just before a named fight in FG (see above) because they are still taking on the risk by mentoring to the appropriate level.  As they take on the risk they should get the reward.</p><p>I do not like the de-grouping and tagging the mob before the Lvl 60 nukes it.  As the idea of named encounter locking seems to be the chosen alternative is there anyone who would care to pick holes in the idea?</p>

[Tro]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Nerjin wrote:<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Neldar wrote:<div></div><p>aw i kinda like that, heheheh</p><p>I wonder how people will get around that?</p><p></p><hr>Here is another way:<p></p><p><font color="#ff0066">Conjuror -- Level 52 -- <strong>Call of the Hero</strong> -- Summons a party or raid member to the Conjuror's location. Target player must be in the same zone as the caster. Requires a softly glowing pearl.</font></p></blockquote><p>Now, don't let Blackguard find out.</p><p>P.S. -- Within a week the players will have a workaround for this.</p><p>Also like the idea of locking mentoring in combat too</p><p>Message Edited by Nerjin on <span class="date_text">01-23-2006</span><span class="time_text">06:00 PM</span></p><hr></blockquote><p>Based on the fact that CoH will circumvent the dev's attempts to make it more difficult for farmers to get to their target, and because you pointed it out in this post, and because they have adpoted the concept of nerfing certain parts of the game to "maybe" reduce the farmers/bots, here is what I expect to see from the devs on the CoH issue:</p><p>"Although CoH is a useful spell, it directly goes against our efforts to eliminate/hinder farmers so with the next LU we will be changing it so the target has to be within 15 feet of the caster for it to summon the target to the caster".</p><p>I say this because remember when you could harvest a node while a mob is beating on you? They changed that in an "Attempt" to reduce the Bots.. well read the boards people.. Bots are still everywhere.. I see no difference..</p><p>Now they want to make this change.. Well that's just f'ing great.. except for one thing.. THEY WILL STILL GET TO THEIR TARGET AND STILL FARM. Again NO DIFFERENCE..</p><p>Although I disagree with the way farming is going on, this is NOT the answer.. This will not stop nor will it slow it down.. This is just another [Removed for Content] poor "Solution" the devs dreamed up beacuse of all the complaints they have received on the farming issue and now they can say "well we did "Attempt" to make it more manageable"</p><p>Now you can't say they are NOT listening or not doing anything about it.. End result: Farmers still farming as usual and we lose another aspect of the game that actually allowed folks to quickly finish quests or get places fast..</p><p>[Removed for Content] they admittedly increase our innate run speed, increase the speed of the SS quested carpet becase they say something to the effect of "It shouldn't take a large amount of time to get from point "A" to point "B".  </p><p>Now this change is in the works.. These f'ing Dev's are simply my heroes.. oh they f'ing rock they do!!</p><p>I have a better solution to this that goes right along with the Dev's way of thinking.. When a toon at the level of the zone zones in and a much higher toon logs in right after them, make it so a lvl 60 epic x4 (NO loot table) pops and blocks his/her advancement in the zone.. you see that way they can not farm.. Unless they want to bring in a raid but who would want to do that just to "farm". Oh wait the devs say, that will affect alot more stuff than what we intend.. hmmm well we gotta do something so the heck with it.. DO IT.. Just DO IT..</p><p>(Dev -1 to Dev-2.. hmm whats this "Invis" thingy i see these people talking about? does it exist? I don't remember anything about it do you? No I don't.. hmm well if it exists can it really make these changes useless? Yea I think so.. hmm well screw it.. DO IT just DO IT)</p><p>/sacasim off</p><p>Message Edited by Trook on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">05:46 AM</span></p>

[Roriondesexiest]

Very bad idea imo.I group with people of varying levels.  So what happens if you have a groupTank (35)Ranger (29)Warlock (32)Healer (34)Bard (30)Wizard (31)All of these can be in a group together just fine.If you run through a zone where everything is say gray or green to the tank.  He/she won't know what  is aggro to any other member of the group.  Here you have 6 different levels which are allowed to group without mentoring, not trying to exploit the system, now you have added 10 times the hassle of grouping because no one will be able to see what cons to the rest of the group...Please correct me if I am wrong.Omaplata.<div></div>

[Valen Kosh]

<div></div><p>Ok after taking a while reading heres my 2 cp</p><p>You are attempting to cure the problem by treating a symptom.  The problem is the farming - well, lock the encounter for names - should be ALOT easier to code any way.</p><p>By treating the symptom (i.e. changing the argo mechanics) you are failing to cure the problem and it will still exist.</p><p>The old saying of keeping it simple goes a long way - Treat the prblem not a symptom.</p><p> </p>

[Jgok]

<p> </p><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.<hr></blockquote><p>Other folks have pointed out the problems with this system, and have pointed out ways to get around those problems, so I won't re-iterate those too much. I actually do think this will help a little, but not enough, and not in the right ways. I will, however, put in a few points responding to others' ideas...</p><p>First... Yes, I have used the zone gray-out to get low-level characters who cannot invis to an area where exp is good... And I've been accused of farming when I've done it. A couple of points...1.) In a recent encounter, I was being lambasted in /ooc for taking a level 28 Swashbuckler to the hallway where Pritchett spawns in RoV, but what the other folks didn't see was that when the invised Wizard arrived, I mentored her and we confined our trio group to that hallway alone, leaving every other mob in the area alone. (With the three of us and no healer, the five spawns in that hall were more than enough to keep us busy.)2.) I can't zone into RE without being accused of farming, even if I leave my character by the doorway waiting for other group members to arrive... Why would I farm the RE named when I can just go into the instances there with a couple of other guildies?</p><p>It has gotten to the point where anyone that shows in a /who as being too high level for the zone is immediately accused of farming, and blacklisted... A lot of folks out there need to realize that mentored characters show their true level in a /who check, and a lot of folks need to tone down the aggression JUST a little bit in their accusations.</p><p>Making named encounters auto-lock isn't really much of a solution in my book... I had been trying on an alt for days to get a group to kill Incaulebis the Maleficent in TS for CoD access. I finally gave up and called for a high-level healer friend to come in and help me kill the mob, by the very method deplored in this thread... ungroup, low-level pulled, healer took aggro, low-level killed mob. If not for doing that, I would probably have never finished the quest until the mob, the quest, and the PGT I'm trying to get was beyond gray to me... As every time I called in /ooc for help killing Incaulebis, someone else rolled in and soloed him for their own quest credit or loot, leaving me high-and-dry... In one case, folks I could have grouped with to kill the mob came in and killed him (ignoring /tells) while I sat by and watched.</p><p>Requiring the lower-level group to do 51% of the damage would be nice, except for the absolute FACT that there are some very not-nice people in this game (and in any other MMO). I can't even remember the number of times I would be killing a mob in EQ1 and have a high-level nuker come in and drop the mob before I could blink, getting the loot for themselves... You can sure bet it would be used as a griefing tool, so that solution is out.</p><p>One of the better solutions I've seen listed was reducing the aggro generation of out-of-group players to almost nothing... The most common method I've seen used by far has been to have a high-level tank or healer take aggro on the mob after the low-level pulls, taking no damage while beating the mob down... This method would be completely blocked by eliminating out-of-group aggro... It would require a group or player to actually be able to deal with the damage output of whatever mob they pull. It wouldn't stop the high-damage nukers from helping, but I can say for sure that my Conjuror would have a hard time killing a heroic mob before it kills the group, in that situation... And the Paladin would have almost no chance at all, being that he couldn't take aggro.</p>

[Kyin]

<div></div><p>Blackguard I am sure you already thought of this but that will only slow down the process alittle.  All one would have to do to keep doing the same bypass is to have a conj. go to the name them CoH the low player, mentor down and kill the name.  Yes it is harder but it is still do able.</p><p> </p>

[Suraklin]

<div>Ya Blackguard and  in a post not long from now you'll probably say...."We  changed our minds. We've decided to remove the trivial loot code and let people farm greys for Masters and other Fabled items." After all this game is becoming EQ with better graphics anyway.</div>

[Tro]

<div></div><font color="#ff0033"></font><blockquote><hr>Jgok wrote:<p> </p><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.<hr></blockquote><p>Other folks have pointed out the problems with this system, and have pointed out ways to get around those problems, so I won't re-iterate those too much. I actually do think this will help a little, but not enough, and not in the right ways. I will, however, put in a few points responding to others' ideas...</p><p>First... Yes, I have used the zone gray-out to get low-level characters who cannot invis to an area where exp is good... And I've been accused of farming when I've done it. A couple of points...1.) In a recent encounter, I was being lambasted in /ooc for taking a level 28 Swashbuckler to the hallway where Pritchett spawns in RoV, but what the other folks didn't see was that when the invised Wizard arrived, I mentored her and we confined our trio group to that hallway alone, leaving every other mob in the area alone. (With the three of us and no healer, the five spawns in that hall were more than enough to keep us busy.)2.) I can't zone into RE without being accused of farming, even if I leave my character by the doorway waiting for other group members to arrive... Why would I farm the RE named when I can just go into the instances there with a couple of other guildies?</p><p>It has gotten to the point where anyone that shows in a /who as being too high level for the zone is immediately accused of farming, and blacklisted... A lot of folks out there need to realize that mentored characters show their true level in a /who check, and a lot of folks need to tone down the aggression JUST a little bit in their accusations.</p><p>Making named encounters auto-lock isn't really much of a solution in my book... I had been trying on an alt for days to get a group to kill Incaulebis the Maleficent in TS for CoD access. I finally gave up and called for a high-level healer friend to come in and help me kill the mob, by the very method deplored in this thread... ungroup, low-level pulled, healer took aggro, low-level killed mob. If not for doing that, I would probably have never finished the quest until the mob, the quest, and the PGT I'm trying to get was beyond gray to me... As every time I called in /ooc for help killing Incaulebis, someone else rolled in and soloed him for their own quest credit or loot, leaving me high-and-dry... In one case, folks I could have grouped with to kill the mob came in and killed him (ignoring /tells) while I sat by and watched.</p><p>Requiring the lower-level group to do 51% of the damage would be nice, except for the absolute FACT that there are some very not-nice people in this game (and in any other MMO). I can't even remember the number of times I would be killing a mob in EQ1 and have a high-level nuker come in and drop the mob before I could blink, getting the loot for themselves... You can sure bet it would be used as a griefing tool, so that solution is out.</p><p>One of the better solutions I've seen listed was <font color="#ff0033">reducing the aggro generation of out-of-group players to almost nothing</font>... The most common method I've seen used by far has been to have a high-level tank or healer take aggro on the mob after the low-level pulls, taking no damage while beating the mob down... This method would be completely blocked by eliminating out-of-group aggro... It would require a group or player to actually be able to deal with the damage output of whatever mob they pull. It wouldn't stop the high-damage nukers from helping, but I can say for sure that my Conjuror would have a hard time killing a heroic mob before it kills the group, in that situation... And the Paladin would have almost no chance at all, being that he couldn't take aggro.</p><hr></blockquote><p>Although that does seem to be a "Good" idea that still is nerfing something that is currently useful.. Like the healer that runs past someone killing a mob but is getting beat up bad, the healer hangs out a bit and throws the individual a heal or two.. as for me, many times I have been running somewher and ran across an individual running with mobs on his/her [Removed for Content] and very close to dead, so I AE Taunt the mobs and they chase me and that individual lives..</p><p>To me you dont see enough of that kind of stuff ingame and going with your suggestion would be a bad thing. A "minor" example of that suggestion being bad but still.. I enjoy helping out folks when ever I can...</p>

[SkarlSpeedbu]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Kyin wrote:<div></div><p>Blackguard I am sure you already thought of this but that will only slow down the process alittle.  All one would have to do to keep doing the same bypass is to have a conj. go to the name them CoH the low player, mentor down and kill the name.  Yes it is harder but it is still do able.</p><p> </p><hr></blockquote><p>Sweet, nerf a conjurer spell.</p><p>I tell you what, I'm pretty open-minded about new ideas, but this is the worst idea ever.  This will F.T. E. Q. W.  If you truly know what FTW means.</p>

[kerryne]

<div></div>i can totally understand this change....however there are legit players who will still be hurt by it.  really it's going to be a big disadvantage to a lot of people....didn't dropping the aggro level 10 levels do enough?!  if you're a level 60 trying to grey a high level zone out for a level...say 30, the mobs will con grey to them but still be aggro and attack them.  you can't really do it anymore.  by doing this it will discourage people to group with anyone slightly too low....i mean it's not like people LOVE mentoring anyhow...

[Kendricke]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Carryne wrote:Rather than changing Call of the Hero to affect fixed levels it would be better if it only worked on characters who were in the grouping range (ie they would get quest credit when grouped with the mage). <div></div><hr></blockquote><p>Which actually defeats the of the purpose of the spell in the first place. </p><p> </p>

[Keredh]

<div></div><div><blockquote><hr>Tstorm wrote:<div><span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.<div></div><hr></blockquote>I rather like this.  I'm a bit naive with regards to the exploiting going on with this, but the new method described here seems more realistic.I would suggest making sure that both high level and low level person have an indicator that aggro is possible.  For example, if I as a high level player am escorting a lower level player through an area, I'll want to see if I am personally aggro to something but I'll want a different indicator to let me know someone in my group is vulnerable to a mob so I can protect them.</span></div><hr></blockquote>I understand why they are doing this and don't think there is anything add to the debate on that front - especially as it is a done deal. However, I think saying it is more realistic is a bit wide of the mark. It is more realistic that you are attacked when surrounded by five hulking warriors with sixty seasons under their belt than if you were to wander in alone? I don't think so. A more challenging way of coding aggro, which is probably beyond the programming level in current MMORPGs, would account for group proximity and faction as well as level. To make it more interesting, Mobs might even have a "disposition" to aggro with a percentage chance that they would aggro on passing individuals (would allow greater scope for Mob personality development). It would be a welcome element of unpredictablity.</div><div> </div><div>As it is, we'll just roll with the blows and the farmers will find another way to get the loot they are after (the contradictory posts from Blackguard and Gallenite demonstrate it is no solution).</div><p>Message Edited by Keredh on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">06:22 AM</span></p>

[IBSomnifer]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items. This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns:- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote>Blackguard...you are so frustrating.  This "greying" out fo a zone is really only used for harvesting....What you are trying to prevent...and missing entirely....is **leaving a lvl 30 fighter at the zone in of runnyeye....having the lvl 50 run through the zone to find a named....THEN inviting the lvl 30 to make the mob con....then they kill the mob/get loot...the DEGROUP to run around with it grey again.  The low lvl NEVER moves.  So there is no chance for agro.  All your doing is people who are greying out zones for lower lvls to harvest freely or get from point A to point B without dieing 50 times.  This is not where the problem lies.  This is not what the farmers are using.  I see this farming daily in AB's runnyeye, stormhold, even CT now.  Fix it.

[Kendricke]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>IBSomnifer wrote:<div></div>Blackguard...you are so frustrating.  This "greying" out fo a zone is really only used for harvesting....What you are trying to prevent...and missing entirely....is **leaving a lvl 30 fighter at the zone in of runnyeye....having the lvl 50 run through the zone to find a named....THEN inviting the lvl 30 to make the mob con....then they kill the mob/get loot...the DEGROUP to run around with it grey again.  The low lvl NEVER moves.  So there is no chance for agro.  All your doing is people who are greying out zones for lower lvls to harvest freely or get from point A to point B without dieing 50 times.  This is not where the problem lies.  This is not what the farmers are using.  I see this farming daily in AB's runnyeye, stormhold, even CT now.  Fix it.<hr></blockquote><p>That's actually not how it works in all cases, and frankly, the solution presented would solve the above as well (since it won't con targets that were previously grey). </p><p>What is typically happens is that you'll find a lower level grouped with an level 60 that rushes through the dungeon (Runnyeye, Ruins of Varsoon, etc.) moving from named to named to named.  When a named actually spawns, the group disbands, the low level strikes first, then the level 60 finishes off the target. </p><p> </p>

[Kubas]

<div></div><div></div><div><blockquote><font size="3"></font><font size="2"></font><hr><font size="2">dalessit wrote:Very bad idea imo.I group with people of varying levels.  So what happens if you have a groupTank (35)Ranger (29)Warlock (32)Healer (34)Bard (30)Wizard (31)All of these can be in a group together just fine.If you run through a zone where everything is say gray or green to the tank.  He/she won't know what  is aggro to any other member of the group.  Here you have 6 different levels which are allowed to group without mentoring, not trying to exploit the system, now you have added 10 times the hassle of grouping because no one will be able to see what cons to the rest of the group...Please correct me if I am wrong.Omaplata.</font><div></div><font size="2"></font><hr></blockquote><font size="2">I'm in this exact same situtation, where I regularly group with people 5-6 levels lower than I am. I also tend to lead the group around since I spend the most time looking over and researching zones. Now I'll have no way in which to tell (other than reading every single mob name/lvl) if the people behind me are going to aggro half of the Grey-to-Me mobs.  This is going to make it bloody inconvient, not to mention dangerous, if my friends are following me around and getting jumped left and right by things that completely ignore me. It will also severely increase the time required for certain events and zones (Nek Castle, for me, the first floor is grey, making that part of the run easy, now we'll have to stop and kill every mob in order to progress, even though we've done it 3 times already), chewing up my limited play time grinding grey's out even though I can gain nothing out of it. Most people use the grey out to skip already completed content and move onto higher xp areas. Slogging thru 300 greys to get to xp mobs because Jane Smith in my group is a few levels behind me is just not my idea of fun.</font></div><div><font size="2"></font> </div><div><font size="2">Please reconsider other solutions, or implimenting an average level greying scale, there needs to be some sort of mechanism to determine what is going to be grey/green to the entire group, not just myself. </font></div><div><font size="2"></font> </div><div><font size="2">Also, I agree, this will not stop farming at all, at most it will slow it down a hair and thats about it. This change will have a greater impact on the small group casual gamer than it will any farmer.</font></div><p>Message Edited by Kubasak on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">06:40 AM</span></p><p>Message Edited by Kubasak on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">06:40 AM</span></p>

[Sin-Mar]

Standing ovations!Absolutely brilliant!Thanks!//Sinmar

[Mabes]

<div></div>How will the aggro mobs look, will they be grey with red outline to the lower level char only, or to both?  Usually the higher lvl char will be leading, but will heshe be able to tell if their lower lvl group mate can get around a mob without getting aggro?

[Schirf]

<div></div><div></div><p>The purpose of "open" encounters was to be able to save someone in trouble, wasn't it?  People complained that they couldn't throw a heal on someone who was dying, and the code was changed so that they could.  Now we see the negative impact that we, the players, warned about. </p><p>Here is how to allow the "save" without the abuse.</p><p>1) Open encounters should not drop a chest if they take any damage from someone outside the group or when someone outside the group generates enough hate to take the agro focus.</p><p>2) Add a group <em>option</em> to automatically /unlock an encounter when one party member gets to 25% health.</p><p>You want to be saved or savable, you run the risk of not getting loot from the mob.  Problem solved... people can rescue one another.... but can't farm loot. </p><p>Message Edited by Schirf on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">07:37 AM</span></p>

[IBSomnifer]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Kendricke wrote:<div></div><blockquote><hr>IBSomnifer wrote:<div></div>Blackguard...you are so frustrating.  This "greying" out fo a zone is really only used for harvesting....What you are trying to prevent...and missing entirely....is **leaving a lvl 30 fighter at the zone in of runnyeye....having the lvl 50 run through the zone to find a named....THEN inviting the lvl 30 to make the mob con....then they kill the mob/get loot...the DEGROUP to run around with it grey again.  The low lvl NEVER moves.  So there is no chance for agro.  All your doing is people who are greying out zones for lower lvls to harvest freely or get from point A to point B without dieing 50 times.  This is not where the problem lies.  This is not what the farmers are using.  I see this farming daily in AB's runnyeye, stormhold, even CT now.  Fix it.<hr></blockquote><p>That's actually not how it works in all cases, and frankly, the solution presented would solve the above as well (since it won't con targets that were previously grey). </p><p>What is typically happens is that you'll find a lower level grouped with an level 60 that rushes through the dungeon (Runnyeye, Ruins of Varsoon, etc.) moving from named to named to named.  When a named actually spawns, the group disbands, the low level strikes first, then the level 60 finishes off the target. </p><p> </p><hr></blockquote>Maybe not in all cases..but it sure as <font size="2" face="Arial"><span>[expletive haxx0red by Echgar] </span></font>happening every minute in runnyeye on AB.<p>Message Edited by Echgar on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:43 AM</span></p>

[Aenashi]

<div>change it so the names dropped more fabled gear and legnedary.. but make it NO DROP! <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  That would be awesome heh</div>

[Ferous]

<div>Comments to SOE:</div><div> </div><div>Good aim(s).</div><div>Fumble on the announcement!</div><div>Hoping the "second wave targetted at the out-of-group hi leveller exploiting unlocked encounters" changes are announced and implemented quickly and well.</div><div> </div><div>And to all the people that argued for days about "it's not exploiting", well, as mentioned, "exploit" is defined by the game developers and this one goes down as exploit.</div>

[Flam]

<div></div><div><blockquote><hr>Schirf wrote:<div></div><div></div><p>The purpose of "open" encounters was to be able to save someone in trouble, wasn't it?  People complained that they couldn't throw a heal on someone who was dying, and the code was changed so that they could.  Now we see the negative impact that we, the players, warned about. </p><p></p><p><span class="time_text"></span></p><hr><p> </p><p>I guess it was those few that for get to hit the "yell" button.  removing this has caused ALOT of problems. I now SoE doesn't want to back track and actually be wrong.  How hard is it to create a macro for yell? or heck, actually run. </p><p> </p></blockquote></div>

[Aenashi]

<div>think of the poor newbs doing the Jboots run!! its going to be awful!!</div>

[Schirf]

<div></div><blockquote><p></p><hr>Flamus wrote:<p>I guess it was those few that for get to hit the "yell" button.  removing this has caused ALOT of problems. I now SoE doesn't want to back track and actually be wrong.  How hard is it to create a macro for yell? or heck, actually run. </p><hr></blockquote>But /yell doesn't actually do what /unlock does.  I like /unlock, but /unlock should result in help + xps + quest updates, not help + xps + quest updates + treasure.

[selch]

<div></div><div></div><div><strong><em>Discouraging people to what?  XP groups</em>? </strong></div><div>oh yes, they are there for xp so anything that is killed is XP since it is not gray, it will discourage 'nothing'...  Discouraging L60 bodyguard (not mentor) groups yes.. stopping massive xp flow... Which is nice... When mentored down, it will not loose any xp as well.</div><div> </div><div>Graying out zones for farmers? Super...  Those areas, quests (like jboots) are not meant to be done before you are at propiate level for those zones? So you making jboots run at your L20 and calling it fun? Marvelous...</div><div> </div><div><strong><em>Trying to kill something that you cannot kill with groups at your level and discourage people from grouping?</em></strong></div><div>Then this quest is not meant to be done at that level, be like every honest player, open your way till that... Those are VERY LAME excuses from players, I can't believe this community has that kind of people. I mean killing Varsoon, Everling and such mobs at your L20 is not meant to be possible. Why trying to exploit the mechanics?</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>I always hate lowbie toons AFK harvesting and a horse L60 on /follow AFK for harvest nodes (yes bots)</div><div> </div><div>Only problem I see is, "<strong><font color="#ffff00">quests not counting gray mobs</font></strong>" for high level players quests such as "Kill 10 x" quests. You need to be at least green for that kind of quests.  I hope they fix that and everything will be marvelous...Then there will be no excuse left for High level guys camping for "lewt"</div><div> </div><p>Message Edited by selch on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:25 AM</span></p>

[Tro]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>ihatefluffybunnies wrote:<div>change it so the names dropped more fabled gear and legnedary..<font color="#ff0066"> but make it NO DROP!</font> <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  That would be awesome heh</div><hr></blockquote>Hmm you know.. This might actually be a good idea and not result in a nerf.. The only downfall I can see is that the farmers will camp the named that drop the items they need for upgrades but hey, atleast they aren't plowing through all the named in a cycle. maybe also make them LORE.. Not sure how that would play out but sounds as if it will fix the problem or atleast have a huge impact in a small amount of time.

[ldavis]

<div></div><p>While I'm glad to see that this is being addressed, I think that the basic idea is more of a shotgun approached, when a sniper rifle would be more effective.  I think that this change will more effect the "innocent" teams of high levels helping lower levels, (a part of the game I'm glad to support), and not farmers.  Want to kill farming, and not harm the people actually "playing" the game?  Do what someone above said and make named mobs Epic X1 and lock them.  This would have zero impact on players and a massive impact on campers whereas the gray but aggro will have the opposite effect of harming the player base with massive zone pulls and group wipes as mobs return to what real players assumed was a "safe" spot.  The other thing that needs to be addressed is that most farmers are already camped where they need to be.  The ones I know have the low levels camped at the door of the chamber of immortality and in RE and simply log in, kill the mob by hitting it and letting the ungrouped high level kill it, taking the 2 masters that drop and logging out.</p><p>Please lock named mobs and leave the rest of the code alone.  One of the best things about being a high level is to be able to help lower level toons and interact with them, this change will only negatively affect that with no impact on farmers.</p><p>Thanks for asking for input!</p>

[Kendricke]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Ferous wrote:<div> </div><div>And to all the people that argued for days about "it's not exploiting", well, as mentioned, "exploit" is defined by the game developers and this one goes down as exploit.</div><hr></blockquote><p>The mechanic wasn't an exploit, but the abuse of content monopolization (already dealt with in the rules of conduct) was enough to warrant a change in mechanics.  At least, that's how I read it.</p><p> </p>

[selch]

<div></div><div></div><div><blockquote><hr>Kendricke wrote:<div></div><blockquote><hr>Ferous wrote:<div> </div><div>And to all the people that argued for days about "it's not exploiting", well, as mentioned, "exploit" is defined by the game developers and this one goes down as exploit.</div><hr></blockquote><p>The mechanic wasn't an exploit, but the abuse of content monopolization (already dealt with in the rules of conduct) was enough to warrant a change in mechanics.  At least, that's how I read it.</p><p> </p><hr></blockquote>And actually it is exploit people were defending: "<em>If I can do it in game (if game allows me to do it), it is not exploit</em>" which was a lame excuse. So they will have no excuse left to do it by officially declaring it as exploit.</div><div> </div><div>Anyway, plat sellers for real $ will have more hard times for sure.</div><div> </div><div><span class="time_text"></span> </div><p>Message Edited by selch on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:37 AM</span></p>

[LordDragone]

<div></div><p>ok, I've read through the postings and here are my 2cp worth</p><p>Originally when combat revamp hit you changed the con system so things 10 levels below you still con green. This was done to help curb the farmers. Well it didn't the only ones it hurt were the solo players trying to harvest for crafting.</p><p>Then you unlocked combat so healers could heal people from outside the group. I do like being able to do that but yeah it REALLY opened things up for the platt farmers unfortunately</p><p>As was said before the plat farmers will always exploit a good intention</p><p>My suggestion is this. Take the con system back to what it was so things stop conning at 4-5 levels below you like it used to. Bring back the combat lock</p><p>The above changes will help the legit player since neither change hurt the plat farmers at all. In fact it helped the plat farmers tremendously. (The conning system in place now REALLY helped the plat farmers a lot) can't stress that point enough. here is my proof</p><p>I am level 50 Mystic harvesting Feerrott. Things now con green that didn't before so I have to be careful harvesting. No prob at first you know the old risk/reward thing. Then I see a group of 5 or more clear out everything while harvesting. At first no problem until I see them everyday doing the sdame thing and they never respond to tells. Amongst other tell tale signs they are obvously farmers. Now since I can't go into areas they are the con system is hurting me not them. Oh and when I check the boards ...Oh wow! 20+ ebon, 70 rubies and a misture of other rares that are harvestable and I got? nothing</p><p> </p>

[Kendricke]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>selch wrote:<div>And actually it is exploit people were defending: "<em>If I can do it in game, it is not exploit</em>"</div><hr></blockquote><p>I'm not going to get into a verbal battle regarding "I told you so".  SOE stated clearly it was not an exploit.  Now, the mechanic is being tested (remember, this is a TEST change - not written in stone quite yet), to see if it affects behavior.  This was not a problem of a utilizing an unintended bug.  This was an unforeseen behavioral consequence of a change in mechanics.  The issue is socialogical in nature.</p><p> </p>

[Gharik]

"- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members."There are a couple basic methods of farming used by the 50+ crowd in the lower dungeons.Method 1: High level runs around with a group of low levels, greying out the zone. Mentor at the Named and kill.This method will be severely impacted with the change, I agree. Some will still clear out the zone of mobs, but I imagine many will not want to have to spend all that time fighting through them all and the named farming by high levels will decrease.Method 2: High level runs around with a low level. Run to the Named, disband. Low level aggroes the Named, then sits back and sips tea while the high level destroys everything and drops the chest.This method will be even more impacted, as without a group's support, it will take that high level more time to clear mobs all the way to the named.Method 3: High level runs around dungeon, low level sits at entrance to zone reading 'Bogstrutters Guide to the Feerrott'. When high level reaches a named, he invites the low level, Named turns green, kill, disband. Move on to next Named.Not sure if this change will impact this method. Not even auto locking of the Named, which imho is a *much* better solution, would resolve this issue. Only way to fix this particular method would be to have chests never drop if the mob is grey to anyone in the group solo.As for invis, it's not all that effective in a place like Runnyeye. There are see invis mobs every other room, so I don't think that will be any more of an issue than it would be for normal groups.My concern is that it's going to make travel everywhere more difficult for everyone. Have a group of 5 60's and a 52? Sorry, going to have to fight through all of Lavastorm now. This will make it so higher levels group a little less frequently with lower levels so they don't have the hassle of fighting through a horde of greys, and people will also probably see certain upper level zones less.Also, those that grouped with higher levels to harvest will be affected. That, combined with the 'no more subcombines' change on abilities, are going to make harvested materials a suddenly more more valued commodity.So, when you combine higher cost resources with lower cost abilities ('cuz everyone's making them 5x as fast with no subs, most if not all of a profit margin for ability crafters is going to be eaten up.Will then less people craft, balancing out the market?  I'm curious to see how it will play out.<div></div>

[Morlach]

<div>this is good change, regardless if its to control farmers or not</div><div>the current situation where you use a L60 to grey out a zone is crazy.</div><div> </div><div> </div>

[BrickyardRac]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Kendricke wrote:<div></div><blockquote><hr>selch wrote:<div>And actually it is exploit people were defending: "<em>If I can do it in game, it is not exploit</em>"</div><hr></blockquote><p>I'm not going to get into a verbal battle regarding "I told you so".  SOE stated clearly it was not an exploit.  Now, the mechanic is being tested (remember, this is a TEST change - not written in stone quite yet), to see if it affects behavior.  This was not a problem of a utilizing an unintended bug.  This was an unforeseen behavioral consequence of a change in mechanics.  The issue is socialogical in nature.</p><hr></blockquote>I don't believe that in the slightest.  This change, being on test, will test nothing, as there are regularly less than 100 people logged in on the Test Server (prior to the new lowbie changes), and I'd be surprised if there's a single plat farmer on the entire server.  So how will this change, implemented on the test server, see if it affects farming at all?  It won't.  The farming aspects will only show up once it's live on a server that has plat farmers, and it's given time to give the farmers to figure ways to work around it (which will take about 2 minutes to figure out, and not much longer to put that workaround into effect - already admitted by Gallenite).

[kelesia]

Some of you are like, yeah it will stop plat farmers..some of you are saying the trade should be no trade and lore. Well, from my experience helping to level my necro alt and some friends in FG, most of the loot there is lore and no trade.  So you have to make sure it goes to the right person. About the only thing that isn't is the master spells...and making those no trade would be ridiculous.  It's hard enough  to  get a master spell that you need.  I don't really like this change, I think it is going to create more problems than it solves. I think it will encourage people not to take a group member 1 or 2 levels below the ideal range.  This might be fine on your big high population servers, but my Faydark is small, and there are not a lot of people playing these levels.  If I could have gotten my necro into a group, I would have done so instead of boxing her with my Templar main to grind her to 32. (Really trying to get her to 35 since that seems to be the low end of the average).It just seems like another instance of 'Well those who have done it good for you!  Those who haven't, well sux to be you'  approach I've seen SoE use.  I'm cautiously in favor of this change, but like other changes from SoE, well I've learned not to trust them.  I really think it needs to take the average of the group and not individual levels, but that's the only change I see. If the change goes thru as is, well my necro can invis, and my templar can follow and I will just take it slower.  For those of you who are saying well it's no risk, let me tell you that me boxing is a hell of a lot of risk for the Necro, and  a hell of a lot of work for me.  It was not fun.  I could not stand to do it for more than an hour or two.  She's spent a lot of time face down, I've spent a lot of coin in repair costs.  But, I've levelled her faster than I could have done in a group...maybe.  I think it's about the same actually.  We have some really long fights.I'm not sure what the answer is, but I would much rather see something done about the bot groups in Clefts and PoF than worry about this.  Or SoE dealing internally with their lack of customer service GMs.  If Gallenite had come here and said, 'We've given in game GMs more power to actually be helpful instead of useless' a lot of people would be cheering. I'ms ure someone would complain, but.....I dunno.  Guess I'm going to have to see how this change plays out over time.<div></div>

[Krooner]

<div></div>This will stop some of the casual farmers.  Thats a little help.  The problem is that most BOT crews are all the same level.  So it will do little to address the major exploiters of farming.

[selch]

<div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><blockquote><hr>Gharik wrote:"- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members."There are a couple basic methods of farming used by the 50+ crowd in the lower dungeons.Method 1: High level runs around with a group of low levels, greying out the zone. Mentor at the Named and kill.This method will be severely impacted with the change, I agree. Some will still clear out the zone of mobs, but I imagine many will not want to have to spend all that time fighting through them all and the named farming by high levels will decrease.Method 2: High level runs around with a low level. Run to the Named, disband. Low level aggroes the Named, then sits back and sips tea while the high level destroys everything and drops the chest.This method will be even more impacted, as without a group's support, it will take that high level more time to clear mobs all the way to the named.Method 3: High level runs around dungeon, low level sits at entrance to zone reading 'Bogstrutters Guide to the Feerrott'. When high level reaches a named, he invites the low level, Named turns green, kill, disband. Move on to next Named.Not sure if this change will impact this method. Not even auto locking of the Named, which imho is a *much* better solution, would resolve this issue. Only way to fix this particular method would be to have chests never drop if the mob is grey to anyone in the group solo.As for invis, it's not all that effective in a place like Runnyeye. There are see invis mobs every other room, so I don't think that will be any more of an issue than it would be for normal groups.My concern is that it's going to make travel everywhere more difficult for everyone. Have a group of 5 60's and a 52? Sorry, going to have to fight through all of Lavastorm now. This will make it so higher levels group a little less frequently with lower levels so they don't have the hassle of fighting through a horde of greys, and people will also probably see certain upper level zones less.Also, those that grouped with higher levels to harvest will be affected. That, combined with the 'no more subcombines' change on abilities, are going to make harvested materials a suddenly more more valued commodity.So, when you combine higher cost resources with lower cost abilities ('cuz everyone's making them 5x as fast with no subs, most if not all of a profit margin for ability crafters is going to be eaten up.Will then less people craft, balancing out the market?  I'm curious to see how it will play out.<div></div><hr></blockquote>Very true observation on every point. However, I doubt it will affect crafting to nothing...</div><div> </div><div>When I sell a rare crafted item, I check market who sells same item so I do a few discount on that price to sell the item if it still gets me profit. For rare resource, since bots are monopolising markets 80% of time, they sell for whatever price they want.  50g for a single piece of rare when I can't sell things that is made by those to 51g. Because they harvest all the rares, and ofcourse when a casual player finds a rare, it turns out like finding meaning of life.</div><div> </div><div>Now what will happen? When harvest bots are lessened, casual crafters or adventurers who roams for materials they look for will meet "more rares" than they usually do.  so that will take crafting costs to much lesser for them. Hence more rares on different people sales will also their costs down...</div><div> </div><div>Crafters already not earning much from rare crafted since they give most of their money to RARE's buying from bots owners. Ofcourse prices will reduce, but so costs will get reduced more greatly. Oh, arent there casual players who sells rares? ofcourse, but they don't want to get loose their profit, cos bots sells all the time, they sell few times.</div><div> </div><div>To give you a better example as a tailor, I buy rare pelt for 20g, I sell rare equipment made by this pelt to 35g, my profit is 15g. If I buy this pelt for 10g, I would sell equipment for 25g which does not effect my profit even sell for less also I can even earn more from "more sales" because more people can afford those rather than trying to loot better ones for first armor.  It is same for every crafting proffession. Why should I not buy Adept III's at first time (because I can't afford them, yes, I'm not super rich, since this is my first char and not L60'd yet) instead of buying Adept I's  or trying to loot Master I's for eternity ?</div><div> </div><div>I see more bright days for honest players who does not exploit gaming mechanics and play fair, and doom for plat farmers.</div><div> </div><p>Message Edited by selch on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">09:12 AM</span></p>

[Ferous]

<div></div><div></div><p>Not sure why or how there could still be debate over whether it is/was an exploit or not but I don't like people trying to weasel out of reality so here is more...</p><p>Exploit or not is defined by the game developer with regards to "was 'X' action/result meant by the code/mechanic or not" (obviously it is usually an action that is beneficial to the player that is being considered). It's not about whether the players think something is right or wrong or how the players interpret developers intentions in code/mechanics. So when Blackguard posts in the opening paragragh:</p><p>"That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect.<strong> One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs)</strong>, then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so)"</p><p>and when Gallenite says:</p><p>"As a bit of background:  When we unlocked encounters and made loot credit work the way that it currently does on live, as many people pointed out (and as we were fully aware of), <strong>there were holes that we left there that people could take advantage of</strong>."</p><p>note: take advantage of = exploit</p><p>We have SOE's position that both of these actions were exploits of the intended mechanic.</p><p>And just to be clear, I am not calling this a "bannable" exploit as that would also be SOE's call. And I think some people are confusing a "bug" with an "exploit". They are very different. Bugs are about code problems; exploits are about unwanted consequences of code.</p><p>Message Edited by Ferous on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">12:06 PM</span></p>

[Prub]

<div></div><p>Too many to read to see if this was already stated, but how will this stop people from taking a low level character.. parking it at the zone in.. taking thier high level to the spot they want to farm and then inviting the low level to un grey the mobs?</p><p> </p><p>Or am I wrong in thinking this tactic is used.   Seems a very easy work arround to the new proposed changes to stop high level farming of loot.</p>

[dparker7]

<div>They really didnt think this one through.  Took everyone I know about 2 seconds to come up with one of several workarounds.  The most likely being destroying everything in the zone instead of just the nameds.  Horrid change.</div>

[selch]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>dparker713 wrote:<div>They really didnt think this one through.  Took everyone I know about 2 seconds to come up with one of several workarounds.  The most likely being destroying everything in the zone instead of just the nameds.  Horrid change.</div><hr></blockquote><p>And they spawn 3 minutes later than they destroy, rather than waiting same guy to finish 5 days of their farming and get to sleep to get my heritage quest update.</p><p> </p>

[Za]

<blockquote><hr>Qandor wrote:<div></div><blockquote><hr>Caswydian wrote:<div></div>The problem with this change is that it is entirely a reactionary measure. Rather than target the specific behavior that should be eliminated, these changes will negatively impact everyone and might, hopefully, reduce the farming that people are complaining about. However, it's a carpet bombing approach to fixing the problem when SOE should be using laser guided bombs. We see this all to often in decisions, from the use of no-trade flags to nerfs to the use of CC abilities on epic mobs to the change to the spell shield illusionist spell. Rather than make minor adjustments and tweaks to address the specific problem, the tendency is to go in and make massive overcorrections with all sorts of additional consequences beyond the original intent.<hr></blockquote>Exactly. Always the sledgehammer approach. Reason being the sledgehammer approach takes less time and less thought.<hr></blockquote>And less money... which is exactly what I expect any corporation to hold as its 1st priority as long as it doesn't hurt the customers... which it doesn't.

[Za]

<blockquote><hr>Petroglyph wrote:<div></div>I dont like this change at all.  But as to the point of Farmers.  Why cant they just set any encounter that can drop a master chest to autolock.  Dont care if its a named,  non-named, epic or what have you.  That will put all the farmers out of that business and they will have to find a new way.   Like someone said earlier they do some global fix like this to solve a problem when something much more specific is needed.<hr></blockquote>Becasue every mob in the game could potentially drop a master chest.

[Krakenap]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items. This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns:- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote><p>Just a small loophole you've missed in this: I've seen this in Cazic Thule and you'll still have the same problem with the current functionality:</p><p>Player A is level 54 and stands at the zone in.  Player B and C are level 60 and run around looking for names.  Player B finds a name, mentors to 54 and kills it.  Note: Player B never gets aggro cause all the mobs wouldn't aggro to them at level 60.  Player A won't get aggro cause they are running around the zone. </p><p>I'm not sure what is the range on mentoring (or if there is one) but maybe you should make it a very very short range effect. As an alternative suggestion:  How about putting a timer on Mentoring / Unmentoring?  e.g. After mentoring / unmentoring you have to wait an hour before you can mentor again.</p>

[selch]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Zald wrote:<blockquote><hr>Qandor wrote:<div></div><blockquote><hr>Caswydian wrote:<div></div>The problem with this change is that it is entirely a reactionary measure. Rather than target the specific behavior that should be eliminated, these changes will negatively impact everyone and might, hopefully, reduce the farming that people are complaining about. However, it's a carpet bombing approach to fixing the problem when SOE should be using laser guided bombs. We see this all to often in decisions, from the use of no-trade flags to nerfs to the use of CC abilities on epic mobs to the change to the spell shield illusionist spell. Rather than make minor adjustments and tweaks to address the specific problem, the tendency is to go in and make massive overcorrections with all sorts of additional consequences beyond the original intent.<hr></blockquote>Exactly. Always the sledgehammer approach. Reason being the sledgehammer approach takes less time and less thought.<hr></blockquote>And less money... which is exactly what I expect any corporation to hold as its 1st priority as long as it doesn't hurt the customers... which it doesn't.<hr></blockquote><p> </p><p>And also to add "reputation" of customer care compared to "problem customers". Loosing a few thousands "bots" and bot lovers might bring much more honest players in for a cleaner game.</p><p> </p>

[selch]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Krakenappa wrote:<div></div><p><font color="#ffff00">I'm not sure what is the range on mentoring (or if there is one) but maybe you should make it a very very short range effect. </font>As an alternative suggestion:  How about putting a timer on Mentoring / Unmentoring?  e.g. After mentoring / unmentoring you have to wait an hour before you can mentor again.</p><hr></blockquote><div><font color="#ffff00">Now that is single best idea ever on this thread</font>. Mentoring range seems "zone wide". And mentor/unmentor timers might be headache time to time but hey? who would mentor 3 different groups in an hour?</div><div> </div>

[Za]

<blockquote><hr>Quasicroako wrote:<div></div><blockquote><hr>Zald wrote:2) Fix mentoring so that it takes a little time to transition... IE... if I enter Varsoons and immediately mentor down to L30, the when I unmentor, either make the unmentoring require a 10-20 minute delay, a zone change, or death.<hr></blockquote><p>and then what you just did is kill the whole thing many LEGIT players have been looking forward to with the fixes to mentoring vs. spell level. some of us want to be able to mentor in order to just hang out again and see areas we may not have the first time and be of some help to new players or i dont know actually be able to give new players on more barren servers ppl to play with to gain levels.</p><p>yah great idea its to bad that as it stands now as much as i enjoy helping ppl and dont mind mentoring i ussually wont stop and mentor becuase it takes to long(using the command to load in hotbars to date bugs them so that isnt an option for me).</p><p>now i can look forward to still not wanting to mentor because i am running through Antonica on a way to a guild function, etc and a group of 3 ppl "need one more" so being a nice person i would stop mentor, move on....but OH NO not with your idea cause then for a quick 5 min help i have to tell anyone my level "sorry i am locked at a mentored level for 20 mins".</p><p>i understand its just an idea, but at least think how your idea is going to inconvience legit players. with that idea they might as well remove mentoring permenantly because it will be dead. it doesnt fix an issue it kills a very good idea that had/has(due to changes upcoming) a lot of promise.</p><p>you want an honest opinion and an easy one? to bad even if you dont your getting it anyway....they need to just reinstert the lock mechanics on ALL ENCOUNTERS. that fixes the issue once and for all. it worked fine before and it would work fine again. for the few pluses not locking things added it added more issues and headaches by unlocking them.</p><p>better yet they can do what there competitor does and just make ALL MOBS even grey that would normally aggro players still aggro them even if 40 levels lower.....(not serious to see this but its coming watch)</p><p>the dev team just needs to get it over with already and just insert full lock code on all encounters again. thats my opinion and while many may not agree with it it is my right to have it.</p><hr></blockquote>As I said... if you wanna help someone go ahead. If you're already mentored down to L20, and they're L25 group, re-mentor to L25... If you just wanna help for 5 minutes, then mentor down, help them, and then zone in and out to clear the mentor...What I said would have a possible negative affect on a marginal number of people in a marginal number of situations. All it would really do is hurt people that constantly toggle on and off mentoring for the sole purpose of trivializing certain combats and still being able to get loot from certain others.If you wanna help people in Antonica... then thats cool, but your 1 small example isn't worth preserving... at the detrament of so much more content...No other solution, even the one you posed will curb the tactics of having a L60 group with a L30, then have the L60 clear out all the mobs in the area worry free, then drops down just to kill a named mob, which is now a much more trivial encounter because all the work it should have taken to get to him was voided out.

[Daelomd]

Blackguard - I hope you a following this thread....Though I like the CONCEPT behind this change... you are going about it all wrong!Now instead of the farmers just taking names - they will just blow through ALL of the mobs in the zone.  So now the "true" players as you called them won't have any names to kill OR anything else.  If you think that a little extra pointless grey killing is going to stop farmer bots, well then you have not really evaluated the dedication farmer bots have.Furthermore, you are gravely mistaken if you think that the high level is mentoring the lower before killing the named mob to get loots.  This is NOT how its happening.  What happens is this....Level 60 groups level 35.Group runs to named.Level 35 position so they only pull agro from named.Level 35 drops group and pulls named mob, making it their encounter. (BTW: Level 35 has encounters unlocked)Level 60 then destroys the named mob.Level 35 re-invites level 60.Level 35 opens the chest and gets the goodies.If you want to stop this its simple.... make the person who "tags" or becomes "owner" of the encounter have to do 50%+ of the dmg to the encounter in order for it to drop loot.  Just like you did with EXP.  Until you do this there will ALWAYS be level 60's (or 70's after KOS) farming with lower levels.If you have questions about how this system works, or you would like to see it in action PM me and I can answer your questsion or give you and in game demonstration.<div></div>

[Static]

<div></div><div></div><div></div><div><span><blockquote><hr>ldavis62 wrote:<div></div><p>While I'm glad to see that this is being addressed, I think that the basic idea is more of a shotgun approached, when a sniper rifle would be more effective.  I think that this change will more effect the "innocent" teams of high levels helping lower levels, (a part of the game I'm glad to support), and not farmers.  Want to kill farming, and not harm the people actually "playing" the game?  Do what someone above said and make named mobs Epic X1 and lock them.  This would have zero impact on players and a massive impact on campers whereas the gray but aggro will have the opposite effect of harming the player base with massive zone pulls and group wipes as mobs return to what real players assumed was a "safe" spot.  The other thing that needs to be addressed is that most farmers are already camped where they need to be.  The ones I know have the low levels camped at the door of the chamber of immortality and in RE and simply log in, kill the mob by hitting it and letting the ungrouped high level kill it, taking the 2 masters that drop and logging out.</p><p>Please lock named mobs and leave the rest of the code alone.  One of the best things about being a high level is to be able to help lower level toons and interact with them, this change will only negatively affect that with no impact on farmers.</p><p>Thanks for asking for input!</p><hr></blockquote>Locking encounters of named mobs or making them Epic x 1 is the perfect soloution for this.  As ldavis62 says this is doing nothing but hurting legit players who are simply trying to move about the zones.</span></div><p>Message Edited by Static72 on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">10:36 AM</span></p><p>Message Edited by Static72 on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">10:38 AM</span></p>

[TooFarGo]

<div></div><div></div><div><span><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items. This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns:- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote>I do not like this change.  Here's another suggestion I like better, and have /feedback'd on:Flag players who have killed nameds.  Say the flag persists for X days.  During that time, they can kill the named again if they wish, <b>but the loot will be severly reduced in quality or removed entirely.</b>  Why would they kill it again? Maybe to help a friend with a quest.  If they really want to help, they'll deal with not getting loot.  Now farmers have no reason to camped nameds except for ONE time in X days.  They get thier loot, I get mine, we're all happy.I really do not like the locking encounters idea. I've often helped groups kill nameds from the outside, at both higher and lower levels.  Why? because they were about dead and I wanted to lend a hand.  Why is this good? It promotes fun!  It was FUN to help them get a master drop! It was FUN for them to almost die and then have a nice higher level player come help them win!</span></div><p><span class="time_text">I do not like the timers on mentoring idea.  With the bugs i've seen with mentoring, going linkdead and hving to regroup/rementor, etc, this will lead to a large amount of aggrovation!  I do not want to deal with this type of aggrovation. Mentoring works pretty well as is, leave it alone!</span></p><p>Message Edited by TooFarGone on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">01:40 PM</span></p>

[Quazaris]

<div></div><div>Though it does not fix the problem completely it does improve the situation. Yes people are doing exactly what you all are talking about. High level lets low initiate combat then grabs aggo while low level kills. What it does solve is the Farmer to control the entire zone. If someone sets up camp on a a single named in a zone and peck away at it all day fine so be it. What always frosted my *alls was fighting to a named see a High/Low level  Farming so fight my way to next camp sight only to have them pass me up on my way , kill that named, then move on to the next while I am still fighting my way to the second one.</div><div> </div><div>Hopefully this puts a damper on that.</div>

[einar4]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Gallenite wrote:<div>Regarding this being taken as a "sledgehammer" measure -- This isn't being done solely becase of the farming that's having a negative impact on others' experiences.</div><div> </div><div>Yes, this will have a minor impact there, but it's a decision we've been weighing for a while.  The idea of someone helping a friend who is a couple levels away, through a zone?  No problem.  It was, however, a little more beneficial than it was supposed to be, even at launch. </div><div> </div><div>We evaluated it again with the release of DoF, and decided to keep it in due to some folks' dependence on it for shard retrieval.  Now that shard retrieval is gone, there doesn't seem to be much of a valid gameplay reason to keep it in a world that needs to feel appropriately dangerous.  Not "dangerous if my friend who is AFK on the other side of the zone LD's." <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></div><div> </div><div>Spells and abilities such as Invisibility and Sneak are meant to fulfill this role that "AFK buddy" is currently able to fill.  Protecting someone weaker than yourself on their way through the world?  Excellent. There are plenty of ways within a consistent world to help someone get from point A to point B, but there needs to be active participation for it to make sense.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>As far as farming goes, there are further changes coming to loot credit assignment and treasure chances that are intended to more directly address the farming problem. </div><div> </div><div>As a bit of background:  When we unlocked encounters and made loot credit work the way that it currently does on live, as many people pointed out (and as we were fully aware of), there were holes that we left there that people could take advantage of. </div><div> </div><div>We wanted to see what would happen with a non-restrictive, open set of rules first.   Game mechanics changes aimed at preventing negative behaviors are a last resort.  The behaviors resulting now unfortunately warrant further action to protect legitimate players. </div><div> </div><div>We'll have more details soon.  Thanks for your patience.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Good hunting,</div><div> </div><div>- Scott</div><hr></blockquote><p> </p><p> Frankly, its just annoying that you have added two expansions for the 50+ players,  shut the door on most of the interesting content for the couples in the game (you've made DPS king, basically with every interesting place having ^^^ mobs - by your own statements requiring a party of 3 at minimum) and to add insult to injury, the only changes to the mid level areas that you've implemented are to make them into loot farms for the lazier high level players that want to sell masters (effectively slamming the crafters that are trying to make a few gold on adepts and app IVs) for uber plat.  I would call it a Master [sic]stroke of removing the fun for all but the ubers and the farmer bots if I wanted to use histrionics, but instead I'll simply comment that its frustrating and quite nonsensical.   I can tell you that I won't even bother with upgrading to your uberleet expansion until and unless I reach level 60, assuming that I get there without simply becoming disgusted with this new QVC version of EQ.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>

[Almeric_CoS]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Salion wrote:<div></div><p><strong><font color="#ffff00">I would prefer to auto-lock named encounters.</font> </strong></p><hr></blockquote>I think this merits discussion.  As it stands now, Epic encounters are locked, and why?  To prevent the exploitation of content in exchange for free loot.  SOE has moved to make named mobs (in dungeons especially) a lot more rewarding, so why not hold the same rules to them as for epic mobs?  I think the logic holds up just fine!

[fireto]

<div></div><div>I'm glad the Dev team recognizes that this is an important problem and is acting to stop it.</div><div>But the changes you've described are not enough.</div><div> </div><div>Its still too easy to exploit:</div><div> </div><div>High level toon trains through trash mobs to the named. Eventually, pursuing mobs give up.</div><div>High level toon trains through trash mobs to the named. FDs and pursuing mobs give up.</div><div>High level goes to named. Uses call of the hero to teleport low level to it.</div><div>High level cuts a path of destruction, obliterating all mobs on the way to named in mere seconds.</div><div>High level obliterates only the see invis mobs on the way to named. Low level skpis along after him invisible.</div><div> </div><div>All of these scenarios put us right back in the exact same place we are now. Low level does 1 point of damage to the named, then the out-of-group high level obltierates it, then the low level collects contents of master chest. On to the next named!</div><div> </div><div>Locking ALL encounters, or at the very least, locking all *named* encounters is the only way to stop this.</div><div> </div>

[JoarAddam]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Godwrath wrote:<div>That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect.</div><div>__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _______________________</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>My question is :</div><div> </div><div>Who does believe this will happen instead of avoiding the mob with invis/killing the mobs otw ?</div><div> </div><div>And yeah, i think some farmers will just clean everything ... which will be worse to fair lvl groups at that zones.</div><hr></blockquote><p>They'll clean everything to get to the mob, but mobs repop pretty quick, and if you're already keeping it clean by grouping there, they won't need to.  Farmers aren't in it to get high kill ratios.  It's about getting to the one big mob that drops the big loot.  The zone's won't be constantly clear.</p><p>If you're grey and the mob's aggro, then you should get beat up whether you are invisible or not.  Make the farmers work harder, not smarter!</p>

[Quasicroa]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>selch wrote:<div></div><div></div><div><strong><em>Discouraging people to what?  XP groups</em>? </strong></div><div>oh yes, they are there for xp so anything that is killed is XP since it is not gray, it will discourage 'nothing'...  Discouraging L60 bodyguard (not mentor) groups yes.. stopping massive xp flow... Which is nice... When mentored down, it will not loose any xp as well.</div><div> </div><div>Graying out zones for farmers? Super...  Those areas, quests (like jboots) are not meant to be done before you are at propiate level for those zones? So you making jboots run at your L20 and calling it fun? Marvelous...</div><div> </div><div><strong><em>Trying to kill something that you cannot kill with groups at your level and discourage people from grouping?</em></strong></div><div>Then this quest is not meant to be done at that level, be like every honest player, open your way till that... Those are VERY LAME excuses from players, I can't believe this community has that kind of people. I mean killing Varsoon, Everling and such mobs at your L20 is not meant to be possible. Why trying to exploit the mechanics?</div><div> </div><div> </div><div><strong><font size="4" color="#3399ff">I always hate lowbie toons AFK harvesting and a horse L60 on /follow AFK for harvest nodes <u><em>(yes bots)</em></u></font></strong></div><div> </div><div>Only problem I see is, "<strong><font color="#ffff00">quests not counting gray mobs</font></strong>" for high level players quests such as "Kill 10 x" quests. You need to be at least green for that kind of quests.  I hope they fix that and everything will be marvelous...Then there will be no excuse left for High level guys camping for "lewt"</div><div> </div><p>Message Edited by selch on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:25 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote><p><font color="#3399ff">Outside the fact that the bolded part has nothing to do with the topic of the thread I will say this......a</font><font color="#3399ff">nd many of us hate anyone who thinks the way you do. Which hate is a strong word...I don't hate anyone I dislike them.</font></p><p><font color="#3399ff">Not everyone that has /AFK on is a bot or are they exploiting or any various other things. Many people with /AFK on are very much legit players that may have a reason for having it on even if its not obvious to you, but then it is not your job to figure out if the /AFK means unattended is it? NO it is not as that is Sony's job.</font></p><p><font color="#3399ff">Maybe if Sony would give us a proper /DND(do no disturb) command that we wouldnt have to use our AFK tag to put "I am sorry I am not making spells today" to avoid having ppl send 3-10 tells "hey are you there" "hey i need some spells made" "hey if you can help me i can pay well" all from the same person in less than 30seconds.</font></p><p><font color="#3399ff">I (and many others) are growing tired of players that assume everyone is a bot and harrass them or make it a point to /ooc "HEY ALL SO AND SO IS A BOT...they are running around /AFK mining".</font></p><p><font color="#3399ff">Personally I wish Sony would put an addition to the TOS that states "Anyone that is found to have accused a player in any chat channel(this applies to all EQ2 chat channels including /guild, /tell, etc) will be subject to having account action taken. this can result in a 3 day suspension first offense, a 1 month second offense and permenant account ban on the 3rd offense. If you feel a player is exploitng or botting then you need to communicate this to SOE through private channels. Any other disclosure to a non-SOE employee is deemed in violation of the TOS."</font></p><p><font color="#3399ff">Bottom line...you assume to much by a simple tag.</font></p>

[[email protected]]

<div></div><div>Ok, so does this mean that the group that now has all the risk, get rewards too?  Will the maximum span between group members increase in order to have the chests drop?  To get exp?  I hope the either happens, It's taken me 3 months to get my 2 crafter alts to 36 adventure, and I'd like to be able to exp with them with a larger span of levels.</div><div> </div><div>I grey out zones to move my tunes to named and exp areas.  Further, not only do I mentor down once in sweet spots (which didn't seem to be an exploit); I just drop my high level toon from the group, have the lowbies attack, and I gank the named for them, bada bing master chest.  ah well, yes perhaps this is bad.</div><div> </div><div>I do like this idea (solo agro status), but I believe that the situation on loot should be stated,  I expect that people will not get the loot with this change, which will just force people to kill greys, denying groups exp.</div><div> </div><div>How to get around this, well, I enjoy Call of Hero for similar purposes. </div><div> </div><div>But the real deturent is to continue with the No Drop and LORE items, this prevents farmers.   Further I enjoy the /gu Events messages for looting Legendary items, so I can go to these places and pick up similar equipment.</div><div> </div><div>Overall, seems like a great idea, I thought this (solo agro) was implemented before, but seems to of been yanked from game with the /encounterlock switches.   And now understanding that this is deamed an exploit by developers, I will curtail these activities.  </div>

[selch]

<div><blockquote><hr>Quasicroako wrote:<div></div><p><font color="#3399ff">Outside the fact that the bolded part has nothing to do with the topic of the thread I will say this......a</font><font color="#3399ff">nd many of us hate anyone who thinks the way you do. Which hate is a strong word...I don't hate anyone I dislike them.</font></p><p><font color="#3399ff">Not everyone that has /AFK on is a bot or are they exploiting or any various other things. Many people with /AFK on are very much legit players that may have a reason for having it on even if its not obvious to you, but then it is not your job to figure out if the /AFK means unattended is it? NO it is not as that is Sony's job.</font></p><p><font color="#3399ff">Maybe if Sony would give us a proper /DND(do no disturb) command that we wouldnt have to use our AFK tag to put "I am sorry I am not making spells today" to avoid having ppl send 3-10 tells "hey are you there" "hey i need some spells made" "hey if you can help me i can pay well" all from the same person in less than 30seconds.</font></p><p><font color="#3399ff">I (and many others) are growing tired of players that assume everyone is a bot and harrass them or make it a point to /ooc "HEY ALL SO AND SO IS A BOT...they are running around /AFK mining".</font></p><p><font color="#3399ff">Personally I wish Sony would put an addition to the TOS that states "Anyone that is found to have accused a player in any chat channel(this applies to all EQ2 chat channels including /guild, /tell, etc) will be subject to having account action taken. this can result in a 3 day suspension first offense, a 1 month second offense and permenant account ban on the 3rd offense. If you feel a player is exploitng or botting then you need to communicate this to SOE through private channels. Any other disclosure to a non-SOE employee is deemed in violation of the TOS."</font></p><p><font color="#3399ff">Bottom line...you assume to much by a simple tag.</font></p><hr></blockquote>May be you should be some more relax not taking everything over you.</div><div> </div><div>I say "yes,bots", because they are bots, known bots, bots that has never said a word to CSR's even, which is couple of times warned bots. I don't mean everyone are bots, relax a bit.</div><div> </div><div>I use AFK tag on me too sometimes, bots not use AFK tag. with AFK word I mean really "Away from keyboard" not TAG up.</div><div> </div>

[Saimeze]

<div></div><div>I read BlackG post and I am suprised that this was not exactly what was intended, when they increased the loot rate in the lower levels.  What I thought they were trying to do was:</div><div> </div><div>1. Keep a connection between new players joining the game and the higher levels. ( How much fun is it to invite a friend to join the game and you are 60 and they are just starting out?)</div><div> </div><div>2. Help new players get into the game and because of the level disparity between 10 and 60-70 that the lower level content would be easier, faster  then it was a year ago. So that the new players will see a chance of at least being at the high end of game and stand along side other level 60-70.</div><div> </div><div>3. New players to keep them in game get more treats ie: master spells drop more frequently, fabled gear drops more often.</div><div> </div><div>If EQ2 is not doing this on purpose then:</div><div>How is SOE going to build a connection to lower players, if they are <font size="6">not </font>going to let higher level players  Buff them like in EQ or help them gear up or twink them in order to help them progress faster? </div><div> </div><p>Message Edited by Saimeze on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">11:51 AM</span></p>

[Xcaliber13]

<div>SOE does let higher level playeres help level up lower level toons. Its called Mentoring.</div>

[Schirf]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Xcaliber13 wrote:<div>SOE does let higher level playeres help level up lower level toons. Its called Mentoring.<hr>And, with the new auto-scaling of all combat arts when mentoring, the ability to mentor without hastle has been greatly expanded.  The problem isn't mentoring when someone is a lot lower level, it's when they're close in level when mentoring is only being used to drop creatures into green-range.  This isn't isn't nearly as bad as some of the farming taking place, but the Aggro change doesn't address it at all.  In fact, it'll make it the option of choice for farmers, as dragging the "student" into the zone is no longer going to be an option.</div></blockquote><p>Message Edited by Schirf on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">11:58 AM</span></p>

[selch]

<div><blockquote><hr>Saimeze wrote:<div>I read BlackG post and I am suprised that this was not exactly what was intended.  What I thought they were trying to do was:</div><div> </div><div>1. Keep a connection between new players joining the game and the higher levels. ( How much fun is it to invite a friend to join the game and you are 60 and they are just starting out?)</div><div> </div><div><font color="#ffff00">and they don't mean higher level players abuse them to get master loots or if it is XP new players were looking for, XP they will get by clearing all corridors to get named like casual players do. And considering 60% of new players are ALTS, they know about game.</font></div><div> </div><div>2. Help new players get into the game and because of the level disparity between 10 and 60-70 that the lower level content would be easier, faster  then it was a year ago. So that the new players will see a chance of at least being at the high end of game and stand along side other level 60-70.</div><div> </div><div><font color="#ffff00">This game is meant to be played, taking long time, being 60 in two weeks means no joy/no fun and less money because eventually that "new(!)" player become powerleveled will get bored so quick, lesser money and say "OMG, there is no low level content", geez, low level content IS NOT HARD at all and it is so much, our journal was full when we were L25  you can DUO everything, I mean everything from beside Epics. I'm L46 now did 80% of heritages by just DUO. I mean there is a reason being Jboots quest L50, not L20 for making it at L20. </font></div><div> </div><div>3. New players to keep them in game get more treats ie: master spells drop more frequently, fabled gear drops more often.</div><div> </div><div><font color="#ffff00">When I'm L13 I got my first master spell, just with a group, me & my wife, L13 both from a named and we didnt required a L60 help</font></div><div> </div><div>If EQ2 is not doing this on purpose then:</div><div>How is SOE going to build a connection to lower players, if they are <font size="6">not </font>going to let higher level players  Buff them like in EQ or help them gear up or twink them in order to help them progress faster? </div><div> </div><hr></blockquote></div>

[TaigeStrid]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Blackguard wrote:<div></div>We've seen a lot of threads recently about players exploiting aggro mechanics in groups in order to farm named creatures for their items. This has become a lot more prevalent as of late because of the enhancements we've been making to dungeon zones as far as loot is concerned. In response to this, we're making the following changes to Test over the next few days as a solution to your concerns:- Any creature that would aggro a player when solo will aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.That means you won't see high level characters running around through a zone with lower level players to grey out the mobs, because mobs will still aggro the lower level player as one might expect. One of the ways players are currently exploiting the mechanic is that they're doing just that (greying out mobs), then mentoring down to a lower level player in order to get loot from named mobs (thus bypassing all the encounters on the way to the named creature and being rewarded for doing so).This change should make such behavior a lot more difficult, leaving named creatures and their treasures for players who actually work to get to them.<div></div><hr></blockquote><p>Wow... I'm glad you listened to the problem. I'm sorry that you have managed to completely miss the easy fix to this.</p><p>1. This change will suck. It will totally remove the RP aspect of the 'higher level' friend. I personally enjoy the 'grey out' of higher level players. It adds to the RPing that, you are being escorted with your 'big brother' of sorts through a dangerous zone. You will completely botch this aspect of the game. I can't count how many times I've helped a friend run a new toon through Nek forest. It makes it amazingly easy and provides for a bit of 'RP' value.</p><p>2. It doesn't fix the problem at hand. As a Conjuror, all I would have to do is run down to the best named area in RE. Wipe the room, summon lower level buddy, then help kim kill nameds. Problem solved. Your fix, worked around. It only took me half a second to work around this fix.</p><p> </p><p>BAD IDEA. Absolutely incredible that you can completely miss the problem and at hand and go out of the way to screw legit players over in the process.</p>

[Quasicroa]

<div></div><blockquote><p></p><hr><p>Zald wrote:As I said... if you wanna help someone go ahead. If you're already mentored down to L20, and they're L25 group, re-mentor to L25... If you just wanna help for 5 minutes, then mentor down, help them, and then zone in and out to clear the mentor...</p><p><font color="#3399ff">Not all areas or locations have a zone out to clear it in the fashion of how your example would work, and again your example would kill both mentoring and the idea behind mentoring.</font>What I said would have a possible negative affect on a marginal number of people in a marginal number of situations. All it would really do is hurt people that constantly toggle on and off mentoring for the sole purpose of trivializing certain combats and still being able to get loot from certain others.</p><p><font color="#3399ff">No it really wouldn't hurt them as much as you think. There are plenty of ways with or without mentoring to work around what you think your solution will handle or help keep from happening.</font>If you wanna help people in Antonica... then thats cool, but your 1 small example isn't worth preserving... at the detrament of so much more content...</p><p><font color="#3399ff">The same can be said about your idea...it isn't worth preserving at the rate of destroying the use of the mentoring system.</font>No other solution, even the one you posed will curb the tactics of having a L60 group with a L30, then have the L60 clear out all the mobs in the area worry free, then drops down just to kill a named mob, which is now a much more trivial encounter because all the work it should have taken to get to him was voided out.</p><p><font color="#3399ff">Come on you have to be smarter than that to know that there is plenty of ideas that can curb it. Though the vast majority would have people leaving the game in droves.</font></p><p></p><hr></blockquote><p>What your saying can be interpeted very simply as "ZALD--My idea is worthwhile and because you only have one example of a negative impact that would affect such a small % of the players its worth using my idea and therefore your example is trivial and non-important". Have you ever thought of becoming a politician? I think you would have a natural knack.</p><p>However, you miss the point....it would kill the mentoring system, and your solution is a bandaid to the problem not a solution. Your solution would affect the mentoring system in ways that would cause it to not be used by anyone. It really is sad to see a mentality like yours that feels that because my example is only marginal that its unimportant, and I really hope the Dev's don't think the way you do, because as the designers of the game they should be concerned with all areas of impact even the small ones.</p><p>And yes there are solutions that would curb the tactics, and more effective than your idea. For one they could code the game so that all dungeons have a level range and if you are not in that said range while at least mentored you cannot enter the dungeon, and once you enter said dungeon you are locked into being that mentored level during your entire stay. Logging in and out, leaving group, etc would not reset you to level 60 as only zoning out would reinstate it. That would help the dungeon areas, but would also in many ways hurt them. Of course there is another way and thats that a level 60 could go in but they just would not be able to damage anything in the dungeon that wasnt at least green, and if its grey well they cant even engage it.</p><p>There are also far better solutions than yours that would help the situtation but not impede those who are just being helpful, and that would be more friendly to dungeon and overland areas. Mobs typically respawn in 10-15 minute intervals so the better solution would be to have the person mentoring to the group flaged so that for 10-15 mins the group will only get xp/quest credit and NO LOOT. That way the group could not have that high level wipe then join for the named only, because by the time the flag wore off to allow loot from the named the mobs around would have/be respawning adds. This way the person can unmentor unaffected, but the group is only rewarded by using mentoring approriatly. Due to the NO LOOT timer leaving to clear repops really isnt an option.</p><p>Then again do you not see that they could even take mentoring out and put lock encounters on all encounters again and still find ways to get the loot they want. I mean all they have to do is have a second high level group wipe all nearbys outside the name and then put a 5-8 level higher into the main group and viola they still made it very easy to get the loot.</p><p>Face it there is no easy solution...plenty of bandaids though like yours, but then again what do we want fixes or bandaids? Personally I'd rather have well thought out fixes than rash bandaids.</p>

[Obadiah]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>TaigeStrider wrote:<div></div><p>Wow... I'm glad you listened to the problem. I'm sorry that you have managed to completely miss the easy fix to this.</p><p>1. This change will suck. It will totally remove the RP aspect of the 'higher level' friend. I personally enjoy the 'grey out' of higher level players. It adds to the RPing that, you are being escorted with your 'big brother' of sorts through a dangerous zone. You will completely botch this aspect of the game. I can't count how many times I've helped a friend run a new toon through Nek forest. It makes it amazingly easy and provides for a bit of 'RP' value.</p><p>2. It doesn't fix the problem at hand. As a Conjuror, all I would have to do is run down to the best named area in RE. Wipe the room, summon lower level buddy, then help kim kill nameds. Problem solved. Your fix, worked around. It only took me half a second to work around this fix.</p><p> </p><p>BAD IDEA. Absolutely incredible that you can completely miss the problem and at hand and go out of the way to screw legit players over in the process.</p><hr></blockquote><p>I have to agree.</p><p>I don't think I'll miss the ability to gray out a zone all <strong>that</strong> much - particularly with shards gone. But I can think of some times where it makes life<strong> a lot</strong> more convenient.</p><p>The bigger issue is that if farming in this manner is a problem, this does precisely nothing to address it. So the level 60 has to clear a path to the named - or more accurately has to kill the <strong>see-invis</strong> mobs (sometimes not many) en route to the named. Wow. Slowed them down what, 5 minutes? And there's plenty of places without any see-invis en route. So this changes nothing at all.</p><p>This quote from Gallenite earlier in this thread has me hopeful:</p><div>"As far as farming goes, there are further changes coming to loot credit assignment and treasure chances that are intended to more directly address the farming problem. "</div><div> </div><div>I'm guessing that if an un-grouped level 60 does >50% of the damage you're not going to be getting a chest once this change occurs. (I wonder if you'll still get quest credit....) My question with that is. . . can't I still let the mob hammer on my level 60 tank while a level 31 necromancer kills it? Or heal an un-grouped level 31 guardian with my level 60 Fury while it (slowly) does all the damage? Cause that seems like an easy workaround if that's the case. Anxious to hear what they have in mind though.</div><div> </div><div>I also like the idea someone suggested about making some encounters Epic x 1 so they are auto-locked from outside interference. I can't think of a simple workaround for that one.</div>

[Bhee]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>HolyAvengerOne wrote:<div><span><blockquote><hr>SadMouse wrote:I like the changes. I would welcome encounter lock again <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div><hr></blockquote><font color="#339900">Pssst... You can always lock your encounter by typing /lock during the fight or choosing the option to lock by default (somewhere in options menu).</font></span></div><hr></blockquote>Hehe found out. Besides option menu, you can change group options if you are leader. Just right click on your name-box and check the lock encounter box.But it is not forced. I loved the fact that in the begining I wont attempt a mob that I can not possibly beat. Now, i can attack a named, and let my level 60 friend happily kill it for me to get updates. Yes I have tried it - guilty as charged <span>:smileysad:</span></span></div>

[Giral]

<div>i posted this earlier didn't see any replies could someone give me feed back on if this is a good idea?</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><div>Reinstate the Encounter lock but let buffs and heal's thru And if they Losing they "CALL HELP" and a Then we can assist with DPS</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>this stills allows people to be Helpfull : ) But doesn't let people be 2 Helpfull</div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>(remeber you can Always Mentor and now you dont have to fix Hotbar's they Auto adjust to the level and i think you can group player's what 11 level's below you ? ) so many way's to play and help friend's to level "WITHOUT" PL'ing and Farming with an Exploit</div><div> </div><div> </div>

[modnar]

<div>So if we are solo and sort of a high lv things will still be grey to us as long as its 11+ lvs below me?</div><div>Ive been going to RoV the last few days (48 bruiser) to see if the weavemaster was up i need him for Stiletior orders and thats all im not there for loot its only me there anyway and he would be grey.But if im gona have to fight every clay golem on my way thats just gona suck.</div><div> </div><div>Also i have to bros that play this game a 60 conj and 60 fury alot of the time they group with me to finish quest to kill things 2-3 lvs above me with ^^^ they still have agro but the normal stuff like the crocs in SS will be grey.If this makes it so them dam crocs or spiders or anything like that in SS are gona agro now this will suck big time.</div><div> </div><div>While i was looking for weavemaster a group was fighting Tome of life there tank died adn it was only a healer left i helped them kill the book and get the quest credit for strange black rock, So makeing it so all nameds auto lock would be bad cause i wouldnt have been able to help them out.</div><div> </div><div>I think this change will suck...On steamfont i really dont see any farming going on but then agian im never in the low lv dungens unless i need a HQ update.</div><div> </div><div>I think you should make it if you can which im not sure if its possible, to make the encounter auto lock when the mob hits a certain % of health . Or make it so if a low lv toon hits the mob at about or around the same lv as themselves the encounter will lock.Maybe even make it so dunges scale to a certain lv then when you outgrow that kv range u can enter it unless u have a quest or HQ to go in there.(by lv 60 people have done almost all of the HQ) maybe u cant even get in if u have a quest for it.</div>

[Jayad]

<div>This is so ridiculous.  When SOE announced the planned removal of locked encounters, many people said it opened the doors to all kinds of problems, such as farming.  They ignored the pleas of many of us to satisfy a couple of people who wanted cast heal on their dying buddies.  Now, many zones are perma-farmed, and they propose this "fix" which is no fix.  Are we supposed to tell SOE how smart they are, for first breaking it, then ignoring it for months, and now proposing a very inadaquate solution?  I don't think so.</div><div> </div><div>There was never any problem with encounter locking.  It was one of the best features of EQ2, in my opinion, so it was doomed from the start.</div><div> </div><div>Mentoring is a great idea.  Encounter locking is a great idea.  Use them.</div><div> </div><div>Epics already auto-lock for the most part, so it is not a difficult change to put into all named encounters.  Will it get rid of farming totally?  No, because you could still have high levels wipe an area with nameds, and then mentor down to kill it, but it will remove most of the easy farming. </div><div> </div>

[modnar]

<div></div>I like the no auto lock when bite of more then i can chew i would rater have someone passing me bye see me almost dead and cast a heal or take out the mob for me i would rather get the XP from the mob i almost killed then rather have to drop all Xp and loot if there is any just because i needed some help it would be nice to not have to waste my money on the mending afterwards also.

[Krond]

<div> </div><div> </div><div> This idea is got to be one of the stupidest things I ever heard.. all it will do is punish players not farmers.. That is very clear..</div><div> </div><div>  </div><div> </div><div>  Here is a crazy idea.. and think about it before you all shoot it down..</div><div> </div><div>  Make rare items lootable 1 time.   "You have already discovered this item you may not loot another one"    This idea will kill farming. they will have to do a whole lot of work to farm.. and for almost all other players it would have no real effect.  How many times have you looted the same item if you are not a farmer?</div><div> </div><div> soe feel free to use this idea.</div><div> </div>

[modnar]

<div></div>thats an alright idea but wouldnt the people be able to put that item in the bank or give it to an alt so they can get another?Like I said dunges should be restricted to a certain lv range like a lv 60 couldnt get in to RoV un less they send something to SOE saying they just need the quest update or something.

[Ashinae]

<div></div><p><font size="2" color="#996699" face="Comic Sans MS">This change is going to be very downright annoying for those groups with diverse levels in them...  Say you have a nice group of players ranging from levels 35-41 and you are on your quests.  The upper levels will now be plagued with gray aggros attacking their teammates.</font></p><p><font size="2" color="#996699" face="Comic Sans MS">Now you will have gray aggros attacking lower-level teammates.</font><font size="2" color="#996699" face="Comic Sans MS"></font><font size="2" color="#996699" face="Comic Sans MS">Defend your teammates and your upper-level members get zero Exp.Also in a Heroic or Epic confrontation, if an unexpected aggro happens on a lower level mage or priest, it could prove fatal to the group.</font></p><p><font size="2" color="#996699" face="Comic Sans MS">I suggest you make sure you're not over-simplifying this solution to a much larger problem and end up making things worse for the non-exploiters.</font></p><p><font size="2" color="#996699" face="Comic Sans MS">I noticed when I was level 28 and grouped with a level 60 in Zek, many of the creatures, though gray were aggro to me.  Why not just tighten that aggro margin up a little bit and try something like this....</font></p><p><font size="2" color="#996699" face="Comic Sans MS"><strong>- Any creature that cons blue aggro or higher to a player solo will aggro regardless of the level of the group members.</strong>- Creatures that would not aggro a player when solo will not aggro that player regardless of the level of group members.</font></p><p><font size="2" color="#996699" face="Comic Sans MS">I also suggest getting rid of gray aggros all together, if the mob is aggro, show the appropriate solo-con color.</font></p>

[bcc123000]

<div></div><div>ok.. once again.. people are NOT mentoring... they are exploiting by having the lower level grab aggro, then the lvl 60 finishes off the mob, and the lower-level can loot the chest...</div><div> </div><div>just bring back encounter-locking!</div><div> </div><div> </div><div><div>"There was never any problem with encounter locking.  It was one of the best features of EQ2, in my opinion, so it was doomed from the start.  People can always CAL FOR HELP, if they want..</div><div> </div><div>Mentoring is a great idea.  Encounter locking is a great idea.  Use them"</div><div> </div><div>-- couldn't have said it better myself <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></div><div> </div></div><p>Message Edited by bcc123000 on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">04:18 PM</span></p>

[MadLordOfMilk]

Idea - make it so that if a player is high enough in level to grey out a mob, if they help w/the encounter it eliminates the chance at a fabled drop, and lowers the chance at a legendary drop <span>:smileyhappy:</span>By the way, any idea that "can be abused for griefing" can be countered with (*gasp*) autolock encounters.<div></div>

[songrider]

<div><font size="4" color="#ff0000">Please auto-lock named encounters just as you do with epics. </font></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div>

[selch]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>TaigeStrider wrote:<div></div><p>Wow... I'm glad you listened to the problem. I'm sorry that you have managed to completely miss the easy fix to this.</p><p>1. This change will suck. <font color="#ffff00">It will totally remove the RP aspect of the 'higher level' friend. I personally enjoy the 'grey out' of higher level players. It adds to the RPing that, you are being escorted with your 'big brother' of sorts through a dangerous zone.</font> You will completely botch this aspect of the game. I can't count how many times I've helped a friend run a new toon through Nek forest. It makes it amazingly easy and provides for a bit of 'RP' value.</p><p>2. It doesn't fix the problem at hand. As a Conjuror, all I would have to do is run down to the best named area in RE. Wipe the room, summon lower level buddy, then help kim kill nameds. Problem solved. Your fix, worked around. It only took me half a second to work around this fix.</p><p> </p><p>BAD IDEA. Absolutely incredible that you can completely miss the problem and at hand and go out of the way to screw legit players over in the process.</p><hr></blockquote><p>Sorry, this statement made me chuckle.</p><p>RP aspect? :smileyvery-happy: Okay, lets say roleplay aspect.</p><p>1. How come a mindless hungry owlbear understands you are higher level than him and does not attack you? If you go for RP aspect, it should attack to any player, not just low level.</p><p>2. "Escorted by big brothers" ? So, big brothers won't protect low level players through dangerous zones? RP aspect?</p><p>3. How come someone escort other players through other side of zone? RP aspect?</p><p> </p><p>Anyway, lowering mentoring range to AE range would be lovely as well, so big brothers can protect minions better, RP aspect! How come pupil can understand teachings of his mentor from kilometers away?</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Message Edited by selch on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">06:24 PM</span></p>

[Qandor]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>selch wrote:<div></div><blockquote><hr>Zald wrote:<blockquote><hr>Qandor wrote:<div></div><blockquote><hr>Caswydian wrote:<div></div>The problem with this change is that it is entirely a reactionary measure. Rather than target the specific behavior that should be eliminated, these changes will negatively impact everyone and might, hopefully, reduce the farming that people are complaining about. However, it's a carpet bombing approach to fixing the problem when SOE should be using laser guided bombs. We see this all to often in decisions, from the use of no-trade flags to nerfs to the use of CC abilities on epic mobs to the change to the spell shield illusionist spell. Rather than make minor adjustments and tweaks to address the specific problem, the tendency is to go in and make massive overcorrections with all sorts of additional consequences beyond the original intent.<hr></blockquote>Exactly. Always the sledgehammer approach. Reason being the sledgehammer approach takes less time and less thought.<hr></blockquote>And less money... which is exactly what I expect any corporation to hold as its 1st priority as long as it doesn't hurt the customers... which it doesn't.<hr></blockquote><p> </p><p>And also to add "reputation" of customer care compared to "problem customers". Loosing a few thousands "bots" and bot lovers might bring much more honest players in for a cleaner game.</p><p> </p><hr></blockquote><p>I don't know how to break this to you but this "fix" will do nothing to stop the farmers. If this is your idea of "customer care" I'm astounded. It's just another ill-conceived bandaid easy attempt at a solution for the problem caused by unlocking encounters. It is not well thought out obviously but tossed out there as some sort of solution which it is not.</p><p>As for more to come as per Gallente, I'll believe it when I see it. We've had a lot of "more to come" that has never arrived.</p>

[selch]

<div></div><div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Qandor wrote:<div></div><blockquote>I don't know how to break this to you but this "fix" will do nothing to stop the farmers. If this is your idea of "customer care" I'm astounded. It's just another ill-conceived bandaid easy attempt at a solution for the problem caused by unlocking encounters. It is not well thought out obviously but tossed out there as some sort of solution which it is not.</blockquote><p>As for more to come as per Gallente, I'll believe it when I see it. We've had a lot of "more to come" that has never arrived.</p><hr></blockquote><p>Sorry, on any other MMO's you can ask any player about EQ2 and you will get reputation of farmers and bots. May be it will not fix anything, but will correct reputation if something has been done and advertised. I bet those people would like to give EQ2 another chance if SOE advertised "cleaning" policy.</p><p> </p><p>Message Edited by selch on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">06:51 PM</span></p>

[Za]

<blockquote><hr>Quasicroako wrote:<div></div><blockquote><p></p><hr><p>Zald wrote:As I said... if you wanna help someone go ahead. If you're already mentored down to L20, and they're L25 group, re-mentor to L25... If you just wanna help for 5 minutes, then mentor down, help them, and then zone in and out to clear the mentor...</p><p><font color="#3399ff">Not all areas or locations have a zone out to clear it in the fashion of how your example would work, and again your example would kill both mentoring and the idea behind mentoring.</font>What I said would have a possible negative affect on a marginal number of people in a marginal number of situations. All it would really do is hurt people that constantly toggle on and off mentoring for the sole purpose of trivializing certain combats and still being able to get loot from certain others.</p><p><font color="#3399ff">No it really wouldn't hurt them as much as you think. There are plenty of ways with or without mentoring to work around what you think your solution will handle or help keep from happening.</font>If you wanna help people in Antonica... then thats cool, but your 1 small example isn't worth preserving... at the detrament of so much more content...</p><p><font color="#3399ff">The same can be said about your idea...it isn't worth preserving at the rate of destroying the use of the mentoring system.</font>No other solution, even the one you posed will curb the tactics of having a L60 group with a L30, then have the L60 clear out all the mobs in the area worry free, then drops down just to kill a named mob, which is now a much more trivial encounter because all the work it should have taken to get to him was voided out.</p><p><font color="#3399ff">Come on you have to be smarter than that to know that there is plenty of ideas that can curb it. Though the vast majority would have people leaving the game in droves.</font></p><p></p><hr></blockquote><p>What your saying can be interpeted very simply as "ZALD--My idea is worthwhile and because you only have one example of a negative impact that would affect such a small % of the players its worth using my idea and therefore your example is trivial and non-important". Have you ever thought of becoming a politician? I think you would have a natural knack.</p><p>However, you miss the point....it would kill the mentoring system, and your solution is a bandaid to the problem not a solution. Your solution would affect the mentoring system in ways that would cause it to not be used by anyone. It really is sad to see a mentality like yours that feels that because my example is only marginal that its unimportant, and I really hope the Dev's don't think the way you do, because as the designers of the game they should be concerned with all areas of impact even the small ones.</p><p>And yes there are solutions that would curb the tactics, and more effective than your idea. For one they could code the game so that all dungeons have a level range and if you are not in that said range while at least mentored you cannot enter the dungeon, and once you enter said dungeon you are locked into being that mentored level during your entire stay. Logging in and out, leaving group, etc would not reset you to level 60 as only zoning out would reinstate it. That would help the dungeon areas, but would also in many ways hurt them. Of course there is another way and thats that a level 60 could go in but they just would not be able to damage anything in the dungeon that wasnt at least green, and if its grey well they cant even engage it.</p><p>There are also far better solutions than yours that would help the situtation but not impede those who are just being helpful, and that would be more friendly to dungeon and overland areas. Mobs typically respawn in 10-15 minute intervals so the better solution would be to have the person mentoring to the group flaged so that for 10-15 mins the group will only get xp/quest credit and NO LOOT. That way the group could not have that high level wipe then join for the named only, because by the time the flag wore off to allow loot from the named the mobs around would have/be respawning adds. This way the person can unmentor unaffected, but the group is only rewarded by using mentoring approriatly. Due to the NO LOOT timer leaving to clear repops really isnt an option.</p><p>Then again do you not see that they could even take mentoring out and put lock encounters on all encounters again and still find ways to get the loot they want. I mean all they have to do is have a second high level group wipe all nearbys outside the name and then put a 5-8 level higher into the main group and viola they still made it very easy to get the loot.</p><p>Face it there is no easy solution...plenty of bandaids though like yours, but then again what do we want fixes or bandaids? Personally I'd rather have well thought out fixes than rash bandaids.</p><hr></blockquote>Bottom line... My solution would not hurt ANYONE that used the mentoring system in the way it was intended. It wasn't intended that you should flip mentoring on and off with the sole intent of negating content for your group. Yes, you're right it can't solve the problem completely, but you're also right that nothing can.I don't agree that everyone that uses mentoring does it the way you do... Imagine this, some people might actually join a group, mentor to their level, and play at that level throughout! Not using the fact they could unmentor to cheat around content. Wow, or are you saying that this is the only real use for mentoring... in which case, maybe its better if it not be in the game since its nothing more than a tool to cheat with.But I don't think SoE did it for those reasons. The did it so you COULD mentor down and explore the game as a L30 char with your L30 friends. So why enforce it that way. If you choose to mentor then do so because you want to play at the mentored level with your friends or whatever, and not because you want to [Removed for Content] some mobs.Again, I'd love to see you tell me how this will begatively affect anything but a small fraction of people. You say there are sooo many examples, but you can't list any.

[Za]

<blockquote><hr>Schirf wrote:<div></div><div></div><p>The purpose of "open" encounters was to be able to save someone in trouble, wasn't it?  People complained that they couldn't throw a heal on someone who was dying, and the code was changed so that they could.  Now we see the negative impact that we, the players, warned about. </p><p>Here is how to allow the "save" without the abuse.</p><p>1) Open encounters should not drop a chest if they take any damage from someone outside the group or when someone outside the group generates enough hate to take the agro focus.</p><p>2) Add a group <em>option</em> to automatically /unlock an encounter when one party member gets to 25% health.</p><p>You want to be saved or savable, you run the risk of not getting loot from the mob.  Problem solved... people can rescue one another.... but can't farm loot. </p><p>Message Edited by Schirf on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">07:37 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote>#1- Bad idea. leads to assistance griefing. Higher level or even same level player sees you killing named... They nuke or touch the mob, or even try to heal you and now you suffer for their interference, malicious or otherwise.

[LokiHellsson]

>> #1- Bad idea. leads to assistance griefing. Higher level or even same level player sees you killing named... They nuke or touch the mob, or even try to heal you and now you suffer for their interference, malicious or otherwise.=====You could defeat the griefer's by autolocking the encounter. Autolock options are implemented now.

[Giral]

<div></div><div><div>i posted this earlier didn't see any replies could someone give me feed back on if this is a good idea?</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><div>Reinstate the Encounter lock " BUT " let buffs and heal's thru And if they Losing they "CALL HELP" and a Then we can assist with DPS</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>this stills allows people to be Helpfull : ) But doesn't let people be 2 Helpfull It's the Best of Both world's and actually gives the "CALL HELP" button a reason for being in game , other then running thru zone's <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></div><div> </div><div>No shard's no fear of death and TOTALLY unlocked encounter's ? SUck's</div><div> </div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>(remeber you can Always Mentor and now you dont have to fix Hotbar's they Auto adjust to the level and i think you can group player's what 11 level's below you ? ) so many way's to play and help friend's to level "WITHOUT" PL'ing and Farming with an Exploit</div></div><p>Message Edited by Giralus on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">09:14 PM</span></p>

[Meattray]

<div></div><p>This is a joke you make a change so big just to fix a problem in 2 Zones?</p><p>you have to be kidding, this will have such a huge effect on groups, theres is no way i will want or let low level chars into groups as they will slow people down with grey mobs beating on them.</p><p>I dont see much to look forward to next expansion</p><p>this will make it so much harder to get around for us legit folks</p>

[retro_guy]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Caswydian wrote:<div></div><hr>Wouldn't it be simpler and less invasive on those who do not do this to <strong>just make it so no chest drops if the person/group who aggroed the encounter does not do 51% of the damage</strong>?<hr>No, because that would open up the ability for other players to grief by doing damage. A level 70 ranger or wizard or other high DPS class could easily kill a level 30 heroic mob before the agroing group had a chance to get off more than a taunt.<hr></blockquote>If greifing begins to be a problem then the player simply needs to autolock the encounters.I believe the 50%+ damage thresh-hold would be a very good change, so XP is still given, but loot does not drop unless more than 50% damange is done by the player who engages the mob.</span></div>

[retro_guy]

<div></div><div><span><blockquote><hr>Krondor wrote:<div> </div><div> </div><div> This idea is got to be one of the stupidest things I ever heard.. all it will do is punish players not farmers.. That is very clear..</div><div> </div><div>  </div><div> </div><div>  Here is a crazy idea.. and think about it before you all shoot it down..</div><div> </div><div>  Make rare items lootable 1 time.   "You have already discovered this item you may not loot another one"    This idea will kill farming. they will have to do a whole lot of work to farm.. and for almost all other players it would have no real effect.  How many times have you looted the same item if you are not a farmer?</div><div> </div><div> soe feel free to use this idea.</div><div> </div><hr></blockquote>I don't think you've really thought that one through, how would you feel getting your 2nd ebon for the night only to have to leave it to rot in the chest?Besides all the farmer team has to do is get the 2nd, then the 3rd, etc member of the party to loot the rare and if it does "stop" them, plat farmers will just find another way to make plat to ebay, and leave the rest of us screwed.There are more than enough LORE items in the game already.</span></div><p>Message Edited by retro_guy on <span class="date_text">01-24-2006</span><span class="time_text">10:50 PM</span></p>

[Krond]

<div></div><p> </p><p> </p><p> I was not talking lore items.. I mean you can only loot it once. period. per toon even if you sold it  or gave it away</p><p> </p><p> Farmers would have to have alts loot.  This would get very old and tiresome for them and would slow down if not stop most farmers in there tracks..</p><p> So what if you cant ever loot another Fermantation stick etc. Real players should not care and will have moved on by the time another would drop for them anyways</p><p> </p><p> Krondor</p>

[Kenazeer]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Krondor wrote:<div></div><p> </p><p> </p><p> I was not talking lore items.. I mean you can only loot it once. period. per toon even if you sold it  or gave it away</p><p> </p><p> Farmers would have to have alts loot.  This would get very old and tiresome for them and would slow down if not stop most farmers in there tracks..</p><p> So what if you cant ever loot another Fermantation stick etc. Real players should not care and will have moved on by the time another would drop for them anyways</p><p> </p><p> Krondor</p><hr></blockquote>Sorry. Very,  very bad idea, and not implementable btw. Imagine the size of the frigging database for that. Bad idea that wont happen, thank god.

[Tehom]

<div></div><p>This is a very poor solution to the problem, and inconveniences other players by removing a mechanic that has been in place for over a year.</p><p>I constantly see solo farmers walk past gray mobs and cherry-pick nameds that are invariably a level or two higher than the trash around them - so are barely green, not gray. Presumably your changes to loot credit should target that behavior. Targetting mentoring alone will not fix this. I'd strongly suggest that named spawns be giving a more narrow level range at which they can drop chests.</p><p>On another note, removing the gray to group/raid mechanic is horrific for roleplayers who conducted events in places with extremely wide level ranges. Many things we've done before will become completely impossible if the gray-out mechanic is removed.</p>

[Zaxal]

<div></div><p>We have no idea where the horse went, but we are getting around to fixing that barn door.....</p><p> </p><p>so you might want to load up on all the horses you can over the next week or so...cause we are gonna fix that door....</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Great. </p><p>Never cease to amaze...must be your motto.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>

[c00nd]

<div></div><div></div><p>Sorry to be too lazy to scroll back through all the posts to find who hinted at my suggestion.</p><p>But here is a creative solution to the griefing issue when not auto-locking encounters:</p><p>"Auto mentor" the high level griefer<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  If they jump into the fight, level the playing field and lower their level<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>You could use that even if they weren't griefing...if they are not grouped with the group/player engaged in the encounter, lower there effective level as if they were mentoring as soon as they jump in!</p><p>Message Edited by c00nd0g on <span class="date_text">01-25-2006</span><span class="time_text">12:22 PM</span></p>

[Kenazeer]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>c00nd0g wrote:<div></div><div></div><p>Sorry to be too lazy to scroll back through all the posts to find who hinted at my suggestion.</p><p>But here is a creative solution to the griefing issue when not auto-locking encounters:</p><p>"Auto mentor" the high level griefer<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  If they jump into the fight, level the playing field and lower their level<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>You could use that even if they weren't griefing...if they are not grouped with the group/player engaged in the encounter, lower there effective level as if they were mentoring as soon as they jump in!</p><p>Message Edited by c00nd0g on <span class="date_text">01-25-2006</span><span class="time_text">12:22 PM</span></p><hr></blockquote><p>Now that is an intersting idea, and with the advent of Spell/CA scaling it might be possible. Sure it would be "harder" to do a run by "lending hand," but the devs never said it had to be easy to help out another player, just that you should be able to. I would have to think more about the pros/cons, but this might be an idea worth exploring.</p><p> </p>

[NappyOne]

<div></div><p>c00nd0g's auto mentor idea is some very out of the box thinking..... I like it.</p><p>NappyOne</p>

[Schirf]

<div>You'd auto-mentor any "outside" help to the level of the highest level group member in the group?  This solves the outside help being higher level, but that's only 1/2 the problem.</div>

[Giral]

<div><div>i posted this earlier didn't see any replies could someone give me feed back on if this is a good idea?</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><div>Reinstate the Encounter lock " BUT " let buffs and heal's thru And if they Losing they "CALL HELP" and a Then we can assist with DPS</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>this stills allows people to be Helpfull : ) But doesn't let people be 2 Helpfull It's the Best of Both world's and actually gives the "CALL HELP" button a reason for being in game , other then running thru zone's <img border="0" width="16" height="16" src="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-tongue.gif"></div><div> </div><div>No shard's no fear of death and TOTALLY unlocked encounter's ? SUck's</div><div> </div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>(remeber you can Always Mentor and now you dont have to fix Hotbar's they Auto adjust to the level and i think you can group player's what 11 level's below you ? ) so many way's to play and help friend's to level "WITHOUT" PL'ing and Farming with an Exploit</div></div>

[Vorlak]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Neldar wrote:<div></div><p>aw i kinda like that, heheheh</p><p>I wonder how people will get around that?</p><hr></blockquote>Invis to the Named AE all the mobs in the area around the encounter, leave group - pull mob with lower level kill named with higher level as the loot will drop for my twink low level, i dont need to be in the group as the encounter dosnt lock.

[Atrix Wolfe]

<div></div><p>I'm beginning to wonder if SoE's real goal was to get a player made solution to the problem.  Start by posting something completely unreasonable to get the community fired up enough to think through all the outcomes of what they propose and make suggestions of their own.  And then refine those suggestions until something comes out which just might work. </p><p>I've seen alot of better solutions offered that would actually have a chance at fixing the target problem and (where SoE usually misses) with as little impact as possible on the rest of the gaming community.  Lets hope they take them into very serious consideration.</p>

[c00nd]

<div></div><div></div><p>Giralus,</p><p>Your idea is very good.  I see how it will hurt the farming (which is good).  But I'm trying to think about the impact on alts and grouping.  Seems pretty decent to me all around.</p><p>Message Edited by c00nd0g on <span class="date_text">01-25-2006</span><span class="time_text">04:02 PM</span></p>

[retro_guy]

<span><blockquote><hr>c00nd0g wrote:<div></div><div></div><p>Sorry to be too lazy to scroll back through all the posts to find who hinted at my suggestion.</p><p>But here is a creative solution to the griefing issue when not auto-locking encounters:</p><p>"Auto mentor" the high level griefer<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  If they jump into the fight, level the playing field and lower their level<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>You could use that even if they weren't griefing...if they are not grouped with the group/player engaged in the encounter, lower there effective level as if they were mentoring as soon as they jump in!</p><p>Message Edited by c00nd0g on <span class="date_text">01-25-2006</span><span class="time_text">12:22 PM</span></p><hr></blockquote>Actually that is a very good idea, so if you're out of group, you spells and heals drop down to the level of the person you're helping, that way it's a fair fight.And for the guy that suggested only ever looting 1 of each item, I assume you don't mean rares, as how on earth is a crafter ever going to be able to make anything."Oh I've looted my 1 cedar EVER, no more cedar furniture for me." It would make rare prices skyrocket, and all the plat farmer has to do is keep atleast 1 new toon on tow to loot the item, then sell it for 10x the plat they get now, and make just as much money.</span><div></div>

[xOnaton1]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Giralus wrote:<div><div><div>Reinstate the Encounter lock " BUT " let buffs and heal's thru And if they Losing they "CALL HELP" and a Then we can assist with DPS</div></div></div><hr></blockquote>Currently the system allows a high level healer to heal a lower player without grouping. This trivializes farming the named for master and legendary chests. It takes a little longer for the lower guy to kill the named but there's no challenge at all.I think the auto forced mentoring might work if it mentored the higher player down to who ever started combat. The spells and CAs would be scaled down and the higher player's power, health, and gear would have to be scaled down for the duration of the fight.</span></div>

[Astery]

groupping should not prevent mobs aggroing on group members. if someone is low, he should get aggro no matter what.i always found weird allowing this greying especially after shard recovery has been removed. just gives room for cheating.for shards, that was the possible way from certain situations to recover <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> still, it was a help, and was not an absolute must.avoid places where you die <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> nowadays i dont care, i just die, little dept but who cares <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[GurgGuardianLord]

<div></div><p>Forgive me if this has been asked, but I was unable to locate the answer.</p><p> </p><p>If I'm level 60, and I group with a level 51, and there is a level 49 named(Which is gray to me, and obviously not to my friend) Will it drop a chest?</p>

[Astery]

<blockquote><hr>GurgGuardianLord wrote:<div></div><p></p><p>If I'm level 60, and I group with a level 51, and there is a level 49 named(Which is gray to me, and obviously not to my friend) Will it drop a chest?</p><hr></blockquote>i dont think so... perhaps encounter breaks?what about group spells of a level 60? will they be active on level 10 toons? or they scale down?

[ArivenGemini]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>GurgGuardianLord wrote:<div></div><p>Forgive me if this has been asked, but I was unable to locate the answer.</p><p>If I'm level 60, and I group with a level 51, and there is a level 49 named(Which is gray to me, and obviously not to my friend) Will it drop a chest?</p><hr></blockquote>If the group level drops it low enough that it becomes green to you it will drop a chest.   It -should- go grey (though with a agro border if it is agro) to the lower level if it wont drop a chest.  In this case the group level (assuming just you two are in it) should be 55 1/2,  so if at 55/56 its green, it should be green to your duo.I have seen group arrangements where they balanced the lowbies and high levels to bring stuff into green for everyone to allow for a safe beatdown of the mob and still getting a drop.</span></div>

[Shadow9]

<div></div><p>My solution to this problem would to limit the character lvl of the zone, which prevents high levels to grey out the zone. They can still enter the zone only if they mentor outside and are prevented from unmentoring until they leave the zone.</p><p> </p>

[c00nd]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Shadow9 wrote:<div></div><p>My solution to this problem would to limit the character lvl of the zone, which prevents high levels to grey out the zone. They can still enter the zone only if they mentor outside and are prevented from unmentoring until they leave the zone.</p><p> </p><hr></blockquote>Unfortunately, that would impair questing.  I don't think denying access is the right method.

[msheaf]

So how would you travel from Antonical to Lavastorm then? You have to go through TS to get there (and paying to get there isn't a good option).<div></div>

[Baelas]

<div></div><span><blockquote><hr>msheaf1 wrote:So how would you travel from Antonical to Lavastorm then? You have to go through TS to get there (and paying to get there isn't a good option).<div></div><hr></blockquote></span>I can't see who you're replying to, so it's possible that you're being sarcastic or something.To travel from Antonica to Lavastorm, you just walk, there are no monsters standing in the way in any of the zones you go through.Also, I don't get what this has to do with anything, but I suppose that goes back to my inability to see who you're replying to, so sorry about that <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />*EDIT* Ah, I see what you were referring to now, but I'm sure everyone else on this topic meant dungeons specifically, not all zones in the game.<div></div><p>Message Edited by Baelas on <span class="date_text">01-26-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:03 PM</span></p>

[Apelord]

<div></div><p>So the aggro changes are an attempt to combat farming type behavior.   Sure it will make it more difficult and not have that much of an impact on other game play areas, BUT it will not address farming.  As long as there are really good spots that loot drops, those spots will be popular with the playerbase.  If there is a named that drops masters 4 out of 5 kills you can bet someone is going to stand there and repeatedly kill it.  To my line of thinking then the problem lies not with the difficulty, but with the reward itself.  There are some possible solutions for this (all of which I have seen in some form or another in other games)</p><p>Option 1-  The Law of Declining Returns.  The more times you kill certain mobs, the lower the chance for fabled loot.  One could implement this in a variety of ways.  A counter could be used to accumulate total named kills in a given zone (such as Runnyeye) and as that counter rises, the probability of a fabled drop declines.  Probably need some type of natural decay built into this so it isn't permanent but using such a system you could set it up so that every three days or so you could make a run through Runnyeye, get all the nameds at a normal chance of a fabled drop and if you tried it again then you have 50% normal, 25% normal third time around etc.  with a progressively longer decay, e.g. do it once 3 days for %chance to return to normal, twice 6 days, etc. </p><p>Option 2-  The Mob That Spanks.  You create a mob that is going to smack anyone around, drops no loot, and spawns when X number of nameds are killed in the same area in a short period of time.  You can also create loopholes for the aggro like if a party member has a quest to kill the named it's in the room with it is non aggro, otherwise The Ghost of Named XX  clears out the farmers.   Not my favorite, but I saw this used quite succesfully in one MMORPG to combat afk botters.</p><p>Option 3-  Move fabled loot over to quests and return the body drop%'s to what they used to be.  Personally I'd go do a pretty darn long hard quest in Runnyeye or wherever if that meant as a reward I got a Master that I could use.  Make 1-2 of these available per tier and farming for Master's drops off dramatically especially if the frequency of fabled drops returns to what it used to be. </p><p>Just a few ways of handling the farming issue I have seen that have actually been successful.</p><p> </p>

[SniperKitty]

<font color="#ff0000"><b><font size="6">The best and only solution that will stop 99% of the farming, will be to auto-lock named encounters.  Create a new encounter type like Epic, but name it Legendary.  We will have solo, heroic, legendary, and epic.  Make all named mobs legendary and make them auto-lock.  You could even make legendary mobs even harder than the normal heroics, forcing groups to face them instead of soloers or a duo.<font size="3">I'd also like more content for soloer's that include interesting and varying levels of difficult encounters in instanced dungeons.</font></font></b></font><div></div>

[selch]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>SniperKitty wrote:<font size="2" color="#ff0000"><b>The best and only solution that will stop 99% of the farming, will be to auto-lock named encounters.  Create a new encounter type like Epic, but name it Legendary.  We will have solo, heroic, legendary, and epic.  Make all named mobs legendary and make them auto-lock.  You could even make legendary mobs even harder than the normal heroics, forcing groups to face them instead of soloers or a duo.I'd also like more content for soloer's that include interesting and varying levels of difficult encounters in instanced dungeons.</b></font><div></div><hr></blockquote><div>They are actually Legendary, you can not compare a L45^^^ casual heroic to a named L45^^^ both so different. Actually some are close to Epics on damage wise. Increased difficulty is not solution, probably do more harm to duo couples and such.</div><div> </div><div>I agree with your auto-lock named encounters, also player not to be healed from outside group.</div>

[cwelsh]

Instead of banning bots make them attackable and let us loot them. <div></div>

[Kenazeer]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>cwelsh wrote:Instead of banning bots make them attackable and let us loot them. <div></div><hr></blockquote>Hehe...if only it were that easy.

[TooFarGo]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Giralus wrote:<div><div>i posted this earlier didn't see any replies could someone give me feed back on if this is a good idea?</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><div>Reinstate the Encounter lock " BUT " let buffs and heal's thru And if they Losing they "CALL HELP" and a Then we can assist with DPS</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>this stills allows people to be Helpfull : ) But doesn't let people be 2 Helpfull It's the Best of Both world's and actually gives the "CALL HELP" button a reason for being in game , other then running thru zone's <img border="0" width="16" height="16" src="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-tongue.gif"></div><div> </div><div>No shard's no fear of death and TOTALLY unlocked encounter's ? SUck's</div><div> </div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>(remeber you can Always Mentor and now you dont have to fix Hotbar's they Auto adjust to the level and i think you can group player's what 11 level's below you ? ) so many way's to play and help friend's to level "WITHOUT" PL'ing and Farming with an Exploit</div></div><hr></blockquote>So now only healers can help, and you get the loot. Or anyone else can help, but no loot. Not good enough, sorry.  Also, as someone else stated, this will simply cause the botters to roll healers (and probably tanks to do the actual fighting).  High level healer heals can keep low level toons going forever...Since this worked for you, I'll reiterate my idea as well.  While it would take a larger database somewhere, it would not be as large as some of the other ideas put out here,  given the time it takes to move from named to named in different zones:<b>Flag players as having killed the named mob.  For X days, lets say 7, if they kill the named again, they get no loot, or the loot quality is severely reduced. </b> Also, if anyone in your group is flagged as having killed the named, the loot is removed.  Heck, lets flag anyone that has helped kill a named from outside the group with this new "no loot" flag for this named.  This way, you can kill the mob once for loot, and in the case of helping a friend out on a quest, you can help kill the named for the update, but you'll get no loot.  Botters now have no reason to kill the named more than once per week.Probably not as easy of a fix as some of the other suggestions, but it gives us what we want (remove farmers/griefers/named campers) and removes what we dont want (ability to help others from outside, new aggro code).</span></div>

[Obadiah]

<div></div><p>We killed the same named mob I believe 6 times whlie camping the stupid Torturer in CT. His continued re-popping was the only thing that made this camp in any way enjoyable. No loot flags.</p><p>Still haven't seen any ideas better than - or any reason for opposing - making named mobs Epic x 1 so that they are locked.</p>

[c00nd]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>cwelsh wrote:Instead of banning bots make them attackable and let us loot them. <div></div><hr></blockquote>I want you on my creative development team!

[ke'la]

Wouldn't it be simpler and less invasive on those who do not do this to <strong>just make it so no chest drops if the person/group who aggroed the encounter does not do 51% of the damage</strong>?<hr>No, because that would open up the ability for other players to grief by doing damage. A level 70 ranger or wizard or other high DPS class could easily kill a level 30 heroic mob before the agroing group had a chance to get off more than a taunt.<hr size="2" width="100%">It also would not prevent a Tank being that higher lvl toon. Taunts are not damage and don't turn on auto attack., so what would happen is this. Young toon Tags the MoB, 60 tank taunts the MoB with auto attack off, Young Toon does almost all damage(reposite and Immbued will do some but nowhere near 51%). Though the Griefing aspect is also a very valid point.<div></div>

[TooFarGo]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Obadiah wrote:<div></div><p>We killed the same named mob I believe 6 times whlie camping the stupid Torturer in CT. His continued re-popping was the only thing that made this camp in any way enjoyable. No loot flags.</p><p>Still haven't seen any ideas better than - or any reason for opposing - making named mobs Epic x 1 so that they are locked.</p><hr></blockquote>Good point.  Thanks for bringing that up.  Camping sucks, chances at loot are fun.  The game is all about the fun, not the camping.As for not seeing any ideas for making epicx1's, I did bring up that it is FUN to help others kill nameds, so that they get the loot.  I've helped lower level players that were almost dead countless times when running through lower level zones looking for quest items and what not.  If the nameds are locked, I guess I get to watch them die now.  And since I'm not a healer, even if healing is allowed, they still die.  To me, that is not fun =(I really lliked the auto-mentor down idea. That way if you're not successful in helping kill the mob, it comes after you too!  Cheers to that idea!</span></div>

[Giral]

<blockquote><hr>TooFarGone wrote:<div><span><blockquote><hr>Giralus wrote:<div><div>i posted this earlier didn't see any replies could someone give me feed back on if this is a good idea?</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div><div>Reinstate the Encounter lock " BUT " let buffs and heal's thru And if they Losing they "CALL HELP" and a Then we can assist with DPS</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>this stills allows people to be Helpfull : ) But doesn't let people be 2 Helpfull It's the Best of Both world's and actually gives the "CALL HELP" button a reason for being in game , other then running thru zone's <img border="0" width="16" height="16" src="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-tongue.gif"></div><div> </div><div>No shard's no fear of death and TOTALLY unlocked encounter's ? SUck's</div><div> </div></div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>(remeber you can Always Mentor and now you dont have to fix Hotbar's they Auto adjust to the level and i think you can group player's what 11 level's below you ? ) so many way's to play and help friend's to level "WITHOUT" PL'ing and Farming with an Exploit</div></div><hr></blockquote>So now only healers can help, and you get the loot. Or anyone else can help, but no loot. Not good enough, sorry.  Also, as someone else stated, this will simply cause the botters to roll healers (and probably tanks to do the actual fighting).  High level healer heals can keep low level toons going forever...Since this worked for you, I'll reiterate my idea as well.  While it would take a larger database somewhere, it would not be as large as some of the other ideas put out here,  given the time it takes to move from named to named in different zones:<b>Flag players as having killed the named mob.  For X days, lets say 7, if they kill the named again, they get no loot, or the loot quality is severely reduced. </b> Also, if anyone in your group is flagged as having killed the named, the loot is removed.  Heck, lets flag anyone that has helped kill a named from outside the group with this new "no loot" flag for this named.  This way, you can kill the mob once for loot, and in the case of helping a friend out on a quest, you can help kill the named for the update, but you'll get no loot.  Botters now have no reason to kill the named more than once per week.Probably not as easy of a fix as some of the other suggestions, but it gives us what we want (remove farmers/griefers/named campers) and removes what we dont want (ability to help others from outside, new aggro code).</span></div><hr></blockquote><p>thanks for replying : ) first to reply to your reply : Befor they Removed the Locked encounter's Some Classes could pass heal's and buff's thru the Old encounter Lock. The idea is just to be able to Help other player's a little like befor with encounter locking, I loved encounter locking and i Have never Once removed it when i have MT'ed <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> and i never will,  second if a Tank is fighting a mob that is Conned red to him he will not be hitting and doing damage, and if he is it will be absolutly minimal, i don't think Farmer's are giong to SIt and try to kill 1 named for 40 minutes a time just to maybe get a , The Reason they Farming there is "It Is FAST and EASY" if it Takes Way to long then they can just go Farm an easier Faster place.</p><p>to reply to your idea ; i like the idea But unfortunatly it Hurt's the Player's fighting Mob's they are suppose to be fighting,  Should Every Single Player get Nerfed in the Entire Game just becuase of a few thousand botter's>? i understand a Quest name'd being only rewarded Once,  But Every single Named mob in the game? how is that a Fair recourse Or a Fix ? it is a Huge nerf becuase people playing at that level it should be Very very hard to get Down to those Names(or kill any named )  , They will have to spend about 2 hour's of Good fighting to get down to the named's and then Most likely Die,</p><p>What about Group's ? does everybody now get the same item? Do we all roll on the 1 Item ? that makes Each Mob in the game a MINI raid ,</p><p>The dev's increased the Master drop's becuase of the change to Combat and that Upgrade's to Skill's are the most important thing a player CAN upgrade . </p><p>what i would like to see them do i's LOWER the Master drop's BUT make Adept 2's available : ) and adept 4's THIS would Really Help Crafter's , would give Player's Even More way's to Increase thier skill's , and Master Class Spell's would be Few and far between for Every body , so most people would be mostly Adept 2 thru 4 : ) and maybe 1 or 2 master's ,</p><p>why is there no Adept 2? or Adept 4? , we have app1 app2 app3 app4 and then adept 1 adpt 3 , Master 1 and Master 2 , lol Can SOE count : )</p><p> </p><p> </p>

[TazP]

<div>First of all, I'm not sure me posting this will have any impact since it's way buried in page 10 of this thread.  Secondly, I apologize if someone has proposed this idea already.  I don't have time to read all posts in all ten pages of this thread.  I just randomly picked out several and they seemingly don't include the idea that I am about to propose.</div><div> </div><div>If SOE's intent on doing this is to curb the low level loot farmers, they they definitely have got it wrong.  It's like giving someone the wrong medication with a huge side effect.  why don't SOE implement this on the mobs.  <strong><font color="#99ff00">When a mob "gets aggro" (this should cover dps, tanks and healer HELP) from any player which would normally grey the mob out, the same code should be put into effect as if the low level player types /yell (i.e. no loot and no quest advancement  and I think no exp for the encounter.)</font></strong>.  I propose this idea because I myself have been involved in low level farming from both the low level point of view and the high level.  I'm not really keen on the programming aspect of this game.  But I figure these are things that the game already have.  I personally like encounter locks.  But I figure my proposal is just an alternative to the several posts that I've read on this thread.  This should affect mobs that drop masters or not since I think farming in general is bad. </div><div> </div><div>-Tazpup</div>

[Stryyfe]

A wise and greedy Monk once said....Who cares about greying out, I have Feign Death, Have fun gettin your butts stomped!<div></div>

[Ashtu]

<div></div><p>This one change singlehandedly sucked every ounce of excitement I had for LU19 out of me.  And I was pretty excited about it.</p><p>This will do nothing to stop farmers, and will be a major annoyance for everyone else.</p><p>Please don't let this go live.</p>

[LanceValerien]

<div></div>Seriously, why can't you just autolock all named encounters?  What is the downside to doing this?  It won't stop botters from farming while in their groups, but it will fix a lot of the farming that is taking place in the game right now.. 

[GurgGuardianLord]

<div></div><div>I think you all have horrible ideas, and this is a horrible idea. Unfortunatly I have no fix for farming that will not interfere with others.</div><div> </div><div>I think it should be left alone, and you whiners need to stop. I do not farm, but, now I can't gray out zones for my friends to quest, or on raids..omg. In a raid situation this is going to be such a pain. IF you want to farm but no one likes you enough to help you, then level up! Forget about named! Or tell sony to revamp ALL zones!! Epic mobs don't even drop loot as good as RE does @ level 50! Farming is not peoples faults, its SoE's for making 3 zones with Master I drops every [Removed for Content] kill.</div><div> </div><div>Thanks, for complaining that there are no instructions on shampoo bottles, and helmets are required for bikes as well, you really make life easier for the rest of us fully developed humans.</div><p>Message Edited by GurgGuardianLord on <span class="date_text">01-27-2006</span><span class="time_text">02:00 PM</span></p>

[Delete_]

<div></div><p>If you HAVE to put something like this in (and I really hope you dont; this is one of your worst ideas of <em>all time</em>), make it work according to the 75% rule.  In other words, if a group is appropriately levelled to gain experience (the low level is 75% of the high level), grey mobs will stay grey to everyone.  There is NO reason a legitimate experience or quest group should have to waste time killing grey mobs for no experience or loot.  None whatsoever.</p><p>God, I can't believe you're even considering this.</p>

[WolfSha]

<div></div><div></div><p>I know it's proabably all been said, but this is such a big disaster waiting to happen that i have to put in my 2c as well.</p><p>I agree, this is a terrible idea.  it's not going to stop farming and it's gonna seriously impact on everyones gaming experience, and not just for a hassle it's going to cause normal groups.</p><p>Simple example:</p><p>My friend would like to farm some masters from varsoon.</p><p>Currently I can get on my 60 zerker, run them through ruins of varsoon, zone into CoI, ungroup and then help them kill the named mobs.  Not good, not how the game was meant to work, but all too easy since open encounters were introduced, BUT apart from the economy of the game (which is important obviously) it's not really impacted on anyone elses game play.</p><p>If these changes hit live, perhaps some people will stop trying to farm named, but i'm sure plenty of people will continue.</p><p>So suddely a simple run through a zone chanegs to this:</p><p>I have to kill may through the zone to get to the CoI to get the masters.  It takes me about 10 mins instead of 5 to get there - most lvl 60 chars, esp the high dps ones can probably clear a path through lvl 30ish mobs so fast that it makes no difference.</p><p>We zone into CoI and kill varsoon and get the master drops.  So for the farmer it's just taken 5 mins longer to get the drops.  Big deal, so what.</p><p>For everone actually trying to use the zone and play there normally, suddenly some lvl 60 has just gone and wiped out the whole zone for them.  BIG impact on other peoples gameplay!</p><p>Suddenly all the duneons that have good loot will be empty of mobs because lvl 60 chars will be beating a path to the named mobs.</p><p>I'd rather have the farming than have half the dungeous cleared out by lvl 60 players geting to get to where they're going!</p><p>The open encounters idea was fine for normal mobs, it's nice to be able to help out your fellow player that has bitten off more than they can chew or been unlucky and got an add, but it's <strong>terrible </strong>for named mobs.  It's lead to this farming problem and it's <strong>totally trivialised every heritage quest that doesn't involve a raid </strong>- now any char of a level high enough to pick up the quest can just be run round and handed the quest on a plate by a lvl 60 toon.  Wanna kill the really hard lvl 40 monks for your fbss?  Don't put a group together and fight the things properly like we all had to in the old days, just get your level 60 mate to come squash them for you!  It's really lame at the moment.</p><p>The named mobs for HQ's and those that drop master chests are difficult encounters that require a half decent group and drop rewards / advance quests that are appropriate to their difficulty.  I have no problem with master chests dropping of named mobs.  If a named mob is as hard to kill with 1 group as a raid is to kill with 2 or 4 then great, have them drop good loot, it's only fair, but <strong>please </strong>put an Epicx1 flag on them to represent their difficulty and lock the encounters!!!</p><p>These aren't mobs that people should casually take on, and aren't mobs that people should be able to casually help with.  Keep them difficult to make the risks involved = the rewards.</p><p>If you can think of a cleverer idea like flagging the mobs for a 7 day loot timer as someone suggested above then great, but do something, <em>anything</em> other than what you're proposing here, please!!</p><p>Message Edited by WolfShark on <span class="date_text">01-28-2006</span><span class="time_text">03:23 AM</span></p>

[Ronin SpoilSpot]

There is already a system for deciding whether a group is considered balanced internally (all being within 75%-100% of the highest level character) and againstopposition (level and x2, x3 etc.).The same principle should work everywhere. Consistency is one of the most important properties of a rules system.If a high level character helps with an encounter, it should count, for loot and rewards, as if he had been in the group all the time. If a group helps another, it should count as if a two group raid had attacked the encounter.Teaming up should make things easier, and you should never get a better result if you did the same fight ungrouped. Being "strategically ungrouped" is too much "rules playing" for my taste. It works so I use it, but I would much rather that it didn't work.I'm all for removing the unlocked encounter option, where you still get rewards. It is simply too open for abuse, both the ones we see and the ones we haven't though of yet. (I'm thinking of it as security: keeping it simple is the best way to keep it working - and don't pit your inventiveness against that of hundreds of thousands of people with too much time on their hands <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ).If you want to unlock, you can yell, just as you always could.If healers healing into a locked encounter is a problem, then remove that problem, by locking the players just as much as the mobs - outside intereference only allowed after yelling. Personally, I wouldn't mind that.Whether a group with higher levels should protect lower level "groupies" from aggro or not should be decided by how it affects group dynamics. I expect the change to discourage groups from taking lower level friends (but still within 25%) along. If that's what designers want, I guess that's the change they should make <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Regards/RS<p>Message Edited by Ronin SpoilSpot on <span class="date_text">01-28-2006</span><span class="time_text">05:38 PM</span></p>

[Atrix Wolfe]

<div>ugh,  Just lock the encounter and completely prevent outside interference rather than 'fixing' stuff that's not broken.  There's no need to play with aggro, or extending lower level group limits.  There's no need at all to even have a helping system in place as it's detrimental to grouping.  Why get a group when you can use your high level alt to heal your lower level and get heroic exp and loot solo? </div><div> </div><div>There are already options in game for people that need help killing a mob.  Get a group.    </div><div> </div>

[Delete_]

<div></div><p>Aw Ronin, ya edit out the part saying you agree with me?  I'm hurt.</p><p>/sniff</p><p>:smileyvery-happy:</p>

[Iseabeil]

<div>I'd prefer to get locked encounters on all fights back instead, but in a case like this, atleast apply a softcap on agro. If one character is 1 level bellow rest, it makes no sense theyd pull 'grey agro'. As long as its not hardcoded so all have to be exactly same level Ill live with it, just give normal groups a tiny bit of stepping room.</div><div> </div><div> </div>

[acctlc]

Well I'm not a veteran as some of you are...entirely new to the game in fact.  But I do know I just lost out on a group of people within my level range because of these new changes.  Now maybe this is not the case, but the members of the group seemed annoyed and almost upset at me for this effect on their group.  We were not farming masters just trying to xp.   I was forced to leave and perhaps they will not desire to group with me again unless I power level to their level (losing out on the fun of the game).  So why should I take the heat for Sony's bright ideas?  *bends over and gets ready to have account serviced by Sony*<div></div>

[Kubas]

<div></div><div><font size="2">Completely hate this change, half my group mates pulled "gray" aggro as we were stomping thru nek castle working on Missing Mask, they are all bout 5 levels lower than I am, and we are doing quests appropriate for their level (i'm a bit high, but hey, i play more). After 3 fun filled grey slaughtering hours running back and forth trying to spawn up Billys, we just gave up, it wasnt worth the extra time/energy to kill every gray in our path because they dont game as much as i do.</font></div><div><font size="2"></font> </div><div><font size="2">/feedback it and hope they change it back.</font></div><div><font size="2"></font> </div><div> </div>

[ginfress]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Kubasak wrote:<div></div><div><font size="2">Completely hate this change, half my group mates pulled "gray" aggro as we were stomping thru nek castle working on Missing Mask, they are all bout 5 levels lower than I am, and we are doing quests appropriate for their level (i'm a bit high, but hey, i play more). After 3 fun filled grey slaughtering hours running back and forth trying to spawn up Billys, we just gave up, it wasnt worth the extra time/energy to kill every gray in our path because they dont game as much as i do.</font></div><div><font size="2"></font> </div><div><font size="2">/feedback it and hope they change it back.</font></div><div><font size="2"></font> </div><div> </div><hr></blockquote>Mentor down and the mobs arent grey any longer. Dont blame SoE for something when you can prefend it yourself from happening.

[MilkToa]

<div></div><p>I like these changes and think the potential problems that will be created are overstated. If you don't want to fight through every mob in a zone then invis (with either a spell or totem). It may not get you past all the mobs but you won't have to kill every mob in the zone either.  I'm not sure why so many people think  that grouping with a higher level character should somehow magically raise your effective level.</p><p> </p>

[Jgok]

<div></div>Just answering this segment of your post...<blockquote><hr>MilkToast wrote:<div></div><p>I'm not sure why so many people think  that grouping with a higher level character should somehow magically raise your effective level.</p><p></p><hr></blockquote><p>Just for the sake of argument, I have an imaginary character who is a level 38 Scout (I don't, really, but it's a good number for my example). This level 38 character groups with 5 level 50 characters (level 50 being the top end of his grouping range). Let's say we've got a Templar, Mystic, Warden, Paladin, and Dirge grouped with him. Now, instead of having level 38 buffs on this character, he has level 50 buffs on him... He's a lot more dangerous. He has more health and power, better offensive skills, better haste, better mitigation, better resists, and a few other bonuses, plus he has someone casting level 50 heals on him if he does get hurt.</p><p>So yeah, magically speaking, he is more powerful than before.</p><p>At level 48, my Paladin could not solo Overlord's Throne Room and Chamber of Rulgax. However, if I grouped him with a level 47 Mystic from my guild and had the Mystic buff him up, he could solo both zones. It's pretty clear that grouping with someone makes the individual more powerful, and how much more powerful depends on the level of people you group with.</p><p>In terms of PvP, in the DoF beta I tested the effectiveness of group buffs on a PvP combatant, by having two tanks of the same class, level, and equipment (betabuffed level 50 Berserkers, for that test) fight each other. One tank was grouped with a level 40 Templar, the other was grouped with a level 50 Templar (both betabuffed). The two healers cast nothing, they just put their App1 buffs on the tanks and then sat there. The one grouped with the level 50 healer won every single fight, even though those healers cast nothing beyond group buffs.</p>

[graxnip]

<div></div>completely agree with the last few posts,I dont mind the change for the most part - a lvl 10 should not have free reign over the feerott by grping with a few lvl 60's - that never should have worked that way.However, I think that if everyone in group is within grouping limits, then the grey aggro should not occur, or the aggro mobs turn green so everyone gets exp. The moment a group mate goes beneath the grouping limit then the grey aggro should occur.either way - please patch it so that the people who are higher level can see what will aggro the lower level player please -Im a 47 warlock, and grouped with my friend a lvl 45 defiler. We are running through feerott and I am leading - I cannot tell what will aggro my friend. So we constantly have to stop and  check if it is safe to run through various areas. This is BEYOND annoying for a normal group.I feel for the poster who said that he was removed from a group because he was causing too much grey aggro. I completely understand both ends of the situation, ( the people who were higher than him having to kill greyed out mobs for nothing, and him getting punted, or at least feeling bad cause he is now wasting peoples time..)This really needs to be tweaked, not removed.edit:and no mentoring is not the answer - i should not have to get an exp penalty for something this silly.. i will mentor a lvl 20 friend , not a lvl 45 when im 2 levels above him.<div></div><p>Message Edited by graxnip on <span class="date_text">02-07-2006</span><span class="time_text">08:58 AM</span></p>

[Outkast1980]

<div>Maybe just lower the dang master drop rate back to what it used to be.. omg u autolock encounters u cant farm anymore.. wait...  get a couple people around 45-48... and the farming continues in RE.. get a few 50+'s and the CT farming continues. lower master/legendary drop rate= only solution</div>

[Pashta]

<div></div><p>As I stated on another thread:</p><p>This change made me so mad that I sent /feedback with swearing in it.  My husband and I died 3 times trying to do a stupid quest together, because he is 5 levels lower than I am and has different factions. </p><p> <font color="#cc00ff"><font size="4">SOE <u>PLEASE</u></font> put some notification like a purple border around the names of mobs aggro to groupmembers if you want to keep this change.</font></p>