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AFK Automation: Harmful to Imperian?
Oystir
Member Posts: 454 ✭✭✭
So I've been gone for a while, but I heard recently about an instance of automation ending in another shrub, and it got me thinking hard about the issue. Why does our Administration care about automation? To the point that they will cull what are by definition our more plugged-in of our already low playerbase. Let's talk about it.
1. Unfair Advantage
I see plainly this being the major concern, but in practice, why? 'Unfair' requires there to be a limited number of resources, and that is not the case here. The same tools of automation (coding knowledge and mud programs) are available to everybody, and just as importantly the people who have this skill and knowledge are not stingy about sharing it - see Theo's autofisher for details. Bashing areas are plentiful, and boosts to bashing are in such high numbers its almost ridiculous. Harvesting is individually counted. Fishing might actually happen if it could be automated. The playerbase is far too small to generate a physical need the game cannot already compensate for. It is also peppered with far too many artifacts, and even more utility items (warhorn, bug coin, atlas pages/shrines), that already craft an 'unfair advantage' in the same areas of the game. The major difference I see is that coding automation can theoretically be learned by everyone, whereas artifacts and utility items can only be compensated for with equal or greater investment in artifacts and utility items (...or coding, look at that).
In the event of a game or Great Hunt, I understand very much that 100% automation is unfair against those who do not take that method, however, the way the Turkey Hunt was conducted proved very much that 1) it is possible to monitor who is AFK during a short and crucial period of time and 2) that automation is accepted as a function of our game and the issue lies with being AFK and not with the coding itself existing.
A quick and lazy mention that 100% intelligent automation is not possible or feasible. The disadvantages to being AFK and trying to accomplish something are pretty self-evident.
2. 'Play the Game'/AFKers:
One word: Ironbeard.
More words: I'm serious. Even though 85% of everybody who was online at 4:30 am on a Tuesday the last week of December was AFK, seeing that many people online made the game seem big and lively. While AFK used to be a punishable offense by shrubbing, the game has changed so much that the basis of a Holiday Promotion is to just be AFK, and I don't see why taking it one step further to be bashing or fishing -- generating activity for the game, creating a stronger character (which creates competition), encouraging 'always online' which is at least a better direction than the alternative -- is to be demonized. This isn't exactly bug-abuse, generating limitless goods by manipulating a system -- these are systems in place that have been determined as 'fair' and have been moderated to a level of 'fairness' that is acceptable to the Administration. As stated above, it has been accepted that these systems can and will be used optimally through coding and that their ability to determine how close to the computer a person is is not only imperfect, but is also largely irrelevant. If I can be playing a two-handed FPS or my guitar or be on Skype, for HOURS, while I'm bashing, who is to know or care if I was avidlt watching Imperian the whole time, or if I looked over every time I got a tell, or every 5, 10, 30 minutes, an hour? Etc, or if I risked dying and sitting AFK at Dis because I went pee? Or to a movie? Or fell asleep at my keyboard? These are all wildly different circumstances that play out the same game-side, but player-side result in very different levels of rulebreaking that cannot be quantified or proved, but can be and have been punished. For the record, I've never intentionally AFKbashed, though I've fallen asleep at my keyboard more than once.
3. Love your Playerbase
AFK Checks made me crazy when they were being perfected two summers ago. I understand that at the time Admin were trying to figure out how to do them for Great Hunts to be visible without being easily manipulated or automated. That's certainly their role as administration, however the feeling by those autobotters being tested on (on like, a normal Wednesday) that they were being tested and constantly monitored. Mens Rea aside, there *isnt* a rule about having an autobasher or using it, only about using it when I cannot actively steer. The concern, at least for me, was that I'd be looking away one of the two-times-daily I was tested, be deemed AFK and punished accordingly despite only being in tetris one inch to the left or something. It was one of many frustrations, but I found it easier to not bother bashing at all, or even being online, than it was to watch the game as actively as I felt the Administration were expecting.
The AFK rule itself is loose enough to allow for some less-than-full attention to be paid just for the sake of having players doing things and being online. I believe that anything that discourages people from the game should be identified and at least acknowledged, and this is something that has cost us at least one long-time player recently to shrubbing, anecdotal extended-period qqers in response to afk checks (myself among this pile) - and for what?
This game genre is rolling over and this game itself is already - or should already - be extending itself to gain and retain players, to encourage more consistent playing, and to bolster interest in game mechanics.
I dunno, I'm too busy to play lately, I just heard somebody got shrubbed and I thought it was pretty stupid that anyone is being shrubbed for something as benign as automation when we are still struggling to have 3 daily players in every guild. And I cared enough to write about it apparently.
You say, "This is much harder than just being a normal person."
AFK Automation: Harmful to Imperian? 26 votes
Yes. AFK players are inherently harmful, especially if allowed to compete for resources without active play.
61%
16 votes
No. Automation is accepted as Imperian culture, and our limitations in monitoring it can damage our already small playerbase.
38%
10 votes
1
Comments
(Ring): Lartus says, "Then it exploded."
(Ring): Zsetsu says, "Everyone's playing checkers, but Theophilus is playing chess."
(Ring): Lartus says, "Then it exploded."
(Ring): Zsetsu says, "Everyone's playing checkers, but Theophilus is playing chess."
Further, people who can code auto-bashers can easily code twist rings or escape on attack while they are auto-bashing.
So while I don't see any problem with the activity itself, the consequence it has for the entire community is pretty bad.
And before the obligatory: i need to stay online in case X thing happens, or my org gets attacked or such and such player shows up and i wanna put my foot in their butt cause reasons.
It's a game, you're going to miss things, it sucks but it shouldn't necessitate you botting around an area killing (hah) time until something more interesting happens.
There's also a new player (or in my case constantly returning new player) aspect to it, sure everyone's pretty free with the code for autobashing if you got the client for it, but then for those that don't have it and don't want it, they're stuck playing in a world with smart 'npcs' killing things faster than they can.
I vote for "No", but my real vote is for a third option called "It may or may not be harmful, but the whole question is strictly academic because there's nothing you can do to prevent it."
The real problem is that the PvE content is an exercise in soul-killing monotony and almost every system requires excessive amounts of it to work so that it cannot be avoided. You can never stop me from automating, so the best way to keep me from doing it is to make fun systems so that I don't want to automate it. You don't do that and so everybody automates it,
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
The way I understand it is that if their autobasher bashes over top of you, you can kill them for bashing over top of you. You just can't kill them for straight up autobashing.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."
Man I do this all the time.
So its not just gold.
I can't stand bashing.
But my computer never shuts down. I am sure I am not alone in saying I would run an autobasher 24/7 if this was a thing, at least until gold became such a worthless commodity that it wasn't worth it anymore and farming bitcoins would be a better use of processing power.
Bashing is incredibly dull, though.
Bashing is dull and tedious. It took me over 7 years to have my first aspect character because of this. My recent character attained aspect rapidly ONLY because I use an automated basher, which is something I have been incredibly opposed to most of my time playing here.
I think the part that bothers me is 'afk'. Nobody should be 'playing' imperian and not at least somewhat attentive to the game. That doesn't mean we need to be watching the tedium scroll by like a hawk, but we should be mindful of it. I used to have an automated script to fish. While fishing, I did most of my administrative/creative work for the game. All my org-related writing, all my crafting stuff tended to happen while my fish script was running. So I'd be in another program writing, and checking back in every few minutes on my fishing Krysaliss.
For those of us who are not coding pros or simply don't ENJOY coding and don't leech off of other people's skills, a rudimentary bashing script may not have a built in chat cap. It can be a real challenge to SEE if someone is talking to you. So the checks can be easily missed by those who are not adept coders. I don't really think there's a good, solid way to catch AFK autobashers. I don't think there's enough harm caused by AFK autobashers to justify harassing people who are using automated scripts to get through an incredibly tedious but increasingly necessary aspect of the game.
That said - I don't think bashing needs to be as dull as it is. I think we CAN take a page from MMOs in how they develop progression flow and guide players from one area/quest/bashing set up to another. We've started to do so for newbies but it drops off after strikingly. Once folks hit end game, the problem gets a little dicier, but it's not impossible to find ways to make resource (gold, virtue drops, relic drops, aspect perk generation) more engaging than endless circles in the Underworld.
I also think this is symptomatic of a much bigger problem Imperian is facing. The game is dull. People are bashing because there isn't a whole lot else to do. Groupsmash pk, autobash when there's no combat action happening, rinse, repeat. Some of us are RPing in tiny pockets, but eh. Orgs are basically dead in the water. Newbie retention is terribad. Player engagement is terribad. Fixing AFK autobashing should be somewhere near the bottom of a very long list of issues that need serious attention.
You can try all you want to stop me from autobashing, but I can implement so many checks and alarms and "I'm really here seriously guys" things that you will never, ever be able to stop me from autobashing. Of course, true AFK autobashing with the AFK checks make it difficult, but if I'm here at my computer, there is no way that an admin can distinguish between my randomized delays and other set functions that simulate me personally typing in all of it and real autobashing. I'd like to point out that, even if I am regularly bashing spamming my F1 key, it actually ends up looking more like autobashing than my autobasher script, just because all of us 5 year+ veterans know balance timings like no other and have muscle memory reflexes that work just like triggers.
If primary gold generation were moved to another source, incentive to hunt and autobash would go waaaay down, and no one would really have a problem with it anymore.
As far as PvE goes, I like bosses the best, by an awful lot. I'd much rather have an area of boss mobs than an area with 5000 undead I have to punch out individually. There's a lot of reasons for this.
I like that they're stationary. This means that I can take a group to kill bosses without constantly having to wait for everybody to regain balance, even that string Knight with a heavy broadsword who has a 4 second bashing attack. Waiting for everybody to get balance back before moving is irritating and clunky and I hate it so much that I refuse to bash with people who attack mobs.
I like that they're more involved than just trivial "attack undead" 500 times. Explaining boss mobs to groups isn't that bad and it is far more engaging bashing normal mobs. It's especially good because it's an area that really rewards the interaction of veteran players with new ones, because boss kills are super good for new players. If your group knows their stuff you can pretty easily get your new player 6 tokens and 60+ credits via bosskills.
They're also much more rewarding than regular bashing from a powerplayer standpoint. Each bosskill gets somebody a 1 credit giftbag stone and some form of temporary artifact, which can go a long ways towards reducing the artifact buyin, as well as reasonably good gold from the boss-turnins.
I mean, I took some citizens on a two hour bosskilling night and it was rewarding enough that nobody's time was wasted. If I had to take people on a regular bashing trip for 2 hours, I'd fake an internet crash and go do something more fun, like mopping the kitchen or folding laundry.
IMO, the best plan is to make bosses more common and more rewarding to put more of the high-level PvE emphasis there, as opposed to running my basher around Demon's Pass 500 times. DP/Necro are a good start, but there's too much of the stupid boring bashing required to spawn the bosses.
"On the battlefield I am a god. I love war. The steel, the smell, the corpses. I wish there were more. On the first day I drove the Northmen back alone at the ford. Alone! On the second I carried the bridge! Me! Yesterday I climbed the Heroes! I love war! I… I wish it wasn’t over."