Regarding AP-Trading

[1s2D28F1]

1 hour ago, Aaabatery said:

I don't think I understood your reply... 

It takes both factions for AP trading to occur. Meaning, asmos will get the same gains that their elyos counterparts do.

[Ceooek-KT]

8 hours ago, Alvie said:

That won't stop kill trading, but it would certainly help level the playing field in the race to acquire AP gear.

 

Yeah you're right that it won't stop AP trading but it has following indirect benefits

* de-incentivize active players from AP trading. From a busy siege, I can get ~10k AP so a 100k weekly cap can easily be reached. Why bother AP trading when you can reach cap doing normal activities? Also a lot of these AP traders are so called pvpers, so the cap can be reached doing normal PVP.

* prevent an enormous gear gap between players that grind 24/7 and casual players. For a 100k weekly cap, you still need to be actively playing at least 2 - 8 hours a day.

*  Promotes longevity of the game. Removes the pressure to grind all that AP instantly and then burn out and quit once you've got all the gear.

* Promote faction balance from people who have access to forts for guard mobs/quests and those that get ganked constantly.

* Probably the easiest solution for NCWest to implement

Also NC can set crowns to be outside the AP cap so it doesn't deter players to do dailies (and buy daeva pass for additional crowns for their business model or w/e)

Cap can be raised eventually when more players reach end game PVP gear, for new players to catch up.

that said, players that have abused kill trading though should still be striped though.

 

 

[Aaabatery]

32 minutes ago, 1s2D28F1 said:

It takes both factions for AP trading to occur. Meaning, asmos will get the same gains that their elyos counterparts do.

Both should be banned. No gain-gain situation can sustain that. AP trading is wrong, period.

[Azachi-KT]

now this makes sense why i die in 2-3 hits whenever i go to the abyss, hard to find legit fun pvp where you dont die in 1.5s

[Fest-DN]

3 minutes ago, Azachi-KT said:

now this makes sense why i die in 2-3 hits whenever i go to the abyss, hard to find legit fun pvp where you dont die in 1.5s

Just a friendly reminder to be careful with that mindset. Even if you're in PvP gear there are classes that will brutally melt you. 30 accessories/under-combines are easy to come by and we're balanced around 2.7 so we're all kinda just varying degrees of paper.

[Capnhook]

AP traders should just have all AP gear / AP stripped.  I've already un-subbed for next month, but if I see NCSOFT actually take appropriate action against players killing the game for once, I'd consider re-subbing.   

[Fappachino]

On 8/22/2021 at 2:06 PM, Alvie said:

Almost all day, with the exception of the occasional siege 35min, there are several times more L50s in Theo than there are in Reshanta. Let alone the other maps. You can check it for yourself any time.

Theo/Brusthonin - A 3-channel zone

Reshanta - A single channel zone

I don't need to check when it's common sense by basically comparing the channels, but your comment is also objective because of the bots that are in those zones.  I can go into further detail of why there are natually more numbers, but I'm just elaborating that just because more people are in PvE zones it doesn't mean they "obviously are enjoying the PvE content."

[Blackhawk]

They should have ban those who are farming bots for AP 0-24... it's much bigger problem than AP-trading I think because half of the server population are bots....

[Jake-DN]

3 hours ago, Blackhawk said:

They should have ban those who are farming bots for AP 0-24... it's much bigger problem than AP-trading I think because half of the server population are bots....

 

shhh, this is how legit players get their AP gain. Farm those breaking rules. It's a win win situation, we remove the atrocity of illegal players out of game for a bit, and in turn make 15k+ AP/hour np. 

Wish I could de-level, put my L50 sin back to 35. 

[Rikona]

AP traders/hackers/bots directly reduce my enjoyment of the game.  The more of these people you ban the more money I will spend.

[Nsn]

On 8/22/2021 at 3:45 AM, Nsn said:

I want to stress how important NCsoft action on this issue is -

Everyone is watching to see what NC does about this. If nothing happens to these players, or if they get temp banned and get to keep their gear, other players may be encouraged to partake in this rule-breaking activity that completely undermines the character progression system in this game. Let me repeat myself here: if these people just get temp banned and that's it, they won't even regret their actions. They skipped character progression that would take perhaps a thousand hours to do legitimately, and it only cost them (let's say) a 2 week ban. They absolutely need perm bans or at the very least, their gear stripped.

 

Even worse, once a critical mass of players are doing this (say 200+), issuing permanent bans may no longer be realistic as you would be banning a significant percentage of the most active players in a game already bleeding players. Once this happens, the entire character progression part of this game is permanently ruined, and this is arguably the most important aspect of MMORPG's.

 

My worry is that we're already at that point where too many players are doing it and it'll hurt the population too much to perma ban them all. On top of that, every day that bans are not issued, more players may start breaking these rules too, as they will visually see everyone around them getting geared much faster than them.

 

The other issue that hasn't even been mentioned in this thread is that while many players are being very obvious about breaking these rules, others may be doing it much more covertly. If I 1v1 someone a dozen or so times in a row, am I automatically AP trading? How could you possibly tell the difference between legitimate 1v1s and more covert AP trades?

 

There's also the issue of abuse. What if I don't like somebody, so I suicide to them over and over again and I have my friend report them for AP trading? Etc.

 

tl;dr this is a huge issue, arguably the biggest issue in this game atm, tread carefully

 

Edit: I want to clarify that I'm not encouraging anyone to do this, and I hope everyone involved is permabanned before it's too late

 

Every day that goes by, my post will become more and more true.. Trading has died down a bit with all the heat around it, but give it 1~2 weeks with no bans (or only non-whale and/or only-cuz-caught-on-video bans) and this issue will come back twice as strong

[marikazan-KT]

I dont understand why half these people even bother Playing this game,you know its a grind game yet they want to be instantly geared and max leve.There are loads of Mmos that cater to easymode so why not just leave and play them.

This mindset of hacking ap trading and basically just cheating at every aspect of this game and any game is seriously sad as.Currently level 38 and i can farm around 45k a Day in the abyss farming mobs and level at the same time its tedious sure but thats what you sign up for.

This instant gratification mindset is what ruins ALL games people say they want competition and to work for it but when it comes down to it they want easymode and too faceroll people.

[Arhangelos]

2 hours ago, marikazan-KT said:

I dont understand why half these people even bother Playing this game,you know its a grind game yet they want to be instantly geared and max leve.There are loads of Mmos that cater to easymode so why not just leave and play them.

This mindset of hacking ap trading and basically just cheating at every aspect of this game and any game is seriously sad as.Currently level 38 and i can farm around 45k a Day in the abyss farming mobs and level at the same time its tedious sure but thats what you sign up for.

This instant gratification mindset is what ruins ALL games people say they want competition and to work for it but when it comes down to it they want easymode and too faceroll people.

This is a competitive game, to them losing to an opponent is detrimental especially if that opponent is an old rival of them and/or making videos between each other.

People also don't enjoy the losing part of pvp because you will lose eventually and after some rank pvping is literally AP-sinking. Dying to an enemy in the old patches was pretty damaging to the progress because of the AP win/lose mechanics during pvp.

~~

In the old aion, around 3.0~4.0 the highest ranks ended up being the pve-exclusive people that made sure to farm AP in the safest possible way and avoid pvp like a plague. What fun was it about being high rank and never pvp? To them it mattered their nick name was in the list of the ranks so they could fulfill a void in them. Many people have the mentality of "it doesn't matter if I have fun or not, it matters if others think I have fun".

[Alvie]

2 hours ago, marikazan-KT said:

I dont understand why half these people even bother Playing this game...

When the PvP instances come out, the kill traders ( in their 50e), will be able to cut though the opposition.

[Arhangelos]

30 minutes ago, Alvie said:

When the PvP instances come out, the kill traders ( in their 50e), will be able to cut though the opposition.

Inbefore people simply match their entries with their own alts for a secure win and more AP.

[Blackhawk]

12 hours ago, marikazan-KT said:

I dont understand why half these people even bother Playing this game,you know its a grind game yet they want to be instantly geared and max leve.There are loads of Mmos that cater to easymode so why not just leave and play them.

This mindset of hacking ap trading and basically just cheating at every aspect of this game and any game is seriously sad as.Currently level 38 and i can farm around 45k a Day in the abyss farming mobs and level at the same time its tedious sure but thats what you sign up for.

This instant gratification mindset is what ruins ALL games people say they want competition and to work for it but when it comes down to it they want easymode and too faceroll people.

@marikazan-KT what are u farming in Abyss at this level. Could you help me please and give me some advice?
I'm lvl 37 atm. Ty!

[Seiashun]

I just hope the AP traders don't get a small temporary ban and then come back as if nothing happened, since that's the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. They don't deserve the AP equipment they got through trading, so just strip them of all of it, and the remaining AP they have.

Ever since this became a hot topic, and people started seeing really just how bad this problem has gotten, the number of active players dropped in game significantly (which I'm sure NC can see from their side). I personally know a lot of people (including myself) that are waiting to see how NC responds to this problem, to know whether we want to continue playing/giving the company more money or not. The ball's in your court now NC.

[Squid]

24 minutes ago, Seiashun said:

I just hope the AP traders don't get a small temporary ban and then come back as if nothing happened, since that's the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. They don't deserve the AP equipment they got through trading, so just strip them of all of it, and the remaining AP they have.

The thing is some AP traders are going to get away with their AP trading because they have been the ones sending in video's going look at me i have caught the AP traders so i figured i would just kill them while i was there.

How do you think these players knew the locations of the AP trading? You do not just stumble to the edge of the map on accident and find people AP trading. You do not just fly to the very bottom of the abyss on a ledge by accident. 

Beyond this you have those who AP traded "smart". They killed each other not 5x instantly but spread kills over the day making it look like they ran in to each other frequently for PvP. I got a list of 60 people who were doing the long con. As you notice from the list that came out my name is not on it because i did not AP trade but i do know people who did it this way and people who got FOMO. 

Those who got caught killing people 5x with-in 5 mins were the FOMO players. They were like welp i am already behind i do not want to fall further behind i have to AP trade right and do it ASAP.

I highly doubt NCsoft are going to ban people who did it the way i just explained because it looks just like actual PvP. If you kill someone 2-3 hours apart but kill them 5 times a day it will not look like AP trading despite them AP trading. You need actual knowledge of the game to be able to ban people for this problem but the issue is they simply do not have that knowledge.

[crithards]

The way this *classic experience* is going i give it maybe 6 months before the servers empty yet again and the game gets the death it deserves.

*Rampant hacking cheating

*Pay2win candy

*rampant ap trading and people in serious pvp gear already.

I bet if FTS was put in now 95% of players would on it right away.People may of enjoyed the instanced pvp of old because that was about choice.The  open world and abyss gankfest  died very very rapidly if you actually remember aion of old without rose colored glasses.

Either way will be interesting to see if ncsoft acts and not just talks about it,but my experience after 12 years is they will go the same way as launch and ignore players and feedback.

[Wsnow]

what I would love to know is how long it takes NCsoft to come up with a way of dealing with this issue, this post was posted some time ago yet nothing. But yet they state they were looking into it. 

[Summoned]

Strip all the AP gear and current AP., 7 day ban and remove the godstones they received from the officer quest. 

[Illllliliilliill]

7 hours ago, HealingSquid-KT said:

Beyond this you have those who AP traded "smart". They killed each other not 5x instantly but spread kills over the day making it look like they ran in to each other frequently for PvP. I got a list of 60 people who were doing the long con. 

I highly doubt NCsoft are going to ban people who did it the way i just explained because it looks just like actual PvP. If you kill someone 2-3 hours apart but kill them 5 times a day it will not look like AP trading despite them AP trading. You need actual knowledge of the game to be able to ban people for this problem but the issue is they simply do not have that knowledge.

This is the real problem. This was posted earlier in this thread too and no one responded to it.

 

I think AP traders will now be less blatant about it, and will try to make their trading just look like real 1v1s - that way, even if you record it, it's not solid proof. You'll now also see actual legitimate 1v1s get mistaken as AP trading.

 

The only way to fix this is by NC going through the logs. Oh, you killed the same person 100 times within the past month? And they killed you 100 times? Ban.

 

But unfortunately I agree, NC might not go through the effort required to do this correctly, or have sufficient logs/systems to make it happen

[Fest-DN]

2 hours ago, Illllliliilliill said:

This is the real problem. This was posted earlier in this thread too and no one responded to it.

But unfortunately I agree, NC might not go through the effort required to do this correctly, or have sufficient logs/systems to make it happen

Hopefully there is also a hard look at total AP gain and where that AP gain took place via logs. There are definitely players who pulled plenty of legit AP from guard farming/normal PvP and have a decent gear setup but once you're looking at high quantities of AP coming with few/no turn-ins you get  a pretty clear red flag. Hopefully that would flag the "long cons" as well cause if they aren't generating high quantities of AP...what is even the point? I don't trust NC to do the best job with this though, it's a very nuanced issue and in no way should active PvPers be caught up in ban waves directed at AP traders.

[Arhangelos]

3 hours ago, Illllliliilliill said:

This is the real problem. This was posted earlier in this thread too and no one responded to it.

I think AP traders will now be less blatant about it, and will try to make their trading just look like real 1v1s - that way, even if you record it, it's not solid proof. You'll now also see actual legitimate 1v1s get mistaken as AP trading.

The only way to fix this is by NC going through the logs. Oh, you killed the same person 100 times within the past month? And they killed you 100 times? Ban.

But unfortunately I agree, NC might not go through the effort required to do this correctly, or have sufficient logs/systems to make it happen

This is far more complicated, you can kill the same people over and over because of sieges or because of rifting etc.

Plenty of parameters to see and far more creativity of the AP traders for not getting caught, like the AP of the two chars engaging in pvp, in what circumstances it is made. The only way this could work is for a GM to actively inspect a player's game play and decide.

If you want to be creative as @HealingSquid-KT said you can get away with AP trading and nobody understanding a hint.

[Wex]

1 hour ago, Arhangelos said:

This is far more complicated, you can kill the same people over and over because of sieges or because of rifting etc.

Plenty of parameters to see and far more creativity of the AP traders for not getting caught, like the AP of the two chars engaging in pvp, in what circumstances it is made. The only way this could work is for a GM to actively inspect a player's game play and decide.

If you want to be creative as @HealingSquid-KT said you can get away with AP trading and nobody understanding a hint.

Theres ingame GM tools to do just that. Banning a few would set a precedent and make the risk for APtrading too high.

The biggest issue is that NC would actually have to care enough to bother doing something like this. Considering they don't even ban the most obvious hackers and bots, my confidence is low.

Kibbelz even went around the forums a few days ago saying how 'theres no bot reports pending anymore', 'no bots to investigate' and GMs are going into to the game themselves to find bots since 'nobody is reporting them anymore'.

 

Meanwhile the bots I reported 7 weeks ago are still out and about botting 24/7. Really makes you think if kibbelz is just trolling the community at this point.