Without a major security overhall, you can make professions more interesting and make it near impossible for bots to function:
For each harvesting profession bring play a minigame that correlates with the theme of the profession. It can range from memory games to tactile challenges with a range of success and failure, so you can do well and get a critical success, increasing your harvest.
Imagine a 3D model that you can spin around, bots can’t reliably see depth, so you would rotate the model and complete a puzzle, memory game or tactile challenge, sometimes even a combination of the three. It can actually be fun, it would feel more like harvesting. The design of an interactive harvesting mechanic that feels rewarding is well within the scope of the design team.
The baseline drops would also be increased for the increased time it takes to complete the task. So the solo player would be rewarded for their efforts and the farmers will experience roughly the same time needed to fill their quotas. Additionally, you have a chance to obtain bonus items for critical successes.
The difficulty could be dynamic and depending on the node, have modifiers and multiple minigames per activity. You aren’t farming with your eyes close, the minigames can represent the work it takes, and the drop rate will increase for the additional time needed.
As for bots: the number of bot coders with the skill to make an AI that can do puzzles and play minigames is very low and they are going after bigger targets, not selling gold on third-party sites. People who are that good at coding can essentially write their own paychecks.
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No.
Signed, every person doing AOE farming.
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Solving a CAPTCHA to pick a flower lmao.
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If you can only imagine a CAPTHCHA, that’s on you. But designers can make it interesting.
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Yes. Signed every person who wants the game to be more interesting. And without bots.
OP if we get extra rewards for doing the puzzle right it would work
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Oh true, it could be a sliding scale, that can ramp up for better rewards depending on chance and the size of the node. You can also update the the amount you get from each node to make up for the increased time, so it would effectively take the same time to harvest your daily quota and shut down all the bots.
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If its not asking me which images have cars, I wont trust it.
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Select all images with stoplights.
Successful! +3 Desolate Leather.
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Like a ff14 style harvesting thing with skills and cooldowns and such?
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Kind of, but you can take it to the next level, so put a timer on it, and add in puzzle elements. Then you can have a range of successes and near failures that will dynamically affect how successful your harvesting is.
Then there can be a range of puzzles, that they can add to whenever it gets to stale.
The cool thing is, it will attach physical action to the professions. So your single node could give you 6-10 depending on your success. So in the end you can still harvest the same amount, while screwing the bots and making professions more dynamic and action oriented.
The puzzles could range from tactile challenges to memory and more. I’m not a puzzle designer, but there’s a lot you can do if you are creative.
That seems way to complicated just to pick a flower. Think I’ll pass.
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That’s fine. I would rather have professions that work, then professions that don’t. And if you don’t want to harvest don’t harvest, but we will still need harvesters at the ground floor of the economy. There will be people more than willing to do it if it actually made them money again, and will make ancillary professions more valuable.
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Doesn’t sound like that.
FFXIV is just click the node then click the item you want to collect. This sounds more puzzle.
You think a bot can be taught to run around and use abilities but not play a basic minigame?
It doesn’t sound like a quick fix at all. It would kill professions if you made harvesting so onerous that no one will do it anymore.
There will be way fewer people willing to do it if you multiply the time it takes by 2 or 3. You can farm your own and take 4 hours instead of 2 hours.
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I didn’t think it would ask you every time or something, just once in awhile it would ask, like an “Are you Human?” pop quiz.
Unless that is what the OP wants, a little heavy handed.
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Check all the boxes that have a flower in them.
Then you see one box has a picture of one of those big plastic sunflowers. Does it count as a flower? It must right? Wrong!
Sorry you failed the test and the herb despawned…
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This is why I mentioned the dynamic range, depending on how well you succeed you can potentially make more.
And also, the rates would increase to make up for the time spent actually harvesting.
So if you get good and score critical successes more often, you come out even further ahead, but the baseline drops will make it roughly equal to the time it takes now.
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It’s going to be like shell game, where you have to match all 16 images before you can pick your flower. People who are good at shell game will only add a few minutes per node. People who aren’t good at it, well screw them.
Next to nobody’s going to be farming, but a few who will charge so much gold per flower or ore that you’ll need to buy tokens to make flasks for yourself.
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Reminds me of Jewelcrafting in Legion, when we had to chip off the rough parts of the stones. I actually really enjoyed that bit of flavor.
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