I mean, if they doubled or tripled the output per node you could in theory still gather as much, though it wouldn’t be as mindless as just clicking.
Why would you make it a shell game? Make it simple. Match these 3 words to these 3 picture. Boom, done in 10 seconds.
The puzzles can range from memory games, to tactile challenges that test your coordination (how fast can you click targets). There is certainly a way to make the mini-games interesting, and only seeing a CAPTHA is just a failure in imagination really.
It’s actually more sustainable, think of 50s pots as minimum wage, at that rate, nobody has any purchasing power and its the ground floor of the economy, but if farmers make 120-200 gold, it boosts all the other professions. There is enough built in dependence on other professions for there to be room for everyone in the economy within a single server.
And if you don’t feel like farming . . . just enchant.
This sounds like a neat idea that is going to get a lot of flak. I would say the herb nodes would probably need something extra to make it “worthwhile” to do this. For example, go back to the Legion herb design and herbs can have a chance for “procs” to get extra herbs, might make the captcha thing worth it.
Ya, that’s exactly what I am talking about with the dynamic range of success and failure. Binary succeed and fail isn’t ideal for game design, but with a range of successes, you gamify the system instead of turning into an autopilto snoozefest.
So you can get a critical success, that will net you even more, that will depend on your time and accuracy.
They could just made the nodes spawn in a random defined area, and not allow more than one player to harvest them if possible.
It’s not a bad idea. It would not only eliminate bots, but also multiboxers. It would make gathering professions far more profitable, and increase the value of gold in game overall.
Each profession would have an easy mini-game.
Skinning: You have to click on four undamaged areas on carcass. Damaged areas would be RNG, and shown in the minigame screen on the corpse.
Herbing: You have to bunch up the leaves together by dragging each with the mouse. Leaf orientation would be RNG.
Mining: Similar to skinning, where the node would have spots of ore and spots of dirt. You have to click on the areas with the ore.
Ya, but gamifying the system makes it more dynamic. Autopilot farming is far from ideal. And in actual farming, you aren’t doing it with your eyes closed, so the minigame would represent the time spent and will have a range of success depending on your actual skill.
I don’t know it might work well but it would also depend on the communities reception and whether or not the bots were programmed to solve simple puzzles somehow. But hell anything might be worth a shot at this point.
Bots generally can’t even solve simple captcha, and the ones that can are rare. So mini games/puzzles are just out of the question.
Making several minigames that have dynamic difficulty would be so far beyond the scope of the script kiddies making these bots, that it wouldn’t even be worth it, much less would it be possible for them to actually come up with some kind of AI script.
The script to attack mobs is nothing compared to bots that can think their way through puzzles. You would be hard pressed finding someone who can do that who isn’t already working at the top of their field.
How about something cool instead of captcha but fairly similar. The node lights up in various random areas and you have to hit those corresponding areas correctly in whatever pattern they show up. You see a vein and go to it, it then shows orange, red, and green locations that show up and they are somewhat random and then have to get rid of the red, orange, and then green in that order.
Just tossing another idea based off the same premise. But either way yeah could help quite a bit.
This guy had it pretty close. It wouldn’t be captcha, it would be mini games, then there would be a dynamic range of successes and failures. So if you finish really quickly and accurately, you get a critical success.
Then you can have a range of modifiers, challenge levels, and an element of randomness, so bigger nodes will be more complex puzzles and challenges with different ranges of success/fail.
Man I actually like this idea, but at the same time I find it pretty damn hard to believe blizzard lacks the technology already to combat botting. If you see some of these bots, they are just standing in one spot, often the same spots with quick respawn timers on mobs, standing still and tab targeting tapping mobs at 70+ Target cycles a minute, auto looting lol I find it really hard to believe they don’t have the technology to detect behavior like that and combat it in some way. I genuinely believe it has to somehow benefit them.
Customer satisfaction is the only thing that matters, and using outside programs to modify gameplay is technically a hack, so right now the game is basically overrun with hackers who are breaking several systems (late game money making, the interaction between professions, immersion, etc).
But ya, they could use deep learning and a team could knock it out over the course of 6mo, but good deep learning guys are expensive and I don’t think its in the budget. Actually this a problem with a lot of MMOs and rpgs, and the cheap solution is clever game design. I don’t think any games are actually using deep learning to combat bots yet, the solution has been to make systems that can’t be exploited by bots.
But gamifying elements is actually a good thing from a design perspective. They would not only save money, fix professions, stop the hackers and the money leaving their ecosystem, but they would be making a more dynamic game with professions that are skill-based. Over time as your speed and accuracy improves, you reap the rewards.
I am all for the deep learning team, but this is cheaper and would make professions a little more interesting with a dynamic minigame to play against, and it could be quickly implemented and easy to update.
“Which of the following images are herbs in WoW? Click on all that apply”
Yea it can be something based off the profession. Something that Blizzard has even done before can be used, for example remember the uncross the wires in Nazjatar? Well just refit that with a little different stock image and you can be good to go, and of course I am referring to the easy ones with only like 8 orbs and sometimes 1 move is all it takes without much thought.
Yeah but having it happen every node might be annoying. If anything at random intervals would be better I think that way you can harvest some nodes without doing it.
Would depend on how rewarding it was and how simple the puzzles were.
Double the rewards for a 5 second puzzle wouldn’t bother most people.
I’d honestly just rather have the occasional spawn for extra mats that we got in Legion. These puzzles sound like a great way to ruin the peaceful zen time that is my gathering.
If it gives more for the need to stop and harvest the nodes, then sure. I’m game. The need to stop and do puzzles or anything will definitely frustrate a lot of people but if its worthwhile, then not only it could potentially stop botting but also feel more engaging.
This depends really. It might end up kicking out people with disabilities from even professions cause you know how Blizzard is with puzzles.
It’ll be similar to the magic symbol drawing quest in Azuna before they nerfed it where you had to step perfectly on the line. Hard to do if you are colorblind, nerve damage in hands, etc.