With apologizes to Jonathan Swift and with a clear statement that no babies are involved, here goes.
There are many strategies for fighting bot and gold sellers, I would like to propose an economic solution. It has two parts.
PART 1: All gathering and other skills stop rewarding XP. The “experience” they grant is towards crafting only. So, unless they spent time actually hunting and leveling, they would no longer gain levels just for catching fish, mining ore, or other skills.
PART 2: When Bots or Gold Sellers are reported, the first person to report that bad actor (bot/seller) gets 10% of the wealth/items from that character. This is like a WHISTLE BLOWER in real life. Also, each person that reports them (after the 1st) would get X amount (say 100g). This would give an economic incentive to report them. The payments would only occur after the account was banned by AGS. So, it couldn’t be gamed.
I believe this would work very well, and play more into human nature.
How does Part 1 affect bots? Crafting and gathering are a large part of how some people level. We can’t be removing ways of leveling in this game (we already have too few activities).
The bots, at least the majority, are focused on non-combat skills. They are doing this to gather components to ultimately generate wealth, either in mats or items constructed from those mats.
As a general crafter, it would impact you. You’d still be able to craft, gain skill, and most importantly run away or fight back. If you opted to do zero fighting, you could still increase, just not your XP.
I’d also suggest a XP cut-off at some point. Right now, you get XP for killing way low level mobs that cannot even effectively hurt you. Thus some of the bots running around in the newbie zones. There should be a 5-10 level cut-off for XP.
The challenge is that to balance this, you need data. Data that is currently not available from any sort of log file for NW. I believe this could be balanced easily by AGS.
Finally, I do believe that fighting (XP) and gathering/crafting (skill) should be different pools. It makes NO SENSE that a 60th level crafting newbie can pick up and use a better crafting/gathering tool or station than a 200 skill crafter who hasn’t reached 60th level. Trust me, I was one of these people, and it still irritates me. LOL!
That’s hardly a modest proposal, that’s a game-ending proposal for anyone who wants to dedicate themselves to gathering and crafting as career choices in New World. No thanks.
The message “don’t bother crafting until you’re 60, because you won’t progress if you do” is not a good one.
I hear your concern. You have a point, and I would direct you to the 2nd part of my suggestion that, “…to balance this, you need data.” To get this right and address your stated concern, it would need an analysis.
Back of the napkin, I suspect that the number of pure crafters who have done zero fighting borders on 1-5 people across the entire game. I know of one because it made the blogs. I suspect the others that border on this are bots.
I believe that if you re-read my proposal, it would actually strengthen crafters. Your skill gain would only happen when you are gathering, refining, or crafting. SO! Even if you are 60th level, you would be no better off than a newbie. A 200 skill crafter would be the equivalent of a 60th level character in any of those activities, and they would be correspondingly rewarded.
Zero fighting? Sure. Players who did fighting and gathering/crafting to level? I suspect that number is >50%. Anecdotally, everyone I play with and have knowledge of on both my servers did some combination of the two.
Hecl yes! I am one of them. Hell, if I could have done zero fighting, or had the patience to attempt it, I would have done it. I thought it might have been an option in the game. I was 200 in 3 gathering skills when I was around 40th level. So! I hear you.
Yeah, it was the part that I didn’t propose. There would need to be a downside. It’s human nature to try to find a way to game the system. And, systems can always be gamed. I did not that payment would only happen AFTER the account was checked and banned. This should remove most of it, but not all.
I think a possible solution could be a small payment, like a trading/crafting tax, that would be refunded if your report is upheld.
LOL! Well, not everyone. The challenge is that who would fight with the bot’s account? How would the challenge be anything other than a slaughter and rush to get the bot with the most “stuff” to loot? Interesting, but I think the mechanics have challenges. Still funny though!
