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RE: Autopot discussion thread


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#1 Oda

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Posted 24 June 2015 - 03:05 PM

Hello there everyone. Yesterday on the Tiki Tuesday stream I mentioned that we were going to post to get feedback from the community on if an in-house developed alternative to autopot would be something the community would consider as a future update. 
 
The response was immediate and overwhelming. I spent a lot of time this morning reading through the responses in Necrohealiac's thread. It's clear that the last thing you want us to be doing is to be rushing into something and I agree. To respond to and clarify our positions will require a different thread than what I wrote up this morning. 
 
What we are not doing: We are not implementing or developing a locally produced autopot add-on and declaring the use of autopot programs legal if the Renewal or Classic community decides, after a period of debate and discussion, that it is not a good fit for the server. This thread will be for the discussion on whether or not it should be a legal part of the game, where we can discuss the pros and cons calmly and logically.
 
What I will say now is that directing negativity or frustration regarding this towards Section 9 or other players is not constructive. This is something that I decided to ask the community about. 
 
So far from the feedback in the thread so far, no one is really saying that it is something that they necessarily would love to be a legal part of the game, rather the people who have recommended the legalization it's use would be a more effective way to reduce it's impact during WoE than the status quo.
 
The challenges:
 
This is factoring in the difficulty of eye verification from GMs watching castles and the existing legal ways to heal like macros that are difficult to distinguish versus an autopot. Eyes on verification is difficult due to our limited personpower during the weekends, and injuring players during WoE or modifying their HP with Song of Lutie would not be easy or fair to do to players during the chaos of WoE. It will not be likely that many autopot users will be keeping it on during downtime between fights and checking each and ever player in a WoE castle is just not a possibility. 
 
Alternatives: 
 

Options of alternatives to legalization/in-house development of autpot are welcome but many of the shortcomings of those have already been discussed in the other thread.

 

If necessary the discussion for what should be done will have to be separate between Classic and Renewal due to the PVP/WoE mechanics being extremely different. One server's solution may not be a fit for the other. 

 

Posts containing the slippery slope "if X gets allowed, then Y will get allowed next" are not constructive and only serve to derail the thread.  

 

Keep the discussion civil. Derailing posts will be removed, and come with the penalty of catapultion. 

 

 

 


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#2 Sirolrex

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 04:55 PM

Several people have made suggestions in the other thread and to be honest, most are not any good.  Making AP legal is not the answer. Finding a way to make it irrelevant is.   I'm not dissing the gm's when I say this but frankly, most of you have no idea about game mechanics and this puts you at a serious disadvantage for spotting cheating and actually knowing what's going on.  Even then, not knowing how the cheats work does the same thing.

 

 

Disable all consumables except for WoE potions.

Put a limit on how many can be carried at one time. ( 200-300 )

Increase Woe damage reduction to 80% instead of 40%.

Add a 200 MS cooldown on potions. WoE potion only.

 

Damage would be more in line with old damage from pre-renewal and the amount of consumables would be more in line with how much could be carried way back when.


Edited by Sirolrex, 25 June 2015 - 04:55 PM.

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#3 Acuwrex

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 05:11 PM

I don't think it's a good idea to change damage and delays. It will affect more than just AP users.


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#4 Thyrial

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 05:26 PM

I'll just give a long thorough recap of everything I've said in the other thread in hopes that it will help some people understand the situation a bit better.

 

First and foremost I'll get my opinion out of the way, I am personally for legalizing it given the current situation. My reasons for such will be detailed below as well as reasons against it. I will also say that I really wish it hadn't come to this and would MUCH prefer a completely legit environment.

 

So let's examine the situation, currently auto-potting is rampant on ALL the servers, some renewal players would like to think otherwise but they are flat out wrong. At this point not much is done about people auto-potting and as such it's leaving people that don't, either due to not wanting to cheat or due to lack of knowledge about the programs, at a distinct disadvantage. This has caused a completely understandable amount of anger in the community, many people assuming the GMs just aren't doing their jobs in dealing with these cheaters, however the situation is not that simple.

 

Detecting/Preventing  Auto Potting

 

The main problem the GMs have is the inability to positively identify people who are autopotting. Let's look at some methods people have suggested to catch people/ prevent APing.

 

GM Observation: The first and most obvious is just GMs watching WoE. The problem here is that auto-potting is visually identical to potting with a macro or using multiple hotkeys and potting manually. While you may occasionally catch someone who left theirs active while AFK, it's extremely rare and does nothing about the overall problem.

 

Client Side Protection: The second most obvious are programs like Game Guard which are designed specifically to stop cheating in games. Unfortunately they can be easily bypassed, the best example being a program called Harmony that was developed SPECIFICALLY for RO servers and took over a year to perfect. It was bypassed in about a day. There was also talk about data-encryption to make the HP number difficult to find for the programs. Unfortunately there are already auto-potting programs that work on the visual data of the client not the actual data values. These options just don't work.

 

Server Side Detection: The most promising option overall but an unrealistic one. The GM team would have to develop a logging system AND a system for parsing those logs into actionable data. They'd then also have to develop standards by which to determine if the activity they see is actually autopotting or just normal potting, something that due to various factors including latency, system lag, and a million other variables is practically impossible to do without ending up with just as many false positives as actual offending players. On top of that the time and resource investment required to develop these things is far beyond what the team has available to them.

 

In Game Changes: A particularly common suggestion is putting a delay on potion use but that has two problems. First it won't prevent auto-potting in any way, people will still use them so they can react as fast as possible to damage, especially now that healing earlier will mean more with less healing per second possible. Second the iRO team doesn't have the server access they would need to do that, kRO would have to do it for them and quite frankly, they won't.

 

Final Note: The PServer community (something the iRO team understandably doesn't like to talk about) has been trying to stop auto potting for years with far more people, time, and resources than the iRO team has. Most importantly, pserver owners can actually modify their server software unlike the iRO team. Yet despite this they have failed time and time again without even having any MINOR success.

 

So what now?

 

So now we're left in a bit of a conundrum... Most of us agree that auto-potting is bad but with everything we know about it, it's clear that it's not going away and the rule against it can't be enforced. It leaves us with only two options...

 

  1. We accept the current situation and choose to continue on as things are.
  2. WP legalizes autopotting and creates their own.

Both options are terrible but they are all we have at this point. As I said in the beginning, I much prefer the idea of legalizing AP simply for that fact that it's the only option that places us all on even footing. It may not be the ideal solution but it's that or stick with the current gap between certain groups of players and continue seeing the frustration that's driving many players away from the game.


Edited by Thyrial, 25 June 2015 - 05:51 PM.

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#5 Acuwrex

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 05:54 PM

I agree 100% with Thyrial.

 

The community here must understand that there are two options.

 

1) Leave things the way they are

2) Legalize it

 

If we leave things the way they are, people will still use AP. The fact that it's considered illegal yet the GM team is unable to do much about it builds a lot of stress within the community. You have players that feel completely helpless as they cannot stop others from using it in any way, shape or form. It just isn't possible... and being stuck in this conundrum is not healthy.

 

If it's legalized then obviously more people will use it. I don't think many people here realize just how popular it already is, though. And many people here fail realize how many of their fellow guild members actually use it. I feel like the most notable things to gain from legalization is a level playing field and overall less stress in the community. There are other things to consider, too. Such as it gives the GM team more attention and vision to deal with far more serious problems, such as NDL, which is incredibly game breaking. I can go on.

 

There are other options people want, such as:

 

3) Block it altogether or track/punish people from using it

4) Change the way the game works

 

The reason why these are not feasible options are really quite simple. There is no way to stop it. There is no realistic way of going after people that use AP. Banning people and removing them from the game entirely in a 14 year old game with a slowly dwindling population is not the answer. And changing the way potions and other things work risks altering the game too much. You'll see a lot of unintended consequences if you go down that road.

 

Ultimately I wish AP did not exist. I would rather everyone, including myself, play without it. It's not always "I'm doing it because he is." It's become, "I'm not playing a Paladin without it because randomly dying when I look across my screen sucks" and "if I misclick I can get blown up in half a second". I don't think people realize it is simply how the game is played for many many players and has been for a long time now. I believe few people use it for the simple fact that their opponents do.


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#6 Kadelia

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 06:17 PM

In Game Changes: A particularly common suggestion is putting a delay on potion use but that has two problems. First it won't prevent auto-potting in any way, people will still use them so they can react as fast as possible to damage, especially now that healing earlier will mean more with less healing per second possible. Second the iRO team doesn't have the server access they would need to do that, kRO would have to do it for them and quite frankly, they won't.

 

I don't think this is true, I think they can change the cooldowns.

 

Also I disagree, if you can only pot 5 times/sec a machine no longer has an advantage over you, and such an update is coupled with damage reduction, meaning you have more humanly expectant time to react to damage.


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#7 Xellie

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 06:21 PM

Please state what server you're talking on behalf of in your posts, because they are not the same.


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#8 Viri

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 06:21 PM

I don't think this is true, I think they can change the cooldowns.

 

Also I disagree, if you can only pot 5 times/sec a machine no longer has an advantage over you, and such an update is coupled with damage reduction, meaning you have more humanly expectant time to react to damage.

 

The main issue with this is it just slows everything down, and the reason RO is fun is it's faced paced "oops you died" because you didn't react fast enough. If you slow everything down it'll just be like every other mmo and there's a lot of better options out there in that field.


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#9 RHMY

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 06:24 PM

Disable all pots on WoE
Make a new pot with 5s duration and cooldown that would mimic spamming of potion at a normal rate, or something similar.. Could heal faster or slower...
Save those damn keyboard keys
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#10 Kadelia

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 06:34 PM

The main issue with this is it just slows everything down, and the reason RO is fun is it's faced paced "oops you died" because you didn't react fast enough. If you slow everything down it'll just be like every other mmo and there's a lot of better options out there in that field.

 

It's too fast though. The period of time when woe was most fun was 2nd job era, and killing was slow back then.


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#11 Climb

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 06:53 PM

Option 1 - nothing changes. Some people are happy some people are angry.

Option 2 - things change. Some people are happy some people are angry.

 

The real decision here, is not necessarily about autopot, rather who you will listen to. Choose wisely.


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#12 Acuwrex

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 06:54 PM



It's too fast though. The period of time when woe was most fun was 2nd job era, and killing was slow back then.

 

 

There are other options people want, such as:

 

3) Block it altogether or track/punish people from using it

4) Change the way the game works

 

The reason why these are not feasible options are really quite simple. There is no way to stop it. There is no realistic way of going after people that use AP. Banning people and removing them from the game entirely in a 14 year old game with a slowly dwindling population is not the answer. And changing the way potions and other things work risks altering the game too much. You'll see a lot of unintended consequences if you go down that road.

 

 

Please don't think you can change the game. You're not going to de-incentivize AP by slowing down the game. You're just going to change the game altogether. That's not what this topic is for.


Edited by Acuwrex, 25 June 2015 - 07:02 PM.

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#13 ShoLin

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 07:04 PM

The only way to 100% prove someone is auto potting is, they afk with their auto pot on and you use Song of Lutie. Keep on repeating, then ask for a reply.


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#14 Acuwrex

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 07:07 PM

Exactly. So why bother trying to enforce it? What are we gaining by having AP against the rules with a large population using it regardless?


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#15 rojoky113

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 07:15 PM

I play Classic, just so my viewpoint is clear.

 

I would prefer to not take the step of legalizing it yet, not until all feasible enforcement options fail.

 

Bannable with video evidence, GM lutie-style checks (if only a custom skill that coma'd, statused, and made invulnerable characters with a duration of a few seconds could be implemented as an area check), server logs, woe map death room before respawn that did the same as my imaginary GM lutie skill to check characters immediately after death, combined with a few seconds of server logs to detect artificial ceasing of potting to prevent an auto-shut off on death getting around it. Any idea that could be possible to catch some people and make some bans would create a chilling effect that would discourage AP use significantly.

 

There will always be cheaters, but if we can mitigate their impact on the game enough it would be better than automating half the game for everyone else. Many people do not want that sort of change, it would be the death of much of classic RO combat mechanics that those people enjoy. People will quit either way, there are issues either way, I'd prefer the option that doesn't legitimize cheating and cheaters, and doesn't bot half of playing the game for everyone.

 

However, if this step is taken, it has to be done correctly. I'm just going to quote the post I made in the other thread about that:
 

 

 

What also needs to be sure to be discussed is if the route of making a legal autopot is taken, it MUST be done right. The legal one MUST BE GOOD. if 3pp is next to impossible to detect now, it literally will be with a legal AP. If the 3pp is superior to the in house program in any way, you have just legitimized the cheaters advantage while leaving actual players with no recourse than even the tiny bit they have now.

 

IMO, macros should be built in as well. They are already legal, they help somewhat to even the playing field against AP in terms of easing multitasking, they are a great quality of life improvement, and they help prevent RSI as well. Build in turbo functionality for pots, rapid fire skill targeting (with clicks), perhaps even combining multiple actions onto a single hotkey. These things can already be done legally, if we are trying to incorporate and legitimize outside help that people already use to even the playing field for everyone macroing should be included as well.

 

I personally would also like to see a small hard cooldown on consumables if we are going to be automating everyones item use. Something like 100-150ms if input during delay is ignored, maybe 200m if its buffered so everyone who pots "fast" enough will reach that speed. This is another attempt to level the playing field from outside factors and also to try and save the role of DPS on classic. If the delay was high enough, it could even improve it against some players macroing/APing. You should still be able to DPS people down if you don't one shot them if you put enough pressure on, there should be a limit to healing rate for everyone especially if it is going to be automated.

 

And of course, I expect if this step is taken that much more effort goes to ridding us of MP hacks, no delay, etc. The real gamebreaking cheats that have already been proven to have solutions. If we were rid of them and all the above was implemented, I would actually be quite happy with that. I would be sad for the death of classic RO potting mechanics, but woe with an even playing field and no cheaters breaking the game would still be quite welcome.

 

 

 


Edited by rojoky113, 25 June 2015 - 07:16 PM.

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#16 arrowspear

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 07:15 PM

Thor Server

 

I am not sure if we had some players using illegal AP software back in pRO but we had Pill Box which instantly replenish HP/SP, so, AP is kinda unnecessary back then. And, I WoE alot. So, most of my Pros/Cons list are for our future WoE Renewal only.

 

Auto Pots Pros:

  • no need to keep spamming pots button with your finger
  • you dont die easily if you lag and can't use pots (I hope so)

Auto Pots Cons:

  • it sucks to be normal hitting dps build like Ranger and Gx.
  • more demand for pots, more bot farmer.
  • maybe we can afk inside the castle while we use alts.

Alternative options:

  • WoE Gears that auto heal 80% if attack magic/physically after you enter castle for 3 secs. 10min cooldown
  • Add cooldown on HP and SP pots but increase recovery amount they recover. Maybe 50~80%.

 

 


Edited by arrowspear, 25 June 2015 - 08:41 PM.

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#17 Sabaton

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 07:28 PM

 

mfw you realize you already had this debate about autopot when you were 18 years old and you're now 23. 

 

Didn't read the whole thread but here are my two cents:

AP sucks, we seems to all agree on that. BUT

 

Look at the pserver history (why do I feel like I say it in every post I write?)

When was the best period for WoE activity, best competitions? 2009-2012

When has autopot widely spread? 2009-2010 

Yes, at first it was illegal, then the majority of (serious WoE)pservers adopted it (because can't enforce, can't track, can't ban too many)

What happened? Almost nothing

Less QQ on forums, for sure. More people came to play WoE (PvMers, kids, BRs, "pronterianos", newbies, idk who < my assumption) WoE became a less elitist environment

Good players were still far above bad players, best guilds were still dominant. People who refused to "cheat" (it wasn't cheat anymore btw) played WoE without AP, no drama.

 

Don't be idiots iRO, the real threat is not autopot, it's nodelay. It almost killed the pserver woe scene, but guess what, admins spent money and time to quickly find and buy a solution and eventualy succeded to get their servers almost free of this cancer and maintain a comepetitive (aka, FAIR) WoE environment. 

 

TL;DR

autopot is not a big harm, you may want to focus on something more important.

 

>inb4 "you say this because you use autopot" -no

>inb4 "only bad players use autopot" -lol

>inb4 "i'll quit RO if it change" -QQ more we all know you'll keep playing, addict.

>inb4 "only cheaters defend autopot legalization" -the only ones who should be annoyed by the legalization are the cheaters, their advantage is lost.

>inb4 "you can't inb4"

 

Also, to all the "change WoE meta to (insert random percentage) damage reduction"  and "disable potions", have you ever played WoE? 


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#18 Ryuuzan

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 07:31 PM

1. Increase WOE damage reduction to 80%

2. When damage reduction goes up to 80%, casting delay reductions should be prevented to avoid spammable skills, or identify and deal with spammable skills. buffs in woe should in no way interfere with cast delays (ie:- skill buffs,equipment)

3. Significantly increase number of hits required to take down the emperium

4. Only allow distinctive potions that are specifically tailored for woe use. (ie:- cooldowns, timed limitations, digit healing instead of % healing)

 

Only allowing unspammable potions in this woe scene(dmg red 80%,no castdelay reduction) will allow a myriad of strategy to perform well in a battle. you will see trap rangers or maybe even berserk knights and crit gxes coming into the scene or even spellfist sorcs. It will also curb abuse of autopotting effectively.

What is stated here can be used as a base, eventually you will have to deal with spammable abusive support spells that will render mass enemies crippled like stasis or dispell (probably add cast delay or longer cast)

 

Potions that give digit healing is more appropriate for the woe scene as it will give a proper balance to the hp class and the sp class professions amongst woe players, along with the damage reduction and the skill delay limitations. You cant have a RK with 20% healing pot and healing 20k HP while a Warlock only healing 4k HP with the same pot, but takes more dps for the Warlock to deal the same amount of damage to that class and vice versa. Same goes for SP pool as well. Potion is affected with the ruling for autopot prevention, of course.


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#19 gorgoroth1

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 07:43 PM

Imagine a guild of 46 db rk's with built-in AP, aspd 180+, edited nodelay grf/sprite, increase weight limit, 2 stringer, 2 GK wanderer, 4 CC Sura and 2 jihad mech would do on single woe. To make it more fun re-enable guild extension of 76 guild members ><

IMO if this going to be legalizes, it should come with grf/sprite editing blocker.


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#20 Kadelia

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 08:03 PM

one time I wanted a guild of all gypsies pre-renewal so we could just spam dazzler slow grace and tarrot on people in woe and make woe mildly discomforting for people


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#21 6773131031232342973

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 08:06 PM

Add potion delay in woe for the lulz


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#22 Talvis

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 08:11 PM

I personally say keep autopot illegal.  I just think it's a bad idea to set the precedent of legalizing something that is illegal and hurts the gameplay.  It's essentially a light bot program.  I'd rather it be kept as is and GMs stop what they can.

 

@Jaye sounds like something I would do, do something strictly to annoy people. :p_devil:


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#23 Dreimdal

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 08:32 PM

My thoughts are, while I'd prefer there not be legitimized auto-potting, if it is an inevitable outcome that is to happen regardless, then  I'd hope for a cooldown on healing items. Perhaps even a different cooldown based on the healing effectiveness of each item. But let's just say, as an example, in the case of ranked condensed white potions, maybe 50 milliseconds as the cooldown. At 20 slims per second, that seems to be a reasonable limit.

 

It should not be difficult to set up a server-side limitation on restorative items per second (isn't this already in place for yggdrasil seeds and berries?), so a cooldown should be implementable with very little difficulty on other restorative items as well.

 

And for the so-called "immortals" in WoE and/or PvP, such as shadow chasers or royal guards or whatnot, one need only to use teamwork to take them down. As an example, properly used Bellum Katzbalger and Bellum Flail can end even auto-potters.


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#24 hotel

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 09:07 PM

what i'd like to see would be to scale back damage and implement a potion cooldown of sorts. for pvp just ban pots entirely please

 

if this isn't possible (which i'm fairly certain it's not) i wouldn't be against a legalised autopot.


Edited by hotel, 25 June 2015 - 09:08 PM.

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#25 KamiKali

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Posted 25 June 2015 - 09:10 PM

http://forums.warppo...12#entry2192235


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