Forums » Suggestions
Botting
Botting is vendetta’s version of “the grind”. You find “the grind” in pretty much every MMORPG, and lots of non-MMO RPG’s. Different games handle it differently, some make it separate from actual game play(EVE); others try to change what you have to grind on often enough that you are looking at the eye-candy, not worrying about the fact that you are still doing the same thing you did in the last zone(EQ). Vendetta just sort of drops it in your lap and says “have at it”. Obviously the unfinished mission system has a lot to do with this, and I’m certain that the Devs will add more missions in the future.
With that said however; at present it is extremely boring, tedious, and time consuming. Even once you have learned HOW to bot, grinding away the levels after 5 can be a real drag, and there is no point to continuing after level 9 combat, which is the highest you need to get any known piece of equipment. (If there is a ship that takes combat 13 the same way the valent marauder takes trade 13, I pity the poor person who takes the time to find it)
There have been several threads on this subject, and for the most part all I am doing is reposting several of my ideas into one thread. I’ve tweaked them somewhat, but my main goal is to present a possible way that the various problems botting poses can be solved, without requiring a large investment of time and new code on the part of the developers. (We all know they have a lot on their “to-do” list already)
My idea would solve the botting imbalance problem that the Xp-Tweaking thread phaserlight started brings up. http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9071
The idea also addresses the silly slowness of XP gain at high level in the superbots needed thread that Deku posted http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9033 and the basic form of the idea was one I first posted there.
The first part of my suggestion is to drastically increase the XP gained from killing guardians, and separate the current advanced combat mission into a medium combat and a “new” advanced combat.
The beginner combat would remain the same, having lists of 5 bots
Medium combat would require you to kill 4 bots from the following list, in order of XP value: Artemis collectors, Ty-Corp Assaults, Valent assaults, Aputech-5 guardians (I think these are the weakest guardians aren’t they?), Prosus assaults, and become available at combat level 2.
The “new” Advanced combat would include the rest of the guardians and the den-tek assault, which would fall somewhere in the middle XP wise, the advanced combat would become available at combat level 6, and require you to kill 5 bots per XP award.
The weakest guardian on the list would have an XP value of a bit less than the prosus assault, but the rest of the guardians would be worth more as you got more and more dangerous bots.
For every 5 combat levels higher than the point where the mission becomes available you are, it adds 2 bots to the list. Thus a player with level 7 combat doing the medium has to kill 6 bots, not 4, he/she can then switch to advanced and only have to kill 5 bots, albeit of a harder type.
This rest of this suggestion draws on the fact that IMO a MMO needs to have multiplayer aspects become more and more prevalent as you progress in the game, and at this time vendetta doesn’t really do that.
The second part of the solution would be to Change the way group combat missions work to encourage players to go botting in a group. The reward for completing a list of bots on a group mission would be increased by 10%-25% over what the single player reward is. The exact amount of increase would be determined by the number of players in the group, I would propose the following:
1-3 group members, 10% increase
4-5 group members, 15% increase
6-7 group members, 20% increase
8 group members, 25% increase.
The number of bots on a list for a group mission would be based on the highest level player in the group. It would be half the number of bots s/he would have to kill on the same mission doing it alone, times the number of players in the group, plus a full single player list
Or, in formula form; (1/2[List] X [players in group]) + [List]
[List] is the number of bots that the highest level person in the group would have to kill if s/he took the mission as a single player mission.
This would encourage players to get together as a group to go after bots, (its more profitable to do it as even a 2 person group than it is to bot individually as long as both players are similar in level) because it is more XP reward to go after the bots as a group, and because there are more bots worth killing for XP, higher level players would be able to advance levels faster.
With that said however; at present it is extremely boring, tedious, and time consuming. Even once you have learned HOW to bot, grinding away the levels after 5 can be a real drag, and there is no point to continuing after level 9 combat, which is the highest you need to get any known piece of equipment. (If there is a ship that takes combat 13 the same way the valent marauder takes trade 13, I pity the poor person who takes the time to find it)
There have been several threads on this subject, and for the most part all I am doing is reposting several of my ideas into one thread. I’ve tweaked them somewhat, but my main goal is to present a possible way that the various problems botting poses can be solved, without requiring a large investment of time and new code on the part of the developers. (We all know they have a lot on their “to-do” list already)
My idea would solve the botting imbalance problem that the Xp-Tweaking thread phaserlight started brings up. http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9071
The idea also addresses the silly slowness of XP gain at high level in the superbots needed thread that Deku posted http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9033 and the basic form of the idea was one I first posted there.
The first part of my suggestion is to drastically increase the XP gained from killing guardians, and separate the current advanced combat mission into a medium combat and a “new” advanced combat.
The beginner combat would remain the same, having lists of 5 bots
Medium combat would require you to kill 4 bots from the following list, in order of XP value: Artemis collectors, Ty-Corp Assaults, Valent assaults, Aputech-5 guardians (I think these are the weakest guardians aren’t they?), Prosus assaults, and become available at combat level 2.
The “new” Advanced combat would include the rest of the guardians and the den-tek assault, which would fall somewhere in the middle XP wise, the advanced combat would become available at combat level 6, and require you to kill 5 bots per XP award.
The weakest guardian on the list would have an XP value of a bit less than the prosus assault, but the rest of the guardians would be worth more as you got more and more dangerous bots.
For every 5 combat levels higher than the point where the mission becomes available you are, it adds 2 bots to the list. Thus a player with level 7 combat doing the medium has to kill 6 bots, not 4, he/she can then switch to advanced and only have to kill 5 bots, albeit of a harder type.
This rest of this suggestion draws on the fact that IMO a MMO needs to have multiplayer aspects become more and more prevalent as you progress in the game, and at this time vendetta doesn’t really do that.
The second part of the solution would be to Change the way group combat missions work to encourage players to go botting in a group. The reward for completing a list of bots on a group mission would be increased by 10%-25% over what the single player reward is. The exact amount of increase would be determined by the number of players in the group, I would propose the following:
1-3 group members, 10% increase
4-5 group members, 15% increase
6-7 group members, 20% increase
8 group members, 25% increase.
The number of bots on a list for a group mission would be based on the highest level player in the group. It would be half the number of bots s/he would have to kill on the same mission doing it alone, times the number of players in the group, plus a full single player list
Or, in formula form; (1/2[List] X [players in group]) + [List]
[List] is the number of bots that the highest level person in the group would have to kill if s/he took the mission as a single player mission.
This would encourage players to get together as a group to go after bots, (its more profitable to do it as even a 2 person group than it is to bot individually as long as both players are similar in level) because it is more XP reward to go after the bots as a group, and because there are more bots worth killing for XP, higher level players would be able to advance levels faster.
I really like your ideas, they incorporate a lot of different issues and raps the nicely together with a simple solution.
The only critique that I see is that it seems to me that your scale for giving the beginner/meduim/advanced combat is based on a level of 1-9 not 1-16, I would alter it to reflext the maximum level possible, ie. 1-5(small), 6-10(medium), 11-16(advanced), but that if you killed a bot that was higher then the highest in your mission list that you would receive a bonus combat xp like you do now with the current advanced combat mission, plus whatever you would normally receive for killing the highest level bot in your current list.
Reason I say spread it out is because with your new additions to group botting and xp bonuses for more group members, you should be pulling in much more xp and thus would advance faster and it would be less of a chore and so I could see people reaching 9-10 rather fast, which is not a bad thing, the devs just need to get cracking on upper end content other then pvp.
The only critique that I see is that it seems to me that your scale for giving the beginner/meduim/advanced combat is based on a level of 1-9 not 1-16, I would alter it to reflext the maximum level possible, ie. 1-5(small), 6-10(medium), 11-16(advanced), but that if you killed a bot that was higher then the highest in your mission list that you would receive a bonus combat xp like you do now with the current advanced combat mission, plus whatever you would normally receive for killing the highest level bot in your current list.
Reason I say spread it out is because with your new additions to group botting and xp bonuses for more group members, you should be pulling in much more xp and thus would advance faster and it would be less of a chore and so I could see people reaching 9-10 rather fast, which is not a bad thing, the devs just need to get cracking on upper end content other then pvp.
well, I actually based it on equipment spread.
Beginner is 1-3, and it should stay that way. collectors get EXTREMELY boring in a big hurry, and nothing you do is gonna make them a challenge.
Please note however that both medium and advanced remain viable missions indefinitely, its just that at combat levels 7 and 12 you add 2 bots to the medium list size, and at combat 11 you add 2 bots to the advanced list size. This still leaves you fighting less bots than you do currently at level 8, and the reward would be higher.
Beginner is 1-3, and it should stay that way. collectors get EXTREMELY boring in a big hurry, and nothing you do is gonna make them a challenge.
Please note however that both medium and advanced remain viable missions indefinitely, its just that at combat levels 7 and 12 you add 2 bots to the medium list size, and at combat 11 you add 2 bots to the advanced list size. This still leaves you fighting less bots than you do currently at level 8, and the reward would be higher.
I like the incentive for group work, it would help make the universe feel more full, because people would actively seek to form teams.
Very good ideas.
I would add the following (forgive me if it was already suggested, I do not have the time to verify atm):
replace the *bonus for a special bot* (exploitable and not really fun) by a substantial time out bonus (*you will have a special bonus if you destroy x bots in 5:00 minutes*)
It could help turning botting into a challenge rather than work.
I would add the following (forgive me if it was already suggested, I do not have the time to verify atm):
replace the *bonus for a special bot* (exploitable and not really fun) by a substantial time out bonus (*you will have a special bonus if you destroy x bots in 5:00 minutes*)
It could help turning botting into a challenge rather than work.