Erm the majority of ahunt scripts are not against the rules, they are perfectly legal. Any automated script is legal as long as you do not automaticly move. For influencing especially this can be used for afking (and with only 1 extra trigger one can afk influence guards for hours). In normal hunting you can afk perfectly if you are following someone. So they are exactly the same.

Sadhyra's auto-moves, which is my only gripe with that particular script.

Okay. I admit it. I hate aetherhunting because it's been encouraging people from all the organizations to get together, regardless of enemy status because nine times out of ten they're too lazy to check that sort of thing. There. Happy now?

to the first issue her when she uses it

for the second that is an RP problem you can fix

While those scripts may be 'illegal', it's easy enough for someone to actually sit and pay attention as they're doing their thing, pretty much negating any chance of them getting caught (though, I do find the particular example of an illegal script being used amusing, for my own reasons).

As I said earlier, dealing with AFKers via mechanics is just a really suboptimal solution. And if I really wanted to AFK aetherbash, it's as simple as just making a trigger to detect anything from a member of the administration and then playing really obnoxious sounds to get my attention - unless, of course, they use a pmote and I don't respond in some way to it. And then it's as simple as 'I missed it in the spam, blah blah blah.' You just can't go this route. It's more a detriment to those playing by the rules than it is those AFKing while aetherbashing, and that's not, apparently, what the intended effect was meant to be.

In the end, it's better to spend an extra couple minutes manually checking for AFKers than trying to implement a solution via mechanics that will ultimately not handle the overall problem.

This seems pretty accurate.

Maybe all methods of XP gain should be nerfed into the ground, including of course the human bonus, divine favors, achievements, and any other possible bonus. We can all just kill vermin to get Demigod, and then everyone will be equally miserable.

I think Xavius already covered this one but there are a couple of different ways to look at this.

Why do people AFK influence, AFK bash or AFK aetherspace?
1. Because if they were not AFK, they would have to be paying attention
2. Because it's boring to pay attention to it
3. Because even if they were paying attention to it, they would continue to accrue experience and gold at the exact same rate as if they are not paying attention to it owing to the simple, repetitive mechanical nature of the activity
4. Because they are unlikely to get caught and punished

Notice how the fourth is contingent on the other three. It's the "symptom" issue. There are several reasons it is even a symptom issue rather than a non-issue:

A. (Some) people enjoy non-AFK versions of these activities in spite of point 2, but only given that they do not have to feel like they're "working" at something that other people are getting free.
B. They don't want people of a certain "age" or "experience" or something having access to their perks

at this point I forget where I was going with the whole post and need to get back to my exam, but FWIW point 3 is the real culprit here and if you want to address it either for reason A or because you think reason B is valid for some reason, your best bet would be to figure out why perks deserve to be tied to something which inherently suffers from point 3 in a way I don't think it's possible to fix, and then figure out if there aren't any better ways of dealing with it like arbitrary age limitations rather than arbitrary grinding limitations.

Yes I'm aware that it's not as simple as a game design decision in Lusternia because we legitimately have world immersion to respect more than most, but given the suspicious nature of some of the motivations behind the complaints some honest consideration of other ways to deal with the issue are probably in order. Also the boat has long since sailed on that one, but I guess there's always the hope that playerbase rotation will eventually take care of it.

Exactly what Shiri said. I wasn't saying that I'd rather aetherhunt because it's less boring (although you could argue that I can throw up a gunner script and read a book or something, glancing up occasionally), I'm arguing against people saying that Demigod should be only for those people who have the stamina to get it. Questing is fun but gives crap exp. Bashing is boring, aetherhunting is boring, influencing is boring. If we fix that, we fix the afk problem.

Not necessarily. What you may consider fun or boring, others may consider the exact opposite. Just because it fixes the perceived problem for a handful of people doesn't mean it makes it fine or great for anyone else. And there's nothing keeping people from considering it fun and then still AFKing it up while doing the activity. There's just no simple fix to cater to all in this particular situation.

I don't think "bashing is boring" is a 'perceived' problem. It's certainly a problem for me...

I find this pretty hilarious, as aetherspace is back where it was before. It goes from being horrendously terrible, to awesomely great, to great, to omgwtf.

I tip my hats to you, administration. You made something better than it was before, and then made it more horrible than it was before the buffs.

Wrong. Wrong. Shiri has it right. I'll tell you why people afk bash/influence/aetherbash at all ever. It's because that person has so many hours per day (per week, per month) to play games or do other things for entertainment. That person wants essence, wants gold, wants experience. That person justifies in his or her mind that the risk of being caught doing said activities is outweighed by the benefits of being able to gain essence, gold, or experience for periods of time that exceed the time he has to play the game. That's it. It's purely reward. Besides, I'm very much unsure how you're going to take what you consider the boring part of bashing/influencing/aetherbashing away. No mud I've played, or MMO, has successfully changed the basic mechanics of how the formula works. They put different window dressing on it, sure, and that staves off the repetitiveness for a bit, but the underlying concept is the same. If you figure it out, do go pitch it to a few designers with some cash, because you're likely to make some good money off of it.

And for every person you find that says bashing is boring, I'll find one that says they like it. It's a totally subjective thing and you're not looking past your own viewpoint which is, honestly, a bit not the norm. If you're a 180 years old, and have been playing that long, only being 77 tells me you really aren't trying for demi or any high level. Most anyone who has played this game will say that bashing/influencing to at least 80 is fine and not hard at all, requiring only a modicum of dedication. Plenty of people do it all the time without achievements, aetherbashing, or being human. Not to minimize your efforts, but your situation does not in the slightest represent what can be accomplished in that time frame with just bashing and influencing.

They have mad skillz, yo.

I honestly really don't care what happens, but I do take issue with people saying that Demigod is something that should try your willpower. I don't think having aetherspace be crazy xp harms the game because more people can get demi. The afk is the issue, not the rate of gain itself. And I'll continue to say that people do not afk things they enjoy doing, whether it be bashing, aetherhunting, influencing, or anything else.

I'm not really hearing any truly compelling arguments about why people obtaining Demigod faster is a bad thing for this game, besides perhaps a handful of people getting indignant about 'working hard' for it.

I'm waiting for Estarra to go back to step one of the Kialkarkea flowchart of EXP Increase, and this time make it so quests yield a high amount of EXP. I'm sure people will cry about that fast.

Man, working hard for one of the highest achievements in the game. The audacity!

Anyway, raising quest xp wouldn't have nearly the same effect as:

1. Quests are already fought over. (The ones that would be worth the xp, at least)
2. Xp only goes to one person.
3. They all have relatively long reset times.
4. Most all are in areas that anyone can get to and jump you.
5. People can stuff your quest up completely by killing one thing, stealing one thing, ect.

Go for it and raise quest exp. You'll just see more quest griefing.

The way the EXP Cycle has turned so many times, the 'highest achievement in the game' schtick has been worn out and trivialized. It no longer honestly feels like a valid point to me. Especially when that 'highest achievement' happens to grant access to another system that has some bearing on the stature of your city. Oh of course, of course, Ascendants holding it happens to be a better idea or whatever.. but what about cities who don't have Ascendants? Sure, MOST Demigods don't have a bearing on Domoths or aren't involved with them - but what about people who want to get involved with it in the actual Realm?

Are you telling me that those people have to suffer through the grind of 1 to 100 without a fast track to it - despite investing heavily very likely in the game - just because a few people are of the player-conceived notion that getting Demigod fast is 'bad' for the game and should always be treated as 'one of the highest achievements in the game'?

Sorry, but as I said, I feel that the way the EXP gain systems have been tweaked so much and milked so many times.. well, it's made that 'highest achievement' seem more like a waiting game and less like an achievement. Honestly, I don't think running a script to auto-influence or auto-aether or repeatedly mashing two or three keys is an achievement in any game (be it graphical or not).. and just because a handful of people want to put themselves under a complete illusion that it was an 'achievement' doesn't mean the rest of those looking to obtain the perks or the entry in to whatever system have to suffer. If they want internet trophies, they can go play XBox or PS3.

I still felt a great sense of achievement for earning it "the hard way." The game has also become a lot more fun again since becoming a demigod.

However, the "cat out of the bag" (or "genie out of the bottle" or however you want to phrase it) argument is a weak one.

Let's crank up the XP on everything, turn everyone into demigods, and then see how long it takes to fix all the issues that come to light! Woot!

As an aside, part of the problem with aspace as it is now might just be related with bugs. Some exploration has revealed that vortexes seem to refuse to spawn at all in certain aether-terrain types, while they will spawn readily in others.

As has been mentioned, the problem is autobotting (i.e., setting up a system where you can go to bed and wake up the next day with tons of xp, gold, etc.). Whether it's IRE, WoW, or Facebook, no game with any integrity thinks that's okay. We simply don't have the admin to spot check on a regular basis and, in case you forget, these guys are volunteers and asking them to spot check and then punish those who are caught is NO FUN (especially since they hear the same pleading excuses over and over--i.e., I went to the bathroom, I just fell asleep, my system crashed and I didn't know I was online, etc.). Thus, spot checking really isn't an option. Since we can't do CAPTCHA (heh, I like the idea though!), we will continue to work on mechanical means to dissuade people from autobotting. I'm not sure what's so "omgwtf" about the slivven, but it seems to me that they are working as intended--people are still aetherhunting and there appears to be less incentive autobot. If you think that's wrong, give us ideas to tweak the system or otherwise mechanically dissuade autobots. If you have ideas to make aetherbashing more interesting, that's fine too--but one person's pleasure is another person's poison. I happen to find ratting to be meditative!

I don't mind entertaining upping xp for quests but that's really far afield of the subject.

Could you be more specific? We can certainly look into bugs!

Maybe the complaints about demigod and experience in general could be removed to their own thread?

Regarding the slivvens... definitely easy to get initially frustrated by changes, but I do feel like they are at least willing to listen to complaints and consider changes so maybe we could try to stay constructive here and bitch privately. I see a couple of people in this thread zomg'ing that I know for a fact haven't been out on a hunt to deal with the slivvens yet, so...

One of the problems I'm having so far is that the initial passive damage kicks in too quickly. It's a pretty significant difference between no damage and light damage. While it may take a significant amount of time to reach moderate damage from light damage just from the passive slivven(s) in the room, the negative effects begin almost immediately.

This was presented as an impediment that people would have to deal with eventually, or else the build up would become overwhelming. Unfortunately, that's not the case at present, as even light damage on the command chair or grid has to be handled immediately, or things go bad quite quickly.

Light damage on the chair from passive slivvens slows you down, resulting in direct hits from beasts, which results in more direct damage hits to the chair or grid. Throw in room aeon when people try to come help clear this up at either the grid or the chair, and it just gets silly -- it's too much.

Edit: Regarding vortexes not spawning, that seems to have been corrected. I was able to spawn vortexes in other terrain types today that I couldn't yesterday.