Stop allowing automation.

Even with aetherhunting.

Will make the game more challenging overall.

That means your walking.

Your fighting.

Can you handle passive ents + passive effects (phantoms, reality) + shrine effects + demesne effects doing it manual?

No you can not. You'd have to change everything.

A real suggestion: fix denizen resistances to echo Talan from above. Divinus bashing is far and away better then any excorable bashing, and it's not even close.

I'm not sure how that would be accomplished, and combat would become pretty impossible. Also, some classes would suddenly become much better. Classes that are very good at a single direct thing would melt against affliction spam classes and so on.

I agree that there should be a newbie system free for multiple clients. I'm not a real coder, I can't really do much from scratch, but a basic sipper and firstaid based system would do. Firstaid in and of itself is not really comparable to a basic system. It helps, but eh....

You both misunderstand. There is a difference between a system to help with curing and straight up automation where you walk for yourself and bash/influence yourself. This doesn't have anything to do with a system because a system can't (or rather shouldn't), fight for you. You're still involved in the fight and you can't simply get up and walk away in the middle of said fight.

For example, Demonnics influencing is automation to a point that seems acceptable; you still have to make it start when you walk into a room, and it doesn't move around for you to keep influencing. It is just that you can't get up and walk away from your computer and have it garner xp and gold for you.

The problem is that there's no way you can tell from an admin's POV, all they see is what the player (or system) inputs into Lusternia, which looks (as it should) perfectly fine. How can you tell between the commands inputted by a person and inputted by a system? You can't.

You also can't just kick it off and watch movies for 12 hours while it auto-influences (or bashes) you to the top of a weekly experience challenge... so you're still technically at your computer if someone wanders by, but you're not doing any input at all to make this happen.

The moment you have a system that automatically moves you from one room to another you have a problem. It's just not enforced, so it gets used all over the place.

My favourite is when the people use it to catch all the Christmas gnomes without ever having to type a command, just trigger the drop message to start a run around the Basin. How fun for everyone!

But the people that mostly engaged in that are dormant now... aren't they? Disallowing, thus making it worse for them, won't give them any incentive for them to come back (and thus "Improve Lusternia").

Yes.

It's not so as if it's hard to just move around on your own to begin with...

But, I love playing with bots!

@shuyin: Yeah, that is the concern I imagine. Though Estarra's made an announce post saying not to do it (I'll dig it up if I need to!). It's pretty obvious who does allow their system to do all the walking bashing and influencing, though.

Quality over quantity, imo.

If you can't make a few aliases to get to where you're going and need to automate the game then IRE is probably not the game for you.

I don't know what do you mean by that actually, IRE has some most relaxed automating rules of all MUDs I know. There are other MUDs that enforce no-automation of any kind much stricter, so your statement is a bit ironic.

As Sojiro just said, a lot of the issue comes from:
1) They have this as a rule,
and
2) They don't enforce it.

This leads to people who want to obey rules being left in the dust by people who don't care because they know they'll get away with it.

Either enforce it or drop it and let everyone do it as per standard policy. We can be a game of bots.

The automation issue is just like the war on drugs, it's overall pointless and the admin should just implement features that make it less preferable to manualling, drop the unrealistic rules, and so on.

I actually think the way automation is handled now is fine. No amount of antibotting code or even policy will be better than an afk check like what's performed on aetherhunts. The problem may be the number of people who are doing heavy automation vs. the gods who enjoy doing afk checks (I'm guessing that they don't).

Open to suggestions on what features these might be!

(We do enforce through spot checks. And people have gotten some harsh punishments--though maybe we should be harsher?)

The problem is how easy it is for people to beat the spot checks if they aren't absolutely stupid. All it does it catch the stupid people, it doesn't stop the abuse (and after people are caught a couple of times, if they even are, they tend to wisen up... which doesn't mean they stop using it, they just sit at the computer while watching TV so if something happens they can respond).

At that point, how do you deal with it as an Administration? You can't 'prove' it, even when they are saying in tells and on clans that they're doing it! Because they can just say they were kidding or whatever, and well... you didn't actually catch them being afk... (personally, if they're saying that they are watching movies while influencing or bashing for 12+ hours straight, they're really not paying a lot of attention and I'd use that as an indication that they are abusing the system).

At the same time, they're 100% botting it and not putting in any effort whatsoever, which is extremely unfair to everyone else. Anything that is a 'trial of endurance' can just be dominated, because it takes very little endurance.

The problem is, you have a sliding scale of effectiveness. We don't have to imply the naming of names to think of people who received about as bad as they could get it barring permanent banning, and just popped right back up in to it. And losing a player isn't an optimal solution in any case.

One thing that could be done is avoiding situations where automation is a natural solution. Xenthos mentioned the gnomes- they basically became "merry christmas to the few who have, sucks to be you, everyone else". As cute as they are with their little parachutes, I much prefer ironbeard, if only because Ironbeard can't be gamed like that. Another solution would be, once someone recieves a gift of some nature or better from a gnome, they cannot receive another until the next cycle of them.

Meaning, people get one, then stop. Not a fraction of the population gets a windfall.

Back on the enforcement front, an option might be actually penalizing the gains received from the activity. Shrubbing wasn't enough to stop afk influencing? Drop them a few levels, or reset their essence to zero. Doing some activity that generates a lot of gold? Take it all, or take credits.

I don't feel we should just throw our hands up and say "fine, automate whatever you wish". Because then the economics of gold and credits, and everything else, starts to react to that to the point that you HAVE to bot to achieve the status quo. And that would, frankly, suck the butt.

Self reporting works generally well for the US tax system. Because, inspite of everything, MOST people are generally honest about the big things. But when people abuse the trust, drop the hammer, go IRS on their butts.

I've made a few suggestions about aetherhunting, since that seems to be the worst of it.

I suggest the longer people are out, there's a chance to have some gnafia portal in with a special "pirate squad". You can have your coders give them special afflictions on a random basis (special clockwork/gnomish gizmos), so that nobody can system it very well, and even add some afflictions that aren't currently on anybody's affliction list. This keeps it in-game and makes it risky to stay out for long periods without paying attention.

Give some examples of afflictions and things you can't system very well, then tell me how you're supposed to do it without the system. Logic puzzles, problems based on visual (non-text visuals, that is) or auditory cues, those are the kind of things systems are bad at and humans are good at. Those don't strike me as things that make sense for a boarding party to do to you.

I havent read all the comments placed, but I thought to suggest what I would like to see mentioned in this special report:

- Druids are currently the weakest archetype to be and for this reason do not have many members in general (especially poor Hartstone). Druids also have 0 personal skills as all their skills are shared. I would like to see a revamp on Druidry in general and perhaps a Tert skill introduced to Druids that is Druid only. I think every class needs at least 1 skill just to themselves that they can mold and fix up to assist in getting the combos they need to work. If Druidry was also split into 2 skills with one for Hartstone and one for Blacktalon, I believe this would also assist overall (but an effective Druid-only Tert is far more needed I believe). Also the idea that Druids can now meld etherwilde and etherglom if they are part of the opposite org is definetly OP -,- . So yes my idea here is to give Druids a complete Revamp (I know how tiring it is) but I think this is the only solution to them.

- As Lusternia has evolved, its first classes and skills have been left behind and the newer more advanced skills have appeared. I feel that this isnt right as certain skills (especially those in communes) could use a bit of a additions in them to bring them in line with the other skills. For example Stag itself has very little appealing within it and it its skills seem very small-time and useless overall. Main point here: I think Communes should have Nature and Totems buffed up and brought into line, and perhaps Wiccans have a replacement for Nature to something else to define them as a unique archetype (not to mention give them more useful overall abilities).

- Villages that have full village feelings are able to be captured in 2-3 minutes. This ruins any chance of opponents attempting to claim it themselves. This code definitely needs to be reworked.

- Hallifax/Gaudiguch need Bard guards badly. I know this cant be helped until the guilds come out but still think this needs to be addressed since it is unfair to them.

- Carving Totems. Communes are unable to take advantage of protecting their entire forests as cities are able to do with Statues. They can only have a limit of totems based on how many Druids they have to bond (which means very few as is since very few people want to BE druids to begin with). Totems are also very easy to be removed, as one just requires the chop skill in environment (very early to get) and they can simply pull down a Totem or tree in 2 whacks. Statues on the other hand need trans Arts and it takes much longer. Also it is FAR more quicker to raise a statue than it is to plant a nut, wait for it to grow and then turn it into a totem.

- Ascendant Godly Melds of Doom: Currently with their required powers, to attempt to break a Ascendant's meld will take 8s of balance (or so) to just simple BREAK 1 room alone. Added to this if the ascendant is close by then there is a chance it fails WITH the 8s balance recovery added. In raid situations and revolts (which we have recently seen with a certain meld), it is simply unbreakable and impossible to fight back against these super melds and simply giving up seems the best option. The idea of "kill the Ascendant" is a nice one but we all know that Ascendant that know what they are doing are not as easy to kill in their own meld as it is to slap around a furrikin :/ . Added to this, the auctioned artifacts which allow you to Flood/Taint/Burn/Cloud a room require 0 balance to use, so a melder may simply Burn and Meld in the same turn. An Ascendant with this arifact also because unbeatable in a meld vs meld fight.

- Brumetower and Choke in general, yes I know this is for envoys but always good to point out the spells that seem to be making players quit Lusternia from frustration.

- Vortex is an extremely easy plane to raid, to the point it really doesnt require much skill to it. I think the structure of Vortex itself needs to change in order that a defense can be somehow actually possible if the whole plane is melded down. We all also know that Fleshpots arent as formidable compared to the other Cosmic Bosses, so they in more danger.

- I saw a suggestion of making Deaths on un-enemied planes have no effective on XP. This seems like a nice idea, but not sure if it would ever go through. Perhaps if it was made that there is no XP loss on prime in general? not sure on this just thought it up (Avenger would still be in effect).

- The Gateways on Etherwilde and Etherglom are NOT affected by distort. This means that if Serenwilde or Glom put up distort on etherwilde/etherglom, then enemies would still be able to easily Enter/Exit archways for no penalty, making the point of Distort useless. I think a 15-20 second penalty while attempting to enter an archway should be placed perhaps?

Annnd that is all I have for now. Hope it helps.

-Only BT who forget Crow can meld etherwilde, HS can't do the same to Glom if they forgot Stag. This has been repeatedly bugged and rejected because it involves something deep within the melder code. I agree that they should just rewrite the thing to prevent this from happening as well though.

-I would like some timestamps of this, because I doubt it takes 8s. By the the auction artifacts speed up eq time on burning/wyrding/etc, they don't make it free. So no, they cannot just burn and meld.

-It's not XP that makes people stop defending, it's morale.

-Gravity already accomplishes what you're trying to do. Sometimes, the onus is on the defenders to hit their web alias before the enemy steps through the archway back to safety. Or you know, set up at the archway.