Pet auto loot? aq3d

It would be more clicking/tapping if AE just removed the loot timer because we don't have a loot all button to clear that list of loot. If we had a loot all button, then it would be just two clicks/taps. This feature would be a "get with the times" feature and it's something no one would mind in the end.

 

When looking at the pros and cons, I'd much prefer a feature where there isn't a loot timer. Again, it's easy to make mistakes when you're in a rush. The other point I haven't made is when you're in a dungeon picking up loot and your team has already advanced to the next part of the dungeon, so that would make it difficult to keep up with, and I'm sure there are other points as well. And if anything, more clicking would probably encourage players to focus more on what they're accepting and declining, which isn't necessarily a bad habit at all.

 

Then it would be better to set it up so you don't have to think too much about it and even if this feature was added, it wouldn't mean everyone is going to use it.

 

It's more of a situational dilemma. Most people wouldn't think much about a particular situation they're in until it actually happens to them. Maybe they don't think they'll end up needing to use a better looting feature, but then maybe they'll encounter an occurrence where they missed a drop or something and wished that the feature was there for them so then they could get the drop that they missed.

I would argue that the feature does actually benefit everyone, but people aren't constantly aware of needing it because it's real use occurs mainly during situational moments. I've had numerous moments where I have missed a drop, and I think the most common moment is farming for Guardian Report at the daily boss map, and traveling to Guardian Tower without picking up the drop, then I end up having to go back to the Daily Boss Map just to wait for the boss again so I can pick up the drop. I'm sure the majority of active players have had moments where they missed a drop and wished that they were able to pick up the drop again, and that's sort of the whole point of revamping the loot mechanic, to make the experience better for players.

 

Such a feature really does scream "situational usefulness" and that exactly what it's going to accomplish. It would compensate for the lack of attention which is caused by many things which there are too many to even begin to list if that was a thing. Maybe people shouldn't be in such a rush so they wouldn't make little mistakes that. I am sure everyone would be fine with having more control over what want to pick up from a loot bag without looking through what's in there, but are we not allowed to make mistakes to learn from even as insignificant as missing out on loot?

Isn't AE working on a new loot system already though? It could include that much need QoL change when it comes to looting. Even though it just says "see what quality items drop", which is kinda odd choice of words when you think about it, there is a possibility that there is going to be more to it considering amount the progress there is still left to it at least when you look at that green bar of progress.

 

Wouldn't matter if people are in a rush since the situation affects all players; the contradiction was that people who spent a lot of time scouring through their loot (people who aren't in a rush) wouldn't be able to pick up everything, because they're thinking about managing their inventory and other things. And even people are forgetful, so they might not constantly be aware that a quest requires picking up a drop since they're used to quest objectives being flagged when killing monsters. The concept of the feature has nothing to do with giving advantage to players rushing through the game; it's all about improving everyone's experience so they don't have to end up repeating mundane tasks all over again.

 

It's very bold of you to assume that everyone possess good inventory management skills. It's really easy to half-ass mundane tasks which does lead to you missing out on something obvious like picking up a quest item because reading the quest text is not something everyone bothers with unfortunately unless it's a daily/repeatable quest they have done many times in which case you don't really need to read it.
AE doesn't really implement anything with 100% efficiency in mind because they don't want their players to zip zoom through their game in a flash and all they want to do is that their players have a fun MMORPG experience which does need adjustments, many adjustments.
A new and improved loot system is something they should consider making and they already have that on the drawing board at least that's what their gameplan suggests.

 

I think if AE's goal was to not let players zoom through the game, they'd focus more on making the game engaging so players aren't discouraged from that, and also removing certain things like the ability to skip cutscenes. Engagement is something that's important, and I guarantee you most players don't want to wait 5 minutes with nothing else to do just for a boss to spawn or read through every single word of a non-important quest or through a boring story. And even the game does lack some other stuff that would keep players engaged, such as item descriptions and flavor texts.

Looting is a completely different issue, with various reasons. You can't really pinpoint the reason why people miss out on loot is because they rushed through the game. Sometimes players even expect that they can go back and get the loot at a later point in time, or they're just trying to focus on other big picture of the game or what they want to do.

For instance, often times, monsters drop craft items or other misc. items, and some players don't care for craft items because they don't plan on crafting anything, just playing through the story. They might not even realize if a monster drops something other than a misc. item, because they're used to seeing monsters drop misc. items all of the time. That doesn't have anything to do with rushing through the game, just decision-making on how they want to play through the game.

Even going to an item like Chewed Mystic Robes (an item you can only get once because the dungeon is available one time), some players might complete the dungeon and choose not to pick up the item, thinking they'll get that item back. Maybe even a new player might miss out on it, because they don't completely understand the loot mechanic since they just got started with the game. Or maybe a returning player plays through revamped areas and miss out on the loot because a) their inventory is full, b) it's been a long time since they've played and their just figuring things out again, c) they don't understand the purpose of the loot, or some completely other reason.

The point is, looting can affect just about any player for just about ANY reason. I don't think AE expects players to stay 100% vigilant on all things, because that's just about impossible to do in an MMORPG.

 

AE does need to work on making AQ3D more engaging and making cutscenes unskipable would be one step, but there should be a check in place to see if the player has went through the cutscene once and then give them the ability to skip it assuming that it's replayable in some way. You are not forced to wait 5 minutes for a boss like that to spawn, you can change server, change room or do something outside the game while waiting.

AE should teach about looting to through the intro because to my knowledge there isn't anything to it unless they updated it. At least have a finger point at a loot bag and have a text say "Click/tap to loot" or something like that and maybe make it so the loot is forced in a way that it drops a helmet so you have to equip that to make progress. Of course AE can't expect players to be alert all the time, but giving a little example about looting during the intro like that can help.

 

Changing servers has become a better alternative to skipping a full wait time since there are now four servers as opposed to two. But because that alternative is there, it pretty much makes boss wait times a pointless feature, and it was never a favorable feature to begin with. Honestly, boss wait times should just be removed entirely... once summer begins and people are forced to wait for Killer Clawg to respawn every 30 minutes or so, more people will come to a realization that they can just switch among the four servers available, and do just that. I know people who've waited so long that they've missed the boss because they end up getting distracted by other things (e.g. busy on a browser or watching TV, microwaving food, etc.), and the excessive boss wait times just makes the gameplay experience bad.

And changing rooms, however, isn't convenient, unless it's a really populated room (usually during the day of release). World Tree, for example, almost always has one room instance, so it's pointless to leave the map and re-enter it. You'd end up just wasting energy by doing that.

Also there aren't always things to do outside the game while waiting. For instance, the game just acts as a memory hog since you're leaving the game open for so long and not actually playing, and the game's just eating memory for other processes on your computer. And if you try to play on mobile and go outside, you might have connection issues and other problems. And you might not even be able to multitask at all on your phone, because you can only leave one application up (and you might get disconnected if you visit another application). It's such an inconvenience, because the player just wants to play, not wait.

And that leaves to a major benefit to auto-looting... picking up items while you're AFK. Imagine just placing your character near where a boss is going to spawn, and being able to pick up loot while other players kill the boss for you. Obviously, this is the sort of thing AE tries to thwart by randomizing spawn locations for bosses since there are players that use macros to do the clicking for them (been an issue with auto-gold farming since Smash Mash farming in the Tech Demo days). But honestly, I would much prefer AFK farming than having to pay attention to my screen (possibly several minutes) just for a boss to spawn.

And that's part of what discourages the game from being a copacetic experience for everyone. There are always people that will do nothing, because the game encourages you to do mundane tasks like waiting or other filler tasks that serve little purpose. Another instance of this are the 20 minute concerts; you get intermittent monsters that don't drop anything useful at all, so you don't bother clearing those monsters at all, so you just wait for the mini-bosses and bosses to spawn to collect their drops. And because you've done the concert many times already, you're just tired of the repetition that you just want to finish crafting stuff. Overall, AQ3D just doesn't offer much fun experience, because it's constantly barring players with bad filler content.

 

Yes, server hopping lets you skip respawn timers which are handy when you dealing with bosses with long respawn timers. Server hopping is pretty much like changing rooms and can be used to do that which I have done many times mostly when I was farming for daily boss area materials. It's better to just which to another server and after defeating a boss most of the time assuming that the respawn timer is long enough.

Auto-looting doesn't seem like a bright idea with that example. That is just straight up leeching which is something AQ3D shouldn't allow and I know it does already happen but this would just turn the autopilot. You are not playing the game so why should you get rewarded for it?

There is a lot of waiting in some parts of the game and it does affect the flow of gameplay. The recent battle concert is a good example.

 

Server hopping does the trick, but it also doesn't always work unless other people cooperate as well. I remember it being somewhat effective during Mogloween, but the cooperation was difficult since there were too many people in the map and a few people ended up going AFK on the other server, and this was mainly for farming the Horseman's sword and also Candy. And the other issue with server hopping is that some players refuse to hop with you, so you end up having to solo a boss (and sometimes losing to that boss a number of times). It really depends on the situation most of the time whether server hopping is the best choice or not.

People can already leech, if they wanted to, and that's just the nature of any MMORPG, especially when there's pointless battles or worse, waiting. I think the waiting part is the most detrimental part of it all, because players end up leaving their character AFK, sometimes never even fighting the boss that they waited for at all, and that itself is separate from actually leeching; it's just taking up space in a room.

Also there's nothing against the game rules about leeching, and there shouldn't be a rule for that enforced at all; it's just the player's choice whether they want to leech or not, and dictating how a player should play the game would ultimately backfire. Sometimes the game gets boring enough that leeching is the option that you prefer. I think the important part is improving the game by not encouraging mundane tasks, so then players actually are interested in the game.

Auto-looting is a bit different. In terms of leeching, I don't think it'll make that much of a difference encouraging more players to leech. Someone would still need to participate and kill the monsters and bosses. If you're AFK and the boss kills you, then auto-looting wouldn't really work in your favor at all, and sometimes players with a huge disdain against leechers will let the boss kill them. Some people will AFK at boss spawn locations no matter what, even without auto-looting being a feature, and that's really just their choice and the nature of an MMORPG.

 

Pointless battles? There are many situations where fighting is mandatory to progress and someone leeching is just going to make that go slower.

Leeching can be considered griefing at least in group situations when running through dungeons. You can loot while you are dead and you can credit by just getting aggro by either pulling a monster or by taking damage from it and being AFK can accomplish both of these when you are near enough. If there is an active room of players farming a boss, you can literally just park your character and get loot without actually contributing to the kill.

 

A lot of battles are pointless though, even if they are required. The problem is that some quests and objectives make things too repetitive that it encourages slower progression (or even cheating in the worse case, which has the opposite of effect, which is encouraging faster progression). This is about the game's psychological influence on a player and their decision, mainly. Even AQWorlds has the same problem that AQ3D does, and it's the main reason why botting is such a problem in that game. And if every botter was banned, what would AQWorlds even be at that point? There's a strong, mutualistic relationship between botters and active players during gameplay. In fact, a lot of active players who themselves don't cheat actually benefit and leech off of the botters' work. And these are usually the active players that just stand in place with only auto-attack, and don't use any of their skills, while the botters automatically use their skills and kill the monsters as fast as possible. Otherwise, a lot of players in AQWorlds might not even bother farming in the first place since there would be less activity and things would be sluggish.

The point is, there's a correlation between how fun a game is, and how much a player is willing to invest in that game. And as sad as it sounds, AQWorlds pretty much does depend on its botter population to keep the game alive, since the botter population creates activity for the real players to leech off from. AQ3D, on the other hand, has struggled throughout the years on gaining traction, and it's done several experimental things like concert events and other events to try to entice new players, even though those experimental efforts usually have a temporary effect. The game just doesn't accommodate for its own sluggishness, and that just deters many players from actually getting to enjoy the game at all and puts psychological stress on both the players who do put in work and the players who don't put in as much work.

And going back to leeching, it doesn't meet any criteria of griefing. Maybe you could consider "playing as slowly as possible" as a reason, but it's extremely difficult to prove intent, especially as other factors exist. And in some ways, I see leeching more as a form of equity rather than equality. Not every player is going to produce the same amount of work or share the same attitude for a game, so of course there will always be people that'll work more or less than others for the same opportunity. That's just fairness, whether one likes it or not.

 

Even if real players can benefit off work that bots do, it's still against ToS and shouldn't be endorsed regardless if it has possibly good effects on the game.

How is it difficult to prove intent that you can use your two eyeballs to witness happening? Sure, players might just only auto attack and not use skills, but they are at least contributing compared to some players who just land one auto attack and wait the rest of the fight.

 

Let's just say that you don't really know why players do what they do. Assumption is a terrible thing to go by, and it's been damaging to the game in the past, because sometimes players do get banned for something they were completely unaware of or never had bad intention for. The past example I remember was a player named Alucard standing on the present that the NPC Blizzy was standing on (this was when most people didn't really realize that you could block Blizzy) and getting banned for it even though the NPC was still partially clickable, and the present itself acted like a lure since people tend to stand on "shiny objects" in the first place. A lot could have been done to mitigate that issue (like adding an invisible wall around the NPC the moment the issue arised) or a simple player kick from the server (without actual punishment) instead of just punishing players, especially for 24 hours or more for minor things. Then there are other bad things to go by to punish players for, such as accepting other people's anecdotal stories and accusations, and this has largely affected streamers like EdwardLepp and other people in the community. Then there was a case of quick assumption where a player was banned for talking about creating a Texas Hold 'Em bot, just because the word "bot" was present; and this could have been prevented by understanding the context. It's really a huge mess altogether, and assumption should never be a reason to punish someone.

But usually, moderators do go by chat log records, about 95% of the time. The moment someone admits intent is when punishment is warranted. I think moderators with less experience are likely to make mistakes though.

 

My example was very straight-lined and there wasn't any doubt, but what you have given as examples are not something you can look at and say "Yes! They did with that intent!" without missing a beat. Yes, it's not good to assume things, but when they are clear signs you can see of such behavior it's hard not to assume.

 

It's still an assumption, and having solid evidence is important for "convicting" a player of some bad intention. Otherwise, it becomes a Player Support issue, and the only solid evidence that they can provide are chat log records. It wouldn't be a good idea to make assumptions, because then it becomes a PR issue.

 

If the chat log records are the only source of solid evidence then it's about to the one who sees such behavior take has to confront that player and create that evidence to convict them by talking to them. It's clearly something that can turn out either way.

 

yes i want auto loot even without pet