@ Sapience

[Gladgilrian]

While its nice to see Sapience posting about the issue directly, frankly its too late. Fix it now fine but a lot of damage has been done.

Regardless tip of the hat for the reply, its getting harder and harder for people to proclaim blue names dont engage the community.

It wouldn't be too late if they were retroactively stripped of rank and gear/skills, and of course, audacity. As for changing the CoC, it's already in there, unintended game play. Please enforce the CoC.

[Grishmack]

It wouldn't be too late if they were retroactively stripped of rank and gear/skills, and of course, audacity. As for changing the CoC, it's already in there, unintended game play. Please enforce the CoC.

I completely agree with this. If you didn't earn your rank by spending the countless hours that others did the "right" way then how do you deserve to have those shiny emblems? (I recall the 40-50k renown spikes on The Black Apendage of Sauron website...)

I know the emblems are digital code but that doesn't mean you didn't earn them if you got them as intended

[Selebrimbor]

To make them ashamed, you should make a new rank - Dishonoured or Traitor or something like that. It should be a mark of cheating with icon for rank on place where the icon for rank goes, so everyone could see that and that would probably do the thing, because people won't invite them to groups/fellowships. And I have an idea for tracking down the rank farmers. It should show all players, both creeps and freeps on map, and when a GM monitoring the situation sees disbalance of concentration of freeps and creeps (and their ranks (freavers)), they should go there and see the situation. That's my opinion and idea, and you don't have to agree but please read.

Heh, like a permanent title. Such and Such, the Dishonoured.

[Grolmog]

Once we have that in place we will start to take a look at appropriate action to take against those players. And yes, very lengthy and possibly lifetime bans are a very real possibility.

What this action turns out to be is key to whether this will have the desired effect or not (although obviously just the fact it’s being looked at is much appreciated).


It seems to me that there is only one punishment that must be meted out to people determined to have fight-clubbed infamy/renown in order for this to have any real effect, and that is the stripping of that infamy/renown.


A lengthy ban, followed by coming back to play with the full rank and attendant benefits gained through prior clubbing would be pointless, however long that ban happens to be. On the other hand, I would not be in favour of lifetime bans for this activity: I don’t want to see anyone denied the pleasure they get from RP’ing in the Pony or running instances with their Kin just because they cheated in the side-game that is PvMP.


All that needs to be done to discourage this activity is to make it so that the benefit from doing it is nullified once you’re caught.


Whether that is through the stripping of all ranks back to 0 or just through rolling back rank to the point before "obviously-dodgy" Infamy/Renown-gain began is a tricky decision that would have to be made, but either would stop fight-clubbing. Personally, I would be happy if only the Infamy/Renown gained unfairly were removed, but that might be hard to adjudicate and implement.


Limiting punishments to removal of unfairly gained infamy/renown would also circumvent the “I only clubbed when I though it was OK, I don’t think I should be banned for doing something I thought was legit” argument.

___________________________

One thing that I would dearly like to see if this does come to pass, and I think would win Turbine a massive amount of gratitude from the community, is the retro-active stripping of ranks from people who have already engaged in clubbing and secured an unfair advantage. Stopping it in the future would be extremely helpful and greatly appreciated, but it would not lessen the annoyance people would feel when they saw that Rank 15 guy running around who clubbed his way from 0-15 in a month just before Turbine began taking action.


I think any action limited to prevention of fight-clubbing in the future will likely earn Turbine a fairly lukewarm “Nice, they finally did the right thing” from the community.


But retroactively punishing those who have already cheated will earn them a hearty “Yes! See? Turbine did always care about us PvMPers!”.


That kind of good will is probably worth the effort to make this happen, so go for it Turb!


And thanks for the dialogue Sapience.

[ssSteele]

Sapience, are you able to answer for me if third party softwares used to execute the same command across several open clients is allowed by turbine or will a system also be put in place to track this kind of behavior to preventing multi boxing?

Part of the reason as I'm seeing it is farming has gotten out of hand to the point that turbine is investigating ways to track and punish that kind of behavior so it's my opinion that given enough time multi boxing will get out of hand as well. I can just imagine a person controlling 6 clients turning into a person controlling 24 or more clients though I am not familar with the specifics concerning third party programs enabling to preform multi boxing. I picture it as instead of the below picture having the intent to farm would it be not only possible but allowed by turbine through use of a third party software to turn the below picture into a multi box?

[Graycient]

As an example, when some servers started hosting 1v1 fights where other's weren't allowed to interfere the number of reports of 'fight clubbing' and 'rank farming' went through he roof. However, it really wasn't. Should we have banned an action we didn't intend, but that were not actually rank farming and cheating? Probably not.

Yeah probably not.

But to your current qestion, and that thread, we are looking at ways to track those who are taking advantage of this system in ways we did not intend. Once we have that in place we will start to take a look at appropriate action to take against those players. And yes, very lengthy and possibly lifetime bans are a very real possibility.

What about friends to like to fight eachother all day long but don't mind if people interrupt them? Could this form of 1v1 be bannable? If so I think that's a little ridiculous. After-all it's their business who they do and do not choose to fight. Would if the two friends just enjoy fighting eachother and learning new rotations and their skills well by fighting just eachother? Maybe they're only playing the game to play with eachother, as they are friends IRL too...


Don't make it bannable. That's stupid. Just strip them of their rank and send em home with a hanky.

Look, Sapience, I think Turbine should think about this carefully. Maybe make it against the rules for someone to use a boxer to farm. But only 1v1? That's just a sad rule. I mean really. Someone farming 2+? THAT should be against the rules.

[mad_ox1]

I don't think that any rational, reasonable people are complaining about actual 1v1 fighting.

The issue is with farming, and farming only. It does not matter if it is one or one hundred farmed characters.

If you can't tell the difference between these two very obviously different things, you might want to work on your critical thinking and reasoning.

[Rhedry]

Rank Farming isn't really hard to spot... it looks pretty much like this. (it ends at 3:04)

I could care less if the same 2 people (or more) wanted to 1v1 for 8 hours straight... at least they are trying to fighting back.

[Exion_Blade]

Wow....
Yes that's horrific.
And totally solvable...

[Nynwen]

Sry Sapience, but you could have said nothing as well as this..

If we be honest you didn't really say anything and your answer isn't a real statement in my opinion.

[BrittainTheCommie]

I don't think you guys are reading Sapience's message correctly.

[Gladgilrian]

Yeah probably not.


What about friends to like to fight eachother all day long but don't mind if people interrupt them? Could this form of 1v1 be bannable? If so I think that's a little ridiculous. After-all it's their business who they do and do not choose to fight. Would if the two friends just enjoy fighting eachother and learning new rotations and their skills well by fighting just eachother? Maybe they're only playing the game to play with eachother, as they are friends IRL too...


Don't make it bannable. That's stupid. Just strip them of their rank and send em home with a hanky.

Look, Sapience, I think Turbine should think about this carefully. Maybe make it against the rules for someone to use a boxer to farm. But only 1v1? That's just a sad rule. I mean really. Someone farming 2+? THAT should be against the rules.

Diminishing returns kicks in after awhile, so if you have partaken in this you would know that. I would think turbine is aware of that mechanic and wouldn't take steps against this situation.

[Phakdush]

I don't think you guys are reading Sapience's message correctly.

You mean its just rhetoric to placate the baying mob, or at least thats how I read it.

In fact I was thinking that Sapience would probably do well in politics.

[Daec]

Sapience, are you able to answer for me if third party softwares used to execute the same command across several open clients is allowed by turbine or will a system also be put in place to track this kind of behavior to preventing multi boxing?

Part of the reason as I'm seeing it is farming has gotten out of hand to the point that turbine is investigating ways to track and punish that kind of behavior so it's my opinion that given enough time multi boxing will get out of hand as well. I can just imagine a person controlling 6 clients turning into a person controlling 24 or more clients though I am not familar with the specifics concerning third party programs enabling to preform multi boxing. I picture it as instead of the below picture having the intent to farm would it be not only possible but allowed by turbine through use of a third party software to turn the below picture into a multi box?

First off, that's impressive.

Second, the problem is generally people do not use software to execute across multiple clients as that is against the ToS. However they use hardware, a simple wireless keyboard configured to send commands to different clients is what most people use, so i've been told. If i'm not mistaken as i don't have time to look it up the ToS states in so many words you may not use software that allows 1 key stroke to send more than 1 command (a lot of people that armor swap would be guilty of this most likely) but none the less using the keyboard setup hitting the 1 key sends one command but to multiple clients (characters) so they aren't technically breaking any rules.

[Jeepers]

First off, that's impressive.

Second, the problem is generally people do not use software to execute across multiple clients as that is against the ToS. However they use hardware, a simple wireless keyboard configured to send commands to different clients is what most people use, so i've been told. If i'm not mistaken as i don't have time to look it up the ToS states in so many words you may not use software that allows 1 key stroke to send more than 1 command (a lot of people that armor swap would be guilty of this most likely) but none the less using the keyboard setup hitting the 1 key sends one command but to multiple clients (characters) so they aren't technically breaking any rules.

Now here is something that I would like to know, in this specific case, would the freeps in this picture also be "banned" or "stripped of rank" for killing these freavers? You would think not, but what if the person controlling all of those freavers decided to keep moving them out of the rez circle for hours on end, you know for a fact that there would be people there killing them. And I guarantee you too would also kill them at least a few times (especially since fights would start to gravitate around said area as creeps try to stop freeps etc, at which point accusations would start flying about whos helping the farmers vs just wanting fights because other people are there etc etc)

If multiboxing isn't against ToS, which it clearly is not, then the freavers in question would not be to blame for their actions no? since the argument would be made that its kind of hard for him to fight back effectively when having to mouse over so many characters. Yet farming would insue.

[astalyn]

It's a topic we've kept an eye on, but have not responded to for a number of reasons. primarily is that we've seen people report this falsely in an attempt to grief others and turn GMs into a weapon to use against other players. Tracking and proving actually exploits is not as easy as most may think. We're also very aware that often times PvMP players enact their own 'code of conduct' that doesn't match with ours.

As an example, when some servers started hosting 1v1 fights where other's weren't allowed to interfere the number of reports of 'fight clubbing' and 'rank farming' went through he roof. However, it really wasn't. Should we have banned an action we didn't intend, but that were not actually rank farming and cheating? Probably not.

But to your current qestion, and that thread, we are looking at ways to track those who are taking advantage of this system in ways we did not intend. Once we have that in place we will start to take a look at appropriate action to take against those players. And yes, very lengthy and possibly lifetime bans are a very real possibility.

I am very impressed. Thank you. +respect

I don't follow how these players could have been "honest" or "good" when they chose to participate in rank farming simply because Turbine didn't enforce rules about it...the PvP community itself denounces farming, and even Kelsan said that he considered it an exploit.

I don't think that any rational, reasonable people are complaining about actual 1v1 fighting.

The issue is with farming, and farming only. It does not matter if it is one or one hundred farmed characters.

If you can't tell the difference between these two very obviously different things, you might want to work on your critical thinking and reasoning.

This & this.

[Zanishi]

I have been trying not to keep any interest in these threads but since +Sapience actually spoke about it and I am now apart of the player council I'll give my two cents....

First farming in itself isn't as game devastating as ANYONE proclaims... yes I know it can be considered annoying, demoralizing, shameful, and even embarrassing, but understand as best you can that a play style such as this (especially when not used against anyone) is harmless and is only a state of mind that creates the conflict.... I have proven this with a social experiment I performed on my server... Multi-boxing however can effect others especially when done like in the screenshot.... It effects population buffs and people can even use it to grief players... both things that should be frowned upon... although in my experience i loved any opportunity I got to kill a multi-boxer...

This game has always been a huge part of time put in = greater ability.... be it rank, raiding, LI's, etc.... all this says is that if you put in time you deserve an advantage.... and all farming has done is take that time and make it a smaller part of the equation... which is not different then having a high level healer follow you around making it easier and take less time to level up or do deeds....

Argue it all you want but if you play to PvP and not the politics then you would never notice...

On the other hand regarding the upcoming changes and +Sapience's comment there more I think then meets the eye...

There's two things I heard will be going on soon that effects farming....
1) is the new launcher will make it more difficult to multi box on a single machine...
2) is the leaderboards are being taken down as we move to a new forum but also makes it impossible to track players....

1 might be just a coincidence that's going along with a new launcher.... but it also might be a deliberate way to slow down multi-boxing...

2 on the other hand could just be the sad side effect of new forums... but it could also mean that they are trying to protect peoples privacy and eliminate unnecessary harassment calls... but it could also be a way for them to cut down excess expenses or even free up server resources....

What i see out of these things might be different then what others see... but until things are said and done we are all left to theorize what we would like... for example some believe that the complaints about farming have led to some magical cover up where no one can track farmers and turbines hoping everyone gets ostrich syndrome. Others want to believe that turbine is deliberately and slowly removing aspects that make farming possible and eventually ban those responsible...

I think that the new forums have been begged for, for quite some time now and we were just announced the sad side effect of it... I also think the new launcher is because the current one is completely unstable and cant close the program normally and it effecting multi-boxing is the side effect of it... I also think the punishments spoken toward these issues will be more aimed at multi-boxers as such shown in the screenshot... but the thing about all those issues is proving them without ever having the risk of effecting innocent people is next to impossible...

For example for farming:

As an example, when some servers started hosting 1v1 fights where other's weren't allowed to interfere the number of reports of 'fight clubbing' and 'rank farming' went through he roof. However, it really wasn't. Should we have banned an action we didn't intend, but that were not actually rank farming and cheating? Probably not.

An example of multi-boxing can be where lets say my daughter wants to join in on me playing the game... She is too young to do anything on her own but I could simply make her follow me and set up the keys so that target forwarding would allow her to play right along side... this looks like multi-boxing but in reality its family time at home...

Even when I reread +Sapience's words I see how when he speaks of punishment, he says it towards exploits, not farming....

ANYWAYS that is just my two cents... I have no actual knowledge of any of this or represent anyone... I am just theorizing what will be done like all of you... please excuse my grammar and spelling as all of this is being done on my phone...

[Christian.S]

I dont see how Turbine can implement any rules against farming. Whether it be a violation or not. To me the release of the 100% infamy/renown gain via LOTRO store is as much a violation of the ranking system as farming. How can Turbine condemn one action and praise the next?

Its this players opinion that our pvp is beyond any real effort to not be exploited for what ever reasons. I am disappointed to say the least.

We have a tracking system of sorts. A link I go to everyday to see players progress. That will be gone soon. Anyone with half a brain can immediatley see who the farmers are. Also now who buys the infamy/renown gain store item.

What I once enjoyed is being manipulated and maligned by players and Turbine.


Splay

[mad_ox1]

Now here is something that I would like to know, in this specific case, would the freeps in this picture also be "banned" or "stripped of rank" for killing these freavers?

Those Freeps and Freeps or Creeps like them are exactly the ones who should be "banned" from the above picture they are the ones farming. The Freever train is getting farmed, not there to kill Freeps via mass attack. You can be quite sure one of the Freeps (or a friend) is the one controlling the Freever train, bringing it to those specific Freeps for them to farm.

[xmorzan]

I don't think that any rational, reasonable people are complaining about actual 1v1 fighting.

The issue is with farming, and farming only. It does not matter if it is one or one hundred farmed characters.

If you can't tell the difference between these two very obviously different things, you might want to work on your critical thinking and reasoning.

^this 100%

If it is possible, Turbine should just lower the character's level to 1 and make them start over.

[Wartober]

I have been trying not to keep any interest in these threads but since +Sapience actually spoke about it and I am now apart of the player council I'll give my two cents....

I heard a member of the player council farmed his rank. Wow. You are that guy, eh? Seriously how better can we typify the failure that is this council that to put an avowed rank farmer on it. Not only that, but when I googled you to see if it was true, I found that you created a tribe specifically for rank farming; and you trolled the hell out of your server while doing it.

I also heard that this is actually your second account and your first one was banned.

And then in searching for proof of your farming antics I found that you belong to a racist and homophobic website related to lotro?

Good going Sapience; nice pick.

[Wartober]

I heard a member of the player council farmed his rank. Wow. You are that guy, eh? Seriously how better can we typify the failure that is this council that to put an avowed rank farmer on it. Not only that, but when I googled you to see if it was true, I found that you created a tribe specifically for rank farming; and you trolled the hell out of your server while doing it.

I also heard that this is actually your second account and your first one was banned.

And then in searching for proof of your farming antics I found that you belong to a racist and homophobic website related to lotro?

Good going Sapience; nice pick.

I just got infracted for this. OMG its against the terms of service to tell the truth about a member of the council?

Here's another... I was JUST told this in vent. The tribe this guy belongs too, its leader and at least one other member was banned for committing credit card fraud against turbine!!!!!

[Cillion]

I just got infracted for this.

And you most likely will for this too Talking about moderation is against the rules.
As is calling out other players,truth or not...

Its part of Turbine`s Protect the cheater/exploiter Programm
jokes aside,calling out others for their ingame actions etc is against the rules,thats nothing new,unfortunately that protects such people aswell..

I dont know about your other claims,but the known farmer in the council is a very bad choice PR wise.. But who didnt expect something like this?

[Sapience]

I just got infracted for this. OMG its against the terms of service to tell the truth about a member of the council?

Here's another... I was JUST told this in vent. The tribe this guy belongs too, its leader and at least one other member was banned for committing credit card fraud against turbine!!!!!

No, but I recommend you read the community guidelines before posting again. Multiple violations in a single post seem to suggest you haven't.