I agree! Have SLS for sale at the vendor for 300k (or 500k or whatever) and that will mean it won't be worth it to be tempted to bot farm. N00bs could still farm and sell for 200k so it wouldn't destroy the source of income for them.
Where does the plat come from I wonder?
1. it would end botting, there would just be no more need or desire for people to bot toons because there would be no open market for them
2. you need plat to buy, you have to farm for plat (ie T6) so you would still have to farm for the items you want.
3. it would really only hinder the new player, but they would still be able to sell essences on the open market for plat to buy their crafter items for augs
Botters move to plat. New players get wrecked as they cannot get essences/SLS without plat, which returns to botters farm plat.
I 100% agree that the SLS requirement needs to be addressed. I have no issue with them being required for crafting, but I take exception to the retarded timesink they are since they are farmable in a total of 2 zones. We aren't talking about tiered essences here, where you have to farm CT to make a strike 2 aug, farm T1 to make a strike 3 aug, etc. When you farm your essences, you farm them for the tier that you need them and move on. You NEVER move on from the SLS requirement and you never get a change of scenery to reduce the tedium of farming them. You do NOT get experience farming them, you do NOT get armor drops farming them, you do NOT get appreciable platinum farming them, you do NOT get essences farming them, and you do NOT get experience farming them. (listed twice for emphasis)
And it is slowly being addressed. As Fugitive posted below, I've added a small chance for an SLS to drop from any wisp in the game. I've added a HIGH chance for GLS (1:2 or 1:3) and slightly higher (than the rest of the wisps) SLS drop chance to the Lightbringer in t3. I've also removed the ancient willowisp and placed him in T9 exclusively. His loot tables have been adjusted to be more of a "holy @%@! he spawned!" type of spawn. As you've stated, it's a top heavy experience and this will give the upper end a lottery spawn that can start to slowly start to saturate the upper end with SLS.
If you get rid of SLS so people won't bot farm they'll just find something else to bot farm. You're always going to have these assholes, the best thing that you can do is punish them in some way or another. Yeah I hate farming SLS more than anyone but you either do it or you farm plat and pay someone else to do it. I hate farming essences for strike augs but I'll either do it b/c I have to or I'll farm plat or something else to give to someone who will. Getting rid of them is only curing the problem at attention and not a solution to everything caused by bot farming. I was initially for the idea of putting them on the crafter merchant but I also like having the ability to trade something besides plat to get them.
*I don't think a short term suspension is too light of a punishment for first offense but I would like to see the offenders named just so when we see them later that we will know them as a cheating douchebag.
Claytin nailed it hard. These dicks will always exist, but their current focus is an ever shifting blur.
Not giving us the names also is allowing for us to continue to support their habit when they are back if they decide to go for round two. I still think they should be farmable, but allowing them to be vendor purchased crushes the market for them therefore causing them to be undesirable to bot if the return isn't as great as it is currently.
Also though, I think it does mostly eliminate the problem, it's a low level farm - I.E it's incredibly easy to bot, outside of that, botting other content for say essences isn't as easy as having a low level toon or even your high level toon farming multiple instances of Jagged or the other zones that allow you to bot farm. Even if you COULD bot farm essences, it'd require your whole team to be botting, not multiple toons in multiple instances. Being vendor abled in Crafters would nearly crush the botting issue I believe.
Quaglin,
The method that I used to suspend them is about 90-95% accurate. I'm very confident in the data available and decisions made. I also want to give them a chance to actually reform instead of being branded forever. If I banhammer them, then it's the dog and pony show you all want.
Added a purchasable option only removes the botting for SLS. Many of the high level players with RoA over 600 have been botting heavily in Anguish. I've just not had time to babysit (or rewrite the bot detection script to be efficient). Once I do, I'm going to be stripping bot farmed AAXP by the thousands (and reverting people's RoA/Earring when I catch them). The botting situation is not just SLS, it's everywhere.
Hopefully this helps clear some things up.
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Hate