Lots of them, all high lvl animist spaming low lvl turrets, gettin the server more lag and the entire zerg on shroom cap spamming, wich im sure gives a lot of lag to the server. They are easy to spot, i know them all. Plz some GMs should act on this and toss the hammer at them. Not nice when 2k people are on queue.

If you think a player is macroing out a command then please use /appeal and tell us their name and what you suspect they are doing.

Will do, what happens there is a big mess. On a side note, forming a bg and stating it as public, gathering the people, moving them to the spot, cleaning and settin up and then the fact that we get a fg of lvl 50s who refuse to join the bg and keep taking advantage of it, nerfing the exp and gettin all the gold and loot ( they could not be killing there if there was no bg going on ) is against the rules? Im curious, i dont even have the will to engage in "appealquest" or any witchhunting, but any gm who take a look any afternoon at that public bg could do some good for sure. Sometimes its a big mess and the afk macroers are rampant. Thanks

Why so much hate ? ::'(

There's a TL;DR at the bottom.

It would be great if we can have this discussion beyond any witchhunting or trolling, because this is a situation desperately in demand of a clear rule framework. Why? Becuase else it's chaos, toxicity and endless discussions about people taking advantage (qed). So please, if there's any motivation to read the following Wall-of-Text, we can maybe get some rules going for this whole mess. There will be no name calling and I'll try to bring this post across as objectively as I can. I will, however, put my own opinion and attempt for a solution at the bottom of this post.


Farmbooty has some valid points. Here's a breakdown of the situation:

a) 30-100 people find themselves in a certain level spot in Hibernia.
These people either 'crystallize' randomly without any BG or lead, or someone takes it upon himself to organize the zerg a bit. Both work. Organization is usually more stable and faster.

b) The zerg consists of a spectrum of idle low level players without any impact, to mid level players who can at least increase the attack count and grant to-hit-bonus up to high level players who deal a great amount of damage.

c) Because of the way loot distribution works, high-lvl solo players with high damage output get immense amount of loots. As do high level dps groups.

d) There's a Battlegroup most of the time. This BG can be created by a committed leader who will try and organize people and loot. Or it can be created by either a scammer (by setting treasurer mode so they can get loot for themselves) or for whatever reason. Usually a lot of people join the BG and most of the time there's a normal loot distribution set in the BG. (For example: Farmbooty has made a lot of effort to organize people and have BGs up and running lately.)

Now here's the controversial point:
There are a few lvl 50 players or lvl 50 groups even, who join this zerg for the only* purpose of maximizing the loot. (* also often times, 50s are seen to powerlevel other toons and friends, which is beside the point now.)

Players have been arguing for and against this kind of behaviour in various ways:

1) Some 50s argue, that they contribute stability and fast kill speed and therefore deserve the loot. Many also will say that they don't get much loot at all. (which is easily disproved by simply looking at the loot logs). Some said they deserved the loot and that without them, the zerg would fail.

2) low levelers and people still leveling argue, that the zerg doesn't need said added stability and kill speed, and that 50s are reducing the amount of XP and basically render it impossible to get any loot.

Obviously the whole zerg situation is sufficiently chaotic to make it impossible to prove certain claims without analytic tools. So unfortunately this is the point, where people start inflating their own perception or flat out start lying to push their agenda/opinion.

The questions are:
Are 50s really reducing xp significantly for participants of the zerg?
Are 50s really reducing loot for participants of the zerg?

This is dangerous territory, because you'll hear various statements for all kinds of weird reasons.
I've heard people blaming 50s about reduced exp, when they were just lvl 15 and below.
I've heard 50s complaining about how they single-handedly run the zerg because they're dealing so much damage.
Stuff (or nonsense) like this is usually easily called out and I'd like for everyone to ignore these for the most part. People get emotional, everyone of us does.

Since the XP part is so difficult to analyze without hard data, let's move on to the important LOOT part:

There are no analytic tools needed to "see" and "hear" that 50s and groups of 50s share the biggest majority of all loot. I've been on the receiving end on this myself a quite bit, and it's easy for me to believe people who said they just made 2 platins in one hour. There's many anecdotes like this, and anecdotal evidence is not worth much... but there can be no doubt as to the motivation a lvl 50 player has, when he enters the zerg. And since these lvl 50 players have been at the zerg for the past days, they must be making some major profit.

My opinion: this profit is made on the back of all of the people who are zerging.
The zerg provides the kill speed and safety, which allows it to just position a few mushrooms or just nuke a few mobs and basically get all the loot.

Every Dragon Raid has the rule, that no single group should be enabled to get all the loot, simply because they in some way are chosen by the mechanic of loot distribution. A Dragon Raid works fine, because there are rules which apply and people can be punished for not abiding by these rules.

This is why I think we need a general rule that states, that in any community driven event, there should be a BG of some sort to even out loot distribution. This whole zerg situation is inherently unbalanced and unfair, because the loot distribution mechanic does not account for many things, and because it is nearly impossible to come up with a fair formula of who deserves what.

Hence: a general BG to distribute loot and gold between ALL participants is by far not 100% fair, but it is way more fair than a FEW individuals who abuse the loot mechanic to get all the loot from the zerg.

TL;DR
In my opinion there's an extremely unfair way to handle things (50s grabbing all loot while fighting within the zerg) and a less unfair way to handle things (equal loot distribution, even if that means that idling players and low impact player will get loot).


P.S: I should mention: if there is no change in rules, this zerg will in no time be crowded with lvl 50 animists and nukers, who will get more reduced loot as time passes. This way this zerg will die out pretty quickly, maybe in one or two weeks. That's a very toxic cycle, and easily avoidable with a few rules.

U made a whole lot of valid points there, but u missed one thing im going to add. I have ZERO problem with 50s joining the bg and gettin the loot, since the gold will still be distributed among the bg. This is the most fair we can get, my problem is that this individuals/groups refuse to join the bg to share the gold, but they are taking advantage of it. Its so easy to log in, see the bg join and leech, then log out. Noones stops to think the hard work behind gettin the people gathered and BG started (everytime i did the bg it started literally 5-6h ahead of random schedule and that takes work ) In fact ill put today as an example. I loged in late, someone took over the bg and was trying to get it started but on low numbers, as soon as i joined the BG people gave me lead wich i dont really want, i want to see others leading it since its an HIB event, nothing to do with me or with the guild im in eventho we push for a bit of organization. Back on todays example, we wiped a few times, people not knowin where is the safe spot, people still on the way and low numbers made it hard for the BG to start properly but we managed to get it going. Five minutes later these people we are talking about show up, exp gets nerfed more than 60% at least for my grp where i was PLvling 2 lowbies tho we still were sharing some gold among the bg. Fifteen minutes later exp is cut down to 30% and loot is gone for everyone ( im never in the highest dps grp within the bg just in case someone thinks i was gettin any loot, i never do. ) These high lvl dps grp/individuals refuse to join the BG. Thats my whole point, theyre taking advantages of others work, i gotta waste hours of my life and focus instead of being semi afk shrooming in there to try to get this right, im asking for clarification. If these individuals are allowed to do this refusing to join the bg we will cope with it and stop drama, eventho it hurts hibernia A LOT, we already lost 2x relics.

Yea sorry. I forgot this most important point you just mentioned.

People simply won't join the BG so they can get most of the loot. I'm not a greedy person and I'd even say "fuk it, go ahead", since I can farm gold elsewhere anyway. I'm glad about the exp we're able to make there, and I definitely don't feel entitled to any loot.

Yet what happens ist, that the XP does in fact drop dramatically. I'm sure not all of the exp decay is because of the 50s just raping everything, but it's definitely a major factor and it shows almost immediately. The mentioned numbers by Farmbooty are numbers I can confirm for me personally. I didn't want to talk details about this earlier, because it's a difficult topic and people will say stuff like "We're not reducing exp, you don't understand the XP-System". And there's literally nothing I can do to disprove that.

The way I see it, some people abuse the zerg to get enormous amounts of loot (which is visible + proven by the fact that these level 50s are there day and night, even if they don't powerlevel any toons). And as a side effect, the xp gets drastically reduced for everyone.

Now without rules, this kind of behaviour will remain the same, and this will lead to further toxicity and discussions, simply because people are being treated extremely unfair. Unfair treatment is normal in DAoC, by the very nature of the game, but there's a broad spectrum for fairness.. and I think this is just out of bounds.

I thought this thread was about makro-abuser?

Maybe you should start a new one (the fifth or sixth about it?) or just use mine, if you dont take offense, that it was started by someone, who actually can't see the issue with SC. It's working as intended.

https://www.uthgard.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=40051

I'm not one to open new threads about stuff like this. So I used the momentum of this thread, hoping there'd be some attention thrown into my direction.

From what I can see there's plenty of arguments and points in your own thread that you, so far, have chosen to ignore. Please catch up with your own stuff, before interfering with my attempt at introducing rules for, what I think, makes a better community experience.

Also the only other threads about this topic, that I've seen at least, are: 2 threads by you and another thread complaining about low leveler whiners.. neither of which has anything to do with what I proposed.

As someone who has been to bog a lot, its always going to be abused.

Low levels and mid levels will get behind whatever gets them levels quickly. High levels know that, and even more: High levels can level their friends while getting rich.

There should be some type of discrepancy to note though. If you have a BG, and another group of players starts coming and kill you're mobs, that in and of itself is KSing.

It would be no different if you had a BG for a raid, and some high level group with tons of damage potential came in and started stealing the loot by KSing. Wouldn't you appeal that?

My 2 cents.

rawlph wrote:I'm not one to open new threads about stuff like this. So I used the momentum of this thread, hoping there'd be some attention thrown into my direction.

Well I understand that. I am merely just saying we are completely offtopic right now.

Farmbooty raised the very important matter of how we can fight against macro-users and the negative impact they have. Macros are a clear violation of the server rules and we need to find a way to identify and ban them. Thats an important matter of its own and deserves its own thread to raise awareness. People using macros will only ever be found out if we as players help the staff to identify those individuals.
Its something that probably goes beyond SC but it hurts other there the most, because of the shroom cap that is constantly at limit. The sad thing is low level shrooms only impact the cap, they dont even help the player who summoned them. Higher level shrooms are way better. Besides a macro-user will always be below 50% mana, so he will not get much done himself, and if he ever gets loot it will probably just vanish, because I highly doubt there are macros that can actually play like humans with looting and everything.

Definitely needs raised awareness. Especially since Siabra City is an El Dorado for macroers and you'll be able to spot a bunch of them there.

Then again, I loved when people were spamming low level shrooms, because that actually meant that sub 50s would get more exp and loot .

rename thread to WAAA and move to resolved

not reading this

why thanks for pushing the thread, muh man!

also maybe cease the one liners in every single thread you encounter on your way through the forums. btw: there's a rule for this now, so.. yea. everybody's done here .

Sorry to say but, the Zerg spot is should be called AFK zerg.

I think like 90% of all players there are afking ;

- Mentalists (come back every 10min)
- Bards (almost perma afk)
- Druids (heals , maby)
- Melee (stands idle, hits a mob every 30mins or so)
- Ranger (idle as always)
- Enchanters /elds (Pbaoe once in 10mins or so, scared of dying)
- Animists, spam shrooms 24/7

---

The thing that many do not understand is => Arboreal Animists

LvL 35+ Arboreal Animists can AFK exp in Zerg by using only main DD pet and staying solo IN BG. (place the DD main pet in middle of Zerg shrooms, and then just look movie from 2nd screen and enjoy exp). (loot is a dream that never happens anyway).

The experience from this is, not the best, but its good enuff if you need to do something else and cant be 100% focused into playing all the time.

It is same with Enchanter Nuke pet.

Means pretty much that in Zerg spot, Animists and Enchanters can solo to 50 just lazying around. (just remember to join BG).

Every Animist and Enchanter who does this can give me a hug, ty.

<3