2000 Aborted quest limit per day

[Mini Sonos .50]

I hit this limit after taking spots on 22 large GB's the other day. I hit this limit doing SAAB fighting quests while I was on a VERY BORING conference call at work this morning. I have 7 other guild mates (that I know of) who are hitting this limit at various times throughout the day. That's a minimum of 8 people in our 80 person guild. To say that this affects only illegitimate players is a fallacy. You could argue that 10% is a minority... however, these are arguably the 8 most active players in the guild. Certainly the most active treasury contributors.

If I had known this limit was going to be introduced, I would have stayed in CE where I would only have 5 aborts to worry about instead of 13 in SAAB. Obviously, my preference is no limit.. but in the event that a limit MUST be applied to prevent me from creating unlimited supplies and coins (to do what with? They are useless...), at least make the limit age based so that it is fair across any age.

-Hec

The cause of this change was due to the few select cheaters running a bot/script all day.

 

[BigSpence4]

Here are some of the ideas I have found reading this:

Fighting quest should just be removed or change to prevent people from looping to increase points.

UBQ: (dpghost Suggestion) Raise the price of the cost of coins/supplies. It would decrease the amount of looping that could happen, while also decreasing the amount of abort quest. The amount of even 10% would be a massive hit to endless looping.

If this were to happen, then I think we could add a feature to lock in the Recurring quest we wish to complete and it would prevent aborting which might help Inno on the server side of things. People would eventially run out of coins/supplies to do more UBQ

 

[-Hercules-]

Here are some of the ideas I have found reading this:

Fighting quest should just be removed or change to prevent people from looping to increase points.

UBQ: (dpghost Suggestion) Raise the price of the cost of coins/supplies. It would decrease the amount of looping that could happen, while also decreasing the amount of abort quest. The amount of even 10% would be a massive hit to endless looping.

If this were to happen, then I think we could add a feature to lock in the Recurring quest we wish to complete and it would prevent aborting which might help Inno on the server side of things. People would eventially run out of coins/supplies to do more UBQ

Remove the points for fighting in these quests (similar to GE fights) and then the "cheaters" argument goes away. I would love to see this change made.

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

How would recurring quests work once one quest maxes out, but not the others?

Easy enough to just skip over them in the rotation. Similar to having two RQ slots open, as you move through one slot the quest already in the first never appears in the second.

I personally think 500 is at the low end, but 1000 per quest is a bit high. Splitting the difference might work.

Inno has the stats. What is the most number of times a player can compelte the collect coins, collect supplies, or spend fp RQ? Take each player's current daily coin, supply and fp production and divide it by their respective RQ for their current age. That will tell you per player how many times each can complete the collect coins, collect supplies, and spend fp RQ. Take the highest number of all the players in all three categories, add 50% (or some number to allow for some growth) and round up to a nice number. There is your limit for all RQs, WITHOUT hamstringing any current player's current city.

For example, a player in Colonial Age must collect 100k coins and produces 2M. That player can complete the collect coin RQ 20 times. Another player may collect 25M supplies on the 110k supply RQ, or complete the RQ 227 times. repeat for all players. If 227 is the highest, then x1.5 is 340, so round up to 350. Each quest can be completed 350 times.

The only way to hold all of the data for all of the players for this game is in a database. It wouldn't take more than 30 minutes for an Inno devs to figure out how to write the query on one server, then repeat and excute on each to get the highest number from each server and the highest number from all servers.

 

[-Hercules-]

The cause of this change was due to the few select cheaters running a bot/script all day. Right HEC?

Sonos, Agent327 posted the reason the change was introduced. See quote below.

There is

https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com...-experienced-during-reoccurring-quests.41229/

We have been collecting feedback on quest abort exploits, and trying to figure out a way to tackle this.

The aim of this improvement was to impose a limit on exploits

https://forum.us.forgeofempires.com/index.php?threads/update-to-version-1-200.41289/

We have fixed an exploit that allowed players to generate endless coins and supplies.

Everybody could have known this was coming since the beginning of March. Inno made it clear they wanted to do something about exploits. Players turned that in to that they wanted to do something about bots. It has nothing to do with cheaters and honest players. They want a limit on the number of RQ's you can abort. Bots have nothing to do with that. Same as the fighting in SAAB. It isn't about that.

 

[CDmark]

Wow, and here I thought, being in LMA for 2 years+, having 750 million supplies and coin, I broke the game. ah, 750 million experience points in 2.5 months, now I understand. And I understand the unlimited coin and supplies because if you are not paying anything, just doing battles, then you are being rewarded coins and supplies with no cost at all. Now, Unbirthday quests have a cost so you really cant get unlimited coins and supplies. Let me site my LMA age. L128 CF is the forum article Ls. Ok, lets include a L58 HC, so if I did 3000 UBQs, which means no sleep or potty breaks, I would make 5.2 miliion coin and supplies would still cost 722K, offset by HC easily.
Now, lets see what 1000 quests does for a SAAB player, use L58 CF to start 192 million of each coin and supplies gained, no costs here
L100 CF - 275 million of each coins and supplies

That's 1000 of those battle quests. I am not sure how many quests are done to get those battle numbers, maybe someone from SAAB can let me know, but it is the coin and supply problem I believe bcs it makes sense.

So, 2000 aborts, for SAAB = 166 quests = 32 M/L58 CF 45M/L100 CF.

I cant see lower age players being the problem for coins and supplies.

Aborts and server - well, if people have been questing for years, however they do it, all of a sudden the server got tired? Could be the dramatic increase from SAAB battles, that would explain it.

I got my Lt Columbo trench coat out of the closet, pencil and little notepad out of the desk drawer.

Um, just one more thing

 

[Kamek]

I am really supposed to believe that this change is all about the endless coins/supplies being produced and has nothing to do with the other rewards that are also being produced endlessly? This change couldn't have anything to do with goods which can be used to fund farming in GBG or FPs, which coincidentally, inno has an option to purchase with diamonds?

 

[RazorbackPirate]

I am really supposed to believe that this change is all about the endless coins/supplies being produced and has nothing to do with the other rewards that are also being produced endlessly?

No, you're not. I have no idea what the post above your is about.

 

[Kamek]

Update to version 1.200 | Forge of Empires Forum - It is specifically stated in this link that they fixed an exploit that allowed for unlimited coins and supplies. That is what I am talking about and assuming that is what the other post was in reference to as well.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

Everyone complaining about the change is saying that the abort limit is the problem and letting them resume unlimited RQ looping is the solution. From what little anyone has heard from Inno, however, they seem to believe that the opposite is true. They seem to believe that unlimited RQ looping is the problem and the abort limit is the solution. I tend to agree with Inno. And that will be my last post on this thread. Whine away!

 

[romeno]

I am in CE with CF 167 and THREE RQ's (don't ask me how.. I just got lucky to unlock this 3rd RQ).

All my game strategy was based on RQ loopings. Some days I can only loop for 30 minutes.. some days I can loop for 4-5 hours (not in one single run, ofc). It all depends on how much free time I have and how boring my online meetings are.

Now I am capped to a 1h - 2h limit!!

If inno wants to stop users from using auto-clickers, wouldn't be easier to pop up a window asking for some math operation every 100-200 RQs collection?

I will not bluff by threatening to leave the game. I made several friends within the game and I don't intend to abandon them all of a sudden ... but I will definitely spend less time playing FoE and, who knows, I might not find something more interesting to occupy my time online?

 

[Agent327]

If inno wants to stop users from using auto-clickers, wouldn't be easier to pop up a window asking for some math operation every 100-200 RQs collection?

This is not about Inno wanting to stop auto-clickers. This is about Inno wanting to stop players like you that do RQ's for 4-5 hours.

 

[BigSpence4]

Everyone complaining about the change is saying that the abort limit is the problem and letting them resume unlimited RQ looping is the solution. From what little anyone has heard from Inno, however, they seem to believe that the opposite is true. They seem to believe that unlimited RQ looping is the problem and the abort limit is the solution. I tend to agree with Inno. And that will be my last post on this thread. Whine away!

That is not we are saying. We are saying they need to make changes and we have suggested them. Also, this doesn't effect your play style. So stop being an inno empathizer.

 

[BigSpence4]

Update to version 1.200 | Forge of Empires Forum - It is specifically stated in this link that they fixed an exploit that allowed for unlimited coins and supplies. That is what I am talking about and assuming that is what the other post was in reference to as well.

I read that and that would of been 3 weeks ago. Also, I don't see how something that been going on for 8 years in the game was all of a sudden considered and exploit. Maybe they were referencing another issue that happened. The abort limit is just horribly designed. We have also suggest numbers changes to help fix multiply issues we are just guessing at because INNO is no comment. We got a better chance right now getting a answer out of joe biden then inno.,

 

[Dominator - X]

Seems like INNO ignored their own formatting request for new ideas that prevents abuse. According to them, endless RQ's in conjunction with high level CF's is definitely abuse.
How could they not have seen this one?

 

[Agent327]

That is not we are saying. We are saying they need to make changes and we have suggested them. Also, this doesn't effect your play style. So stop being an inno empathizer.

Everybody has the right to voice his opinion here. It is not up to you to tell others to stop.

 

[BigSpence4]

Everybody has the right to voice his opinion here. It is not up to you to tell others to stop.

I never said stop posting. I said stop being an inno empathizer. That a big difference. Also, I would put you in that same category. But to be clear I am not telling you to stop posting.

 

[Agent327]

I never said stop posting. I said stop being an inno empathizer. That a big difference. Also, I would put you in that same category. But to be clear I am not telling you to stop posting.

No it isn't. If he wants to be an Inno emphatizer he can. It is not up to you to tell him what he can or can not do. Same as you are allowed to keep going on and on and on, on this subject so is he, as long as it is within forum rules. It does not even have to effect his playstyle. Nowhere I can find that as a requirement for anyone to be allowed to post and even if I could, I would be the judge, not you.

 

[Coach Zuck]

If you have been on this game for a while, you know that I rarely post, preferring to stay in the background and observe. If I may be so bold as to add my 2 cents, think on this. If you are at INNO headquarters and you notice people doing thousands of quests per day, what thought are really going through their heads? Could it be cheating, (bots, programs, and so forth). Or, has the game gotten to the point where some players are becoming bored and have to do all of these quests because of that? One thing I have learned and hopefully you will is people, you have to learn to adapt to almost constant changes in life. It isn't always fun but if you do not learn to adapt to changes, life will "chew you up and spit you out." I also have notice that most of you are fairly intelligent You should be able to overcome this bump in the road and move on. I hope that you do. And, have fun!

I think this is precisely the problem, especially with Agent's confirmation that this supposedly has nothing to do with unlimited battle/rank exploits, and nothing to do with robots.

I don't trust Inno to actually understand their own game, and I am sure I'm not alone, after some frankly ridiculous changes in the past years, things like the Flying Noob Trap GB coming up, even thinking that the Space Carrier should exist - essentially a himeji with the exact same rewards but higher FP cost and a daily cost to actually do the negotiations. Ohhh let me count the ways that Inno has made it clear that their game designers do not understand how the game is played. I mean I was actually called out by support a couple weeks ago for doing more than 1 fight a second and had to send them back a video showing how it's possible to accomplish that in GVG? But I know support people play, and may just not be experienced in GVG.

Assuming I haven't lost you... yes, I agree, Inno was probably sitting around in their HQ and seeing all the aborts, and coming to the conclusion that "some players are becoming bored and have to do all of these quests because of that"

I reject the accuracy of the conclusion though.

Instead, I assert that they failed to realize the cause of the uptick, and projected the cause across the game as a whole.

The cause of the uptick is because people started seeing people raise in rank super quick, and realized they were doing unlimited fights in SAAB, and wanted to do the same. Then apparently (as I found out a couple days ago) guilds started threads where they put up trades of 500 for 500 goods to swap with each other, so that those fights turn in to unlimited RQs, and they get unlimited SAAB goods, which is much more useful than unlimited supplies and coins. Honestly any unlimited supply/coin exploit is only a threat due to the ability to turn those coins in to FP, and most people don't have the time/energy to clickclickclack the super-slow buy FP button and just leave those coins sitting around. My event buildings give me something crazy like 1 billion coins per day, it would take forever to get that from this infinite RQ exploit. It has nothing to do with coins.

A problem is that regardless of someone's CF level, they can now play an 'infinite RQ' strategy in SAAB (and soon Venus).

Mods say that Inno has determined that infinite quests is a problem, and at the same time, mods now say that the fight quests aren't the problem, however, that's why you suddenly have 100 people per server doing it rather than the 1-3 infinite CFs you had before this caught on. These two statements are in conflict with each other.

Plinker suggests that the uptick represents boredom to developers. However, infinite RQs are a play style that takes a lot of work to build up to being able to do.

Until now, you had to stay in tomorrow era or earlier to do it - but a year ago Inno released an age that suddenly made the playstyle viable to anyone who reached the highest age, and it doesn't even require them to invest 10000k FP in to their CF - you can do this infinite RQ exploit without a CF! That is CERTAINLY broken. All those people who moved to FE+ before realizing they'd never be able to be "infinite" are now given that option for free.

Some people enjoy the playstyle and have worked for literally years to be able to do it

Personally, nothing relaxes me more than spending an evening on the couch doing FP RQs or laying in bed in the morning doing the same.

But again, for me, the limit as is isn't too bad. I regret that it affects people who've worked for YEARS to be infinite in TE and earlier ages. I do not regret that it's stopped the outrageous SAAB+ fight farming. Our guild has had probably 5x+ more attacks against us since this change in GVG because people are now hungry to get their fights elsewhere - thank goodness, I was getting bored these past couple of months.

My desired solution, either:
1) Get rid of the fight quests and the limit. Ban anyone doing an inhuman level of RQs or doing them inhumanely fast. Track mouse movement as others have suggested and ban people who aren't adequately moving their mouse when they do RQs.
OR 2) Make the limit a per-quest limit, around the same level or slightly higher, but no higher for SAAB/Venus unless you get rid of the fight quests. Frankly, and selfishly, I'd prefer to see the limit as-is or reduced if the infinite goods exploit in SAAB/Venus isn't solved since I just found out that that's completely destroyed the economy (though it's not like those goods were good for anything anyways!)

Summary/TLDR/Final thought: I think it takes mods like you guys, who actually understand the game, to bring issues like this up to Inno in a way that doesn't capitulate to their lack of understanding of how the game and its players operate. I'm sure that like someone else said, there must be many mods "whistling in the dark" (I had to look that up, it means "trying to remain brave and convince themselves that the situation is not as bad as it seems"). You guys (mods) know damn well that the problem is actually either the fight quests, or the bots, and not FP RQs and UBQs in general, and I assert that you have a responsibility as the bridge between us players and the developers, to help Inno learn their game and make good decisions. This is not an insult to Inno. No developers know or understand their product other than the founders, and we all know the original developers of this game are gone; the rumour is the main one is literally not alive anymore. Game developers don't play their own game enough to understand the synergies they've created, and there's a serious disconnect even between game devs and the game designers who actually make the calls, and this has nothing to do with Inno, it's just the industry.

I'm not intending to freak you mods out, definitely I would not want to be on your bad side... especially if you guys are going to go around randomly calling things exploits that you know have been around in the game for years. What's next - are you going to call multiple point landings in GVG an exploit even though when I first saw someone do it and tried to report it, the support ticket replied saying it's been a part of GVG for years and not a bug? Are you guys going to call my amazing coin boost % an exploit because it gives me 20% more FP per day to have all my event buildings pumping out huge amounts of coins? We don't know, and that's what scares us the most.

 

[BigSpence4]

No it isn't. If he wants to be an Inno emphatizer he can. It is not up to you to tell him what he can or can not do. Same as you are allowed to keep going on and on and on, on this subject so is he, as long as it is within forum rules. It does not even have to effect his playstyle. Nowhere I can find that as a requirement for anyone to be allowed to post and even if I could, I would be the judge, not you.

No need to be considering. However, you seem to be a know it all and maybe you can tell us what they were exactly trying to fix, why they haven't given any information to us, and if they are really tacking feed back to address this issues that is effecting people without a word from Inno.