So it was all about bots after all. Imagine my surprise.

[Graviton]

You can do the same in the next Q&A.

I'm not the one questioning the veracity of his statement.

 

[Agent327]

I'm not the one questioning the veracity of his statement.

No, but you are claiming he is aware that it can be done without bots, so it is up to you to show he is.

 

[Graviton]

No, but you are claiming he is aware that it can be done without bots, so it is up to you to show he is.

What the hell are you talking about? You don't think he told the whole truth, it's on you to prove it. I'm taking the man at his word, I don't have to prove squat.

 

[Agent327]

What the hell are you talking about? You don't think he told the whole truth, it's on you to prove it. I'm taking the man at his word, I don't have to prove squat.

I think he told the whole truth. I just think he was not aware of the number of players reaching the abort limit without a bot. You seem to believe he is, so ask him.

 

[DeletedUser]

Then why would he say it is a huge number you would not reach by playing by yourself when he knows that a large number of players claim to be doing it? Doesn't that seem strange to you? Admitting it is about bots and immediately sparking the discussion again by saying the number can not be reached by playing by yourself? Inno has already stated it can be reached, but not many players are doing that. Why would he contradict that?

In a previous Q&A he also stated that all people working on FoE also play the game. I believe him in that as well, but I do think he has another idea of "playng the game" than most on the forum have.

Same with GBG. "battlegrounds is not a feature that is supposed to be played all day long" and "battlegrounds is a feature you play on the side, there is a distinct limit" Those are comments made by a dev during a Q&A. Does that look like they have any idea how fanatic the players actually are?

Ok, if the devs have no idea how the game evolved, or better said how the players play the game, shouldn't we all look for another game?

 

[Tony 85 the Generous]

Precursor. I did not see the Q&A so the below is based on this thread's posts and the previous (now locked) 2000 abort post.

As for a person be able to abort 2000 quests, the math does not lie.

From my May 1, 2021 post

You have gone and made me curious. For kicks I just tried it with a stop watch. Knowing the order and exactly when and where the abort button would appear (moves for the double collection quest and UBQ), it took me 28 seconds to about 16 quests, 1.75 seconds per abort. At that rate, doing nothing, collecting nothing, except clicking the abort button as fast as possible for 58 minutes to abort 2000 quests.

Could a human sans a bot abort 2000 quests in a single day? Yes. Why one would sit there and do nothing but spending an hour to abort 2000 quests one after the other is way beyond me.

But we can do something slightly more realistic like maxing out the number of UBQ within 2000 aborts. Let's do the math. Performing the UBQ adds 1 button press while avoiding 1 abort per cycle. If the UBQ appears 1 in 6 quests then 7 button presses are required per cycle. That means there are 7 button presses and 5 aborts per cycle. Which is 400 cycles per 2000 aborts, and requires 2800 button presses. At 1 press every 1.75 seconds, that takes 1 hours and 21 minutes minutes to complete. A human could complete 400 UBQ and 2000 aborts in 81 minutes. Not an unrealistic "achievement" if the player has the coins, the supplies, and the time.

The other option would be the the fight quest available in SAAB and SAV. That would also take some time. but if you could auto-battle and replaced all of your troops each time, that adds 19 more presses (1 to fight, 8 to remove troops, 8 to add troops, 1 for autobattle, 1 to close results). We know first hand it does not take 28 seconds (8 to remove and 8 to add at 1.75 seconds each) to remove and add troops as there is no screen change required. Let's just call it 14 seconds (or 8 button presses). 5 aborts and 11 for the fight, 16 per cycle, 400 cycles, 1 hour and 46 minutes.

Can someone max out the aborts? Yes. The math shows it is completely and physically possible, The question then becomes how many would sit here and do the UBQ for an hour and a half, or the fight RQ for one and three-quarter hours?

 

[SCollins23]

Precursor. I did not see the Q&A so the below is based on this thread's posts and the previous (now locked) 2000 abort post.
Could a human sans a bot abort 2000 quests in a single day? Yes. Why one would sit there and do nothing but spending an hour to abort 2000 quests one after the other is way beyond me.

I am regularly hitting the 2000 abort limit, and the reason for that is that recently I have started a new guild with a couple friends. I need the goods to build the treasury and also help the younger cities in the guild with goods! As for bots, no idea how they work and never used one. I do recurring quests during the day as I invest FPs. Then if I have time during the evening, I sit down and complete the rest of the remaining 2000 aborts, which takes less than 1 hour (given the progress made during the day). I can't find the time every day, but can do it a couple nights each week.

If anyone thinks this is crazy, too boring, "an exploit," "a gravy train," this is their problem. It is nobody's business if a player wants to spend 8 hours a day or whatever to build their guild treasury. Especially if they admit to hate playing the game and not even collect their city's daily production.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

Several posters stated that a single player could hit the limit w/o bots. Kurt just stated otherwise. Thus, their posts dispute his claim.

No, several posters stated that they did hit the limit. No one disputed them. No one disputed them. The players play the game...obviously. Does Kurt play the game? We don't know. We do know that the assumption that the developers see all the data about game play is completely contradicted by his statement. Completely. Are you trying to imply that the players who specifically stated that they were hitting the abort limit were lying? If they're not lying, why does Kurt say that players without bots won't hit it? And if he's clearly clueless about that, why should we believe that he knows what he's talking about at all? A developer that is that out of touch with actual game play simply isn't to be trusted in anything he says in reference to the game. Maybe he's saying that it's about bots in an attempt to placate the players who reach the limit without bots. After the fact PR spin. Nope, I'm not taking his offhand statement about bots and "repeating missions" as any kind of proof of anything. Period.

 

[Graviton]

Oh my goodness.

I think he told the whole truth. I just think he was not aware of the number of players reaching the abort limit without a bot. You seem to believe he is, so ask him.

I don't need to ask him anything, as I believe what he said. I don't need a clarification. You do, so you ask him.

I'm not calling anybody a liar. Several posters claim to be hitting the limit sans bots; okay. Kurt says players won't hit it without bots; okay. Whom doesn't know what or who's lying, I don't know. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Why do you guys care so much what I believe? I mean, it seems to be bugging you two for some reason.

Nope, I'm not taking his offhand statement about bots and "repeating missions" as any kind of proof of anything. Period.

Okay.

You know you don't have to type out "period", right? There's, like, a key for it.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

You know you don't have to type out "period", right? There's, like, a key for it.

Sure, when it's simply punctuation for a sentence. When it's punctuation for a point, it needs to be typed out. I'm surprised you don't know that.

Why do you guys care so much what I believe?

Probably for the same reason you care so much about whether we believe Kurt or not.

I'm not calling anybody a liar.

What you did say was that the fact that people were hitting the abort limit without bots was hotly disputed here on the Forum...and it wasn't. As I pointed out, no one here disputed the many players who said that they hit the abort limit. The only person that has said that no one hits it without bots is Kurt. And there is no reason to believe him. After all, if no one was hitting the abort limit, why were so many of them passionately speaking up against it? And stating clearly that it was affecting them directly. They even gave time frames for hitting it. Time frames that were too long for them to be using bots. It just boggles the mind that you think we should take Kurt's word on this. Or that there's even a chance that he's right about the whole thing. I mean, think about it. He has an agenda to accomplish with the Q&As, and the first priority isn't necessarily speaking the truth. It's advertising for the game and its features, pure and simple. And part of that is spinning "facts", either to make Inno look good, or to placate some or all players. It makes much more sense that he's spinning the abort limit after the fact in an attempt to placate those affected by it. Either that, or Inno really is an accidentally successful business staffed by people pretty much incompetent at everything other than the basics of coding/designing a game. And intermittently incompetent at that, too.

 

[Emberguard]

Does Kurt play the game? We don't know. We do know that the assumption that the developers see all the data about game play is completely contradicted by his statement.

I would dare say he does play. I see no reason to believe otherwise. However what one person believes is possible based on their own experience is different from what another person believes to be possible. You can see this in every argument on who knows how to play the game or what makes a ”good” player or what makes a top performer outperform everyone else

I don’t see how his statement contradicts the assumption that devs see all the data though. You can read data and come to an entirely different conclusion from what someone else reading the exact same data would come to. You’re going to get outliers in that data and then you have to conclude what those outliers are. How many are legit and how many are bots? What’s a reasonable assumption here?

Time frames that were too long for them to be using bots.

That seems like a contradictory statement.

I’m sure there’d be some people who legit have the time, patience and motivation to hit the RQ limit. But I don’t see “time frames that were too long” as something that’d prove a bot wasn’t used. Particularly if one argument for evidence of bots being used is someone being online for “too long” and not being reasonable for a person to be doing it for that long a sitting.

Thing is “too long” is far too subjective a statement. Because once you define “too long” you’re likely to find some exception somewhere and not be able to prove if they are an exception without being in the room watching them play. You’d first have to define too long and a bot can be programmed to match whatever criteria would fit to look legit anyway

 

[Graviton]

Sure, when it's simply punctuation for a sentence. When it's punctuation for a point, it needs to be typed out. I'm surprised you don't know that.

Typing it out is presumptuous, superfluous, and intended to shut down the discussion. I know you know that, that's why you do it.

Probably for the same reason you care so much about whether we believe Kurt or not.

If you notice, I'm not trying to talk you guys into anything, I simply stated my opinion. You're both bending over backwards to convince me of something. It seems to really bug you that somebody has a different opinion of the situation. I don't give a crap what you believe. Show me the same courtesy.

What you did say was that the fact that people were hitting the abort limit without bots was hotly disputed here on the Forum...and it wasn't.

Whatever, man. You already made your point and yet here you are, still going, for no reason.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

I would dare say he does play.

Maybe he does. My point, however, is that we don't know that for sure, but we do know for sure that the players who claim to have hit the limit do play. So their word about the abort limit impact on actual players is more likely to be accurate without having more evidence to back up Kurt's statement.

I don’t see how his statement contradicts the assumption that devs see all the data though.

Well, if players are hitting the abort limit, and Kurt says they aren't, that means either the players are lying (unlikely) or the devs don't see the data that says players do hit the limit. Not to mention the fact that this statement means that the long, long discussion on this subject didn't get "passed up the line" at all. Another example of poor communication and ignorance of players' actual reaction to game changes at Inno.

I’m sure there’d be some people who legit have the time, patience and motivation to hit the RQ limit.

Yes, apparently quite a few if the evidence of the thread on this subject is any indication.

But I don’t see “time frames that were too long” as something that’d prove a bot wasn’t used.

How about the fact that several players said they knew how long it took to hit the limit? What sense would it make to use a bot and then sit there waiting for it to hit the limit? Now that seems contradictory.

Whatever, man. You already made your point and yet here you are, still going, for no reason.

Amazing how many people involved in a long discussion seem to think it's always the other person unreasonably extending it.

 

[Johnny B. Goode]

Just for fun, let's assume Kurt is telling the truth that the abort limit was about bots. Let's also assume that as far as he (and by extension everyone at Inno HQ) knows, players do not hit the abort limit without bots. Let's further assume that the players are telling the truth when they say they hit the abort limit without using bots. What does this all mean?

First, it means that @Algona has been wrong all this time with his contention (which I have always thought was correct, until now) that Inno has all the data and knows how players are playing the game. Either they don't actually track or look at the data, or they can't extrapolate players' play styles/patterns from the data they do track.

Second, it legitimizes all the player complaints about the abort limit. If it was never intended to affect players not using bots, Inno apparently failed miserably. And they also apparently don't know that they failed! The takeaway from this point is that Inno also does not pay any attention to feedback of any degree from players unless it's on an official feedback thread or on the Beta Forum. If I'm not mistaken, we were told that the info from the long thread about the abort limit was being "passed up the line". Yet here is Kurt making a statement that requires complete ignorance of that information. And if they don't pay attention to feedback from non-official threads, even ones as long as passionate as the abort limit one, and they institute changes like this without an official feedback thread, it means that they don't care about players' reactions to these changes. So all the players who threatened to quit because Inno doesn't care about their game experience are justified.

Third, it also explains why features/game mechanics that unbalance the game, sometimes seriously, are never addressed. The most egregious example of this, of course, is the Arc. For those who were not playing yet, the game was completely different before hyper-leveled Arcs showed up. Completely. Was it the intention of the game designers to completely change the game like that? Or was it unintentional and they don't have a clue because they don't pay attention to how people play the game? Either way, I don't like the answer.

In any case, my faith in Inno's competence is almost non-existent at this point. I've often said that Anwar's untimely death killed GvG's future, but now I'm wondering if all the other changes that have transformed this game are also because no one else really had a vision for the game. Maybe once he was gone, they've all been playing it by ear and just trying to keep the cash flow going. Who knows? I know that my spending on this game, which has gotten more sporadic since the game has changed so much, will now stop completely. And the thought of quitting the game completely is growing.

No need to respond to this, by the way, I'm done with this thread.

 

[Ebeondi Asi]

One point may be they are looking at the wrong data. They may think they are using good data, but they may overlook entirely smaller units of data vs the averages. If one only looks at averages then the few who do huge amounts of RQ are anomalies. Someone may decide to say all those are bots. toss them. then pass on the 'new' data adjusted... all the person who makes the comment has are what is left. Lots of idiots raised above their level of incompetence in all businesses. One such certainly may have made the data seem good, yet not really so.
Where I worked people would twist data to fit their agenda all the time.

 

[Emberguard]

One point may be they are looking at the wrong data.

Also peoples habits would have changed over the last year just from Covid changing the dynamics of how often you’re at home. So the data is going to look different within the last year and you’d need to be able to differentiate between changing real life habits and bots

 

[Graviton]

Amazing how many people involved in a long discussion seem to think it's always the other person unreasonably extending it.

I'm trying to understand this but anybody reading the thread can determine that it's projection.

No need to respond to this, by the way, I'm done with this thread.

You forgot to type "Period".

I would dare say he does play. I see no reason to believe otherwise.

[snip]

However what one person believes is possible based on their own experience is different from what another person believes to be possible ...
I don’t see how his statement contradicts the assumption that devs see all the data though. You can read data and come to an entirely different conclusion from what someone else reading the exact same data would come to. You’re going to get outliers in that data and then you have to conclude what those outliers are.

As usual, you're being entirely too reasonable.

 

[Sheriff Of Rottingham]

Nice try at being an Inno fanboi, but Kurt peed in the punchbowl today.



24:20 in:

I like that Kurt guy. He tells it like it is. (Although he may not realize how small a number his huge high number really is.)

How about you quit crying and get over it.

 

[RazorbackPirate]

So one random comment from Kurt negates all the written communications from Inno? They were pretty clear they knew this would affect some players.

Trying to make it all bout Bots is just a dumb as trying to pretend Bots had nothing to do with it.

 

[Algona]

it means that @Algona has been wrong all this time

You woke me up to tell me I'm wrong?

Seems reasonable.

Am I wrong?

Vger's post gives us a fifth (sixth? I've lost track!) comment from a fifth source at INNO Each of those comments states something different, none of them agree on what and why the Abort delay and Abort cap were introduced.

Is it possible that internal communications at INNO are a shambles?

I'll come back to this in a bit, but I can lay a little groundwork and address an oddity.

So one random comment from Kurt negates all the written communications from Inno? They were pretty clear they knew this would affect some players.

As long as I'm here. I want to discuss an odd aspect of this quote.

'all the written communications from Inno? They were pretty clear' implies that FoE players received clear concise information from one source.

There is no monolithic 'they' at INNO communicating about or explaining the Abort delay, Abort cap, or why these were added to the game.

The clip Vger posted is the fifth message we got from five different sources at INNO

None of the messages from INNO have been consistent with any of the others. Different sources stating different reasons for the actions taken.

No need to respond to this, by the way, I'm done with this thread.

Summon me from my slumber and then say that? Like that was gonna happen.

I thought you were heading in the right direction. but you didn't get there, that it's not a case of not having player data, but more a case of whoever managed the response to whatever the problem was didn't bother telling anyone else in the company what they were doing and why.

Someone realized in December or January something (bots? RQs? Server Load? Coin / Supply Exploit? Something else?) was wrong in game.

They panicked, slapped together and jammed unannounced a poorly thought out fix, the Abort delay, into the game and didn't tell anyone else at INNO what was going on.

When players started complaining about the Abort delay different folk at INNO put out their best guess / spin in places (beta forum, in game support, ,maim game forum) they could reach.

When the Abort delay failed miserably it was pulled.

Whoever made the mistake of sticking the Abort delay in game then had to come up with yet another solution to the problem (I wonder if we'll ever know what the problem really was?) and went with the Abort cap. And again didn't tell anyone else at INNO what they were doing.

So of course when lpayers inevitably complained (we always complain!) we got more conflicting explanations from more folks at INNO. who didn;t have a clue what actually was going on.

As I said, communications at INNO are a shambles.

Am I wrong again? Prolly.

But hey, can anyone come up with any theory that explains the Abort delay, the Abort cap, unannounced changes to the game, the five different explanations from five different sources at INNO, and the complete lack of an actual official Announcement from someone whose job it is to provide such summarizing what is going on?

I don't blame JBG for leaving this conversation.

Lately it's hard to be a FoE fanboi.