I believe the latest Halloween event is the biggest and most obvious wake-up call for a revision to multiclienting and how permisive the server should be about it. Today the server faced one of it's biggest population spikes I've seen during my stay (peeking at more than 1500 at Pierre spawn times) and at first I was rather excited to see this happening. To my surprise (actually it was no surprise, but rather hopeful wishing it wasn't the case) most channels were becoming full even 30minutes prior to Pierre spawn. What a pleasant sighting, ain't it? such a succesful event. Too bad most of the _unique_ players in each map was less than the amount of mules in it. I was left out of the event due to the fact each map had filled up with the ever increasing amount of mules that enter the map for no purpose other than getting 10 hits in and scoring the reward. Not only do the mules take the chance from legit players wanting to enjoy these special events. They mess up with the market value of some of these items. I understand the convenience of multiclienting far outweighs the issues that arise from it, but what's so nostalgic about everyone having the same rewards x10. What happened to feeling highly rewarded for your efforts and participation during a seasonal event?
#mulelivesmatter Just go to the vault 15 mins before pierre spawns and you'll grab a spot. Even with 1500 players I've yet to miss out on a pierre due to "too many mules". I've even dc'd a couple times during peek hours and still managed to find channels after relogging. If this truly does become a problem then we can consider increasing the max cap per channel from 75 to like 100 or something but I don't think we need to just yet.
Sounds like an awful solution to a problem that affects various aspects of your game that go beyond increasing a map's population cap. Though it is a private server so as your stance on the matter ultimately determines what is or isn't an issue, feel free to close this thread as well.
I'm not sure if it's even possible for them to make in-game rewards IP based. Also, I'm assuming the reason the player cap in the map is so low (75 is definitely the lowest yet I think) is for the people that lag with that many players onscreen.
I've yet to have any issue getting into the map. I arrive 10 minutes before it spawns, sometimes 5 minutes. Chan 1 -4 are almost always full right away. Channel 6 is where I tend to go, and I've never had issues. We have 14 channels, that's 1050 possible people to enter all the maps. I've seen smegas and BL/guild/alliance chat saying 'Channel 11 still up, people come help' or "Chan 14 needs help" even 10 minutes /after/ the other channels have died. I don't think this is much of an issue. If someone wants to get the reward on multiple characters, then they have every right to do it, they still have to participate since they can't just afk and loot like it used to be a few years ago.
They can't just afk and loot? I'd suggest you have a look at the next Pierre, I will personally hit it 10 times and go afk for you to see me get the reward. Either way, stance is pretty clear and I should not have expected any less from a private server. Feel free to close this feedback thread if it has been discussed before as it clearly hasn't yielded any positive changes.
I hate to see you so disappointed, but I'm not sure what solution they could actually implement other than raising the required attack amount (which doesn't solve the problem, but would make each mule chip off more health before going afk.)
You didn't clearly read what I said. People cannot afk the entire time without participating even a little bit (ie: the 10 hit limit), linger and loot a drop. Two years ago, that's how the event for Christmas was set up. We've changed it since then to combat mule/afkers who dont' participate. You have to hit at least 10 times to get a reward. Plain and simple. If someone brings 3 characters, 10 characters, or even 20 characters! They have to still hit 10 times on /each/ character. I've been to 17 kills already. Actually, more like 18 since I was there for 1 that didn't get completed the very first night. Yes, people afk after they've hit the boss. But obviously not everyone is afking, considering it actually dies. If everyone hit 10 times and afk'd, it wouldn't die. Just simple math here, but Pierre has 66,600,000 HP. It takes 1000 hits to kill. 75 people in a maxed channel, x 10 hits minimum, is only 750 hits. I don't see any feasible way to combat it, because there is no way to make an event reward limited by IP address, plus by doing that you will keep players who legitimately have siblings etc. There is the voting whitelist for that reason. And voting is a separate part of the game, so you really can't even use that same design for an event reward. Also, there is a difference between alts and mules. Mule accounts are generally storage accounts, or empty accounts used only for the purpose of the event etc. An alt account is like what I have, and many other people. I have my main - my night lord. Then I also have a bishop. I have an arch mage. I have a buccaneer. I'm working on a new buccaneer that will be HP washed. I do the event on the first three characters, at least 20 to 30 hits on each just to make sure 100% that I hit it enough times. There is no way to tell the difference on the server between an alt account and a mule. You can be out of the map to get your reward, which is there in case of people d/cing at the end from graphic issues (especially macs) or just lag etc. Nvm Matt corrected me I'm just dumb tonight. I dont really know how good of an idea that is, though, too. What if someone's lagging? What if RL calls right in the middle? It's kind of unfair, and all the person would have to do with the alts is just move, attack once, and it would bypass that issue anyway.
Being outside of the map no longer works because there was an exploit. You need to be in the map now.
Does this mean that the number of people per map will increase due to peak hours where there are over 1,500 characters logged in?
I don't believe so as the limit was put into place to try and minimze the lag/dcs. If you want to guarantee a spot, go early!
Just 5mins ago, I logged in literall JUST IN TIME to get a pierre spot. I tried channels 1 to 11 to no avail, all full, and finally a space in channel 13. Guess what? at least 30 people took their hits and went to afk. Honestly, I think something needs to be done about this. Going early doesn't cut it for some of us. I know people that time the pierre spawn and sacrifice 2hours of sleep to wake up for the event, they put in the effort to participate in the event and have fun, just to have it ruined by filled up channels. I believe limiting rewards by IP isn't going to work, however, I do hope that you could at least restrict multiple clients on the same computer from entering. I do not know for sure how much of the player base has multiple PCs to play on MapleRoyals, however I believe many mules are via multi-client, and implementing a restriction on multi-clients would probably free up a certain amount of spaces on channels. Just my two cents worth, cheers
There's the FPS issue as well, not everyone in the server can run the game in 60FPS forcing the ones like me to afk after a couple of hits, i suggest you guys to make other people's hits invisible and/or block NX clothes/Weapons inside the maps (the same goes for the snowman event on christmas)
We're discussing what can be done to keep in mind the lag issue a lot of us face, as well as making it available for people to get into in the first place.
