Skin/Clothes Drops Issue...

[AriOSxT]

a good solution would be to give those 4 gifts once a weak all at once so people wouldn't  idle for no reason all the time.  7days log in check what you got maybe play a little and move on

[Mobbstar]

1 hour ago, AriOSxT said:

all at once

Nah, but lower the intervals. First one would drop after an hour or two, to reward casual players (as contradicting as this sounds, since the game in question is Don't Starve). Second one after a four more hours, that's roughly what I expect from people with jobs and lives and stuff, especially if playing on only one or two servers in one long session. Third one after five to eight more hours, for those who really want to play the game much. Last one after a grand total of 16-20 hours (that's six hours later), because anything more wouldn't even be skinner boxing anymore, for the exact reason this thread exists.

I wonder whether or not Klei purposely started a system so likely to fall under "skinner box" (if it'd work, that is) and then nudge it towards "whale feeding"... I understand that Mark-of-the-Ninjas and Invisiblincs are hard to make, I don't blame them for seeking a somewhat lasting source of funds. But I do wonder. (Klei represtatives, if you disagree with this paragraph, feel free to remove it without notifying me.)

[AriOSxT]

14 minutes ago, Mobbstar said:

Nah, but lower the intervals. First one would drop after an hour or two, to reward casual players (as contradicting as this sounds, since the game in question is Don't Starve). Second one after a four more hours, that's roughly what I expect from people with jobs and lives and stuff, especially if playing on only one or two servers in one long session. Third one after five to eight more hours, for those who really want to play the game much. Last one after a grand total of 16-20 hours (that's six hours later), because anything more wouldn't even be skinner boxing anymore, for the exact reason this thread exists.

I wonder whether or not Klei purposely started a system so likely to fall under "skinner box" (if it'd work, that is) and then nudge it towards "whale feeding"... I understand that Mark-of-the-Ninjas and Invisiblincs are hard to make, I don't blame them for seeking a somewhat lasting source of funds. But I do wonder. (Klei represtatives, if you disagree with this paragraph, feel free to remove it without notifying me.)

that will simply make people idle all the time and you will join servers filled with idlers unlike tf2 every server is idle server so its pure pain to find fun server now where people actually play , if you just got the items at once then people who want to sell them or whatever would leave the game and those who like it would stay i think that's better for community

[werlpolf]

On 11/21/2015 at 3:49 AM, PeterA said:

there's nothing stopping any modder from just circumventing any checks that we'd do to check when a player enters a console command.

To circumvent the players / modders circumevention, the servers settings can be restricted (ranked servers). No mods are allowed - a mod can make the life very easy. No commands through the console or through the shell should work (option -console is not set).

 

Servers with console commands or mods are fun servers and everyone, who plays there need some more time to aquire skins, then other players, who plays on no-modded worlds and no console commands.

[Gelatous]

9 minutes ago, werlpolf said:

To circumvent the players / modders circumevention, the servers settings can be restricted (ranked servers). No mods are allowed - a mod can make the life very easy. No commands through the console or through the shell should work (option -console is not set).

this is still possible to bypass - you can go directly into the game files and edit them so you'll never lose health. Your server will not be marked as modded and you will not have used a console command, yet you'll be eligible for skin drops.

[werlpolf]

5 minutes ago, Gelatous said:

this is still possible to bypass - you can go directly into the game files and edit them so you'll never lose health. Your server will not be marked as modded and you will not have used a console command, yet you'll be eligible for skin drops.

yes, of course you are right. I am actually not aware of how DST is made. Isn't the netcode implemented in C++? I don't see any socket handling in lua. If you implement the restrictive checks in C++ the players would need to crack it. That is not very tasty - and most people don't like doing it, even if they could. Another method is to checksum the memory of the DST process and the so on. This will be an endless hacking battle, yes. But I thought implementing some things in C++ and compile it as a DLL or SO and providing it everybody would be sufficient.

[GiddyGuy]

1 hour ago, werlpolf said:

yes, of course you are right. I am actually not aware of how DST is made. Isn't the netcode implemented in C++? I don't see any socket handling in lua. If you implement the restrictive checks in C++ the players would need to crack it. That is not very tasty - and most people don't like doing it, even if they could. Another method is to checksum the memory of the DST process and the so on. This will be an endless hacking battle, yes. But I thought implementing some things in C++ and compile it as a DLL or SO and providing it everybody would be sufficient.

Does this really even matter anymore, I think most people do this so they can get gifts while they are at work or school, also making it so if you used mods on your servers and not get gifts would be even more stupid cause no one would use mods...well maybe the client ones but yeah host mods would be useless unless they approved some mods on the steam workshop

[nome]

2 minutes ago, GiddyGuy said:

also making it so if you used mods on your servers and not get gifts would be even more stupid cause no one would use mods..

And we didn't dedicate Peter to mod support for so much of his time here to then turn around and tell everyone that mods are bad.

 

[werlpolf]

18 hours ago, GiddyGuy said:

Does this really even matter anymore, I think most people do this so they can get gifts while they are at work or school, also making it so if you used mods on your servers and not get gifts would be even more stupid cause no one would use mods...well maybe the client ones but yeah host mods would be useless unless they approved some mods on the steam workshop

Yes, you can classify mods like the client side ones and maybe through the community, to be able to define for example 'that server mod is balanced'.

And still you can get gifts, but need more time If people need more time getting skins when using (unbalanced) mods, they will be more interested in defining these mods as 'balanced' in order to get skins in normal periods again. But this can be alot of maintenance. On the other hand, the community will improve the quality of the mods and every player can benefit from it in playing with them.

Else idling cannot be avoided, when we can get gifts on our own servers.

Most mods makes the dst game much more easier. You can cannot ve both: Easy life mods and no idling.

 

Another idea: Since it does not matter on which server you are playing, the gifts can depend on the clients activity. As long the user's keyboard and user's mouse has enough amount of actions-per-minute, the gift-clock can continue to run. The APM check can be implemented in the lower layer (C++?) - so not in Lua. Some games do check APM's to inform the user to make a break

 

[PeterA]

1 hour ago, werlpolf said:

As long the user's keyboard and user's mouse has enough amount of actions-per-minute, the gift-clock can continue to run. The APM check can be implemented in the lower layer (C++?)

Unfortunately this can easily be spoofed too. There are many tools that can emulate keyboard and mouse input so that the game doesn't know that you're actually afk.

[Serph]

Why is this such a big deal? It's not like idlers are directly harming other players in any way. I love using cheap mods and console commands when playing with my younger brother, and i'm somehow getting punished for that. I already noticed that when i god moded and left him alone to check my social medias i got disconnected from my own server.

You'll just make it a bit harder and/or more inconvenient but you'll never fully stop idlers, not even Valve could do it and they already gave up. If they're farming skins instead of playing then they obviously want to sell everything in the market, which was Klei's idea to begin with.

[WillowCrocker]

3 minutes ago, Serph said:

Why is this such a big deal? It's not like idlers are directly harming other players in any way. I love using cheap mods and console commands when playing with my younger brother, and i'm somehow getting punished for that. I already noticed that when i god moded and left him alone to check my social medias i got disconnected from my own server.

You'll just make it a bit harder and/or more inconvenient but you'll never fully stop idlers, not even Valve could do it and they already gave up. If they're farming skins instead of playing then they obviously want to sell everything in the market, which was Klei's idea to begin with.

Not necessarily! I've done it before, and I don't sell my items on the market. I just buy.

I've it simply because I work full time and very much of that time, I just...can't play as often as I'd like to. I do wanna get my 4 drops for the week, though.

I can see how it could be used for evil though I guess

[PeterA]

2 minutes ago, Serph said:

i'm somehow getting punished for that. I already noticed that when i god moded and left him alone to check my social medias i got disconnected from my own server.

We're not punishing you for that, having mods on or doing console commands doesn't affect your drops. The disconnect bug on idle is being worked on.

I agree, it's impossible to stop all idling without ruining the game for everyone else.

[Gelatous]

1 hour ago, PeterA said:

Unfortunately this can easily be spoofed too. There are many tools that can emulate keyboard and mouse input so that the game doesn't know that you're actually afk.

[Serph]

2 minutes ago, WillowCrocker said:

Not necessarily! I've done it before, and I don't sell my items on the market. I just buy.

I've it simply because I work full time and very much of that time, I just...can't play as often as I'd like to. I do wanna get my 4 drops for the week, though.

I can see how it could be used for evil though I guess

I didn't mean everyone who idles just want skins in the market, only those that farm skins and don't play.

I also idled sometimes but only because i'm busy studying 6-10 hours a day and the fourth weekly gift takes forever to drop.

I don't see how they can be "used for evil". Yeah, you can farm and sell but that was inevitable with the market, and even if it's technically "underserving" to get gifts like this, it's not harming anyone. 
 

13 minutes ago, PeterA said:

We're not punishing you for that, having mods on or doing console commands doesn't affect your drops. The disconnect bug on idle is being worked on.

I agree, it's impossible to stop all idling without ruining the game for everyone else.

Thank you for answering!

I know you're not directly punishing me but from the answers in this thread, it's clear that the devs are well aware of idlers and listening to feedback, with some comments saying to stop gifting godmode users and even modders, so i don't know what and if a measure will be taken. I thought the disconnect from own server was an intentional attempt to stop idlers, i didn't know it was a bug, sorry.

[AriOSxT]

"weekly gift takes forever to drop"
it takes from one second to one h for first gift to drop after that it takes another h for second gift  then you have cool down period after that you get 2 more gifts the same way  and then you have to wait for a new weak cus u only get 4

[PeterA]

36 minutes ago, Serph said:

I thought the disconnect from own server was an intentional attempt to stop idlers, i didn't know it was a bug, sorry.

No worries! I just wanted to clear that up since there appeared to be some confusion. I believe the bug is actually fixed now on the live default branch, please let us know if you see it again.

[werlpolf]

13 hours ago, PeterA said:

We're not punishing you for that, having mods on or doing console commands doesn't affect your drops. The disconnect bug on idle is being worked on.

I agree, it's impossible to stop all idling without ruining the game for everyone else

This is a quite a hard word (punishing) for preventing idlers keeping their PC all day on. Aren't then the players punished for not idling or not using mods and typing c_godmode() all day long? I think most people, who are not doing these things, just don't care about it and the players with the easy mods are more sensitive with that. XD Maybe everyone get two skins every week doesn't matter how long you ve played...

I would love to ve achievements in the game like Klei mentioned about the weekly recipes for getting easier better clothes (they can also be coupled with teamwork tasks). People can infiltrate everything. You can also decrypt SSL packages without the key (it takes a while). I personally don't care much how the skin system is being implemented as long it does not inflict my personal gameplay.

If I don't know DST and I see my friend is 'idling' and he explains it, I wouldn't think much good of that game.

[BorhilIan]

The best way to resolve this problem is just create a stock of items that are given out daily to active players. That stock could be mostly basic throw-away items such as basic shirts. However for rare-er items as opposed to allocating based on some statistic just make them completely random. This way if people play your game regularly they will occasionally get a rare item or a bunch of plain items.

If you look at the DST market you can already see the numbers going up. Some items are worth nothing because they are so common already. Perhaps you could use real-time market statistics to determine the daily stock.

Just some rough ideas, as it stands I love when I get an item and it definitely motivates me to put in a little extra time here and there.

You could also commission various artists/spriters to create rare limited items and sprinkle them in every now-and-then. (Would be difficult to pull off understandable but maybe you could source this to the DST community)

 

EDIT: If people are idling with godmode then just make it so if people have godmode on they cant receive items. Then when they get back to there computer after 24 hours of idling they are dead with nothing to show for it. Seems pretty simple. Requiring users to keep themselves fed and alive in DST is payment enough for items since they are basically just playing the game at that point.

 

EDIT-2: I suppose they could use mods with basically infinite stats to still idle so make make mods that can effect the game in such a way need to be white-listed to receive gifts. Yes it's extra work but at-least items will re-gain there value over time.

[t1morino88eex]

1 hour ago, BorhilIan said:

use real-time market statistics to determine the daily stock.

 

1 hour ago, BorhilIan said:

Yes it's extra work

Extra work which I believe should rather be spent on actual gameplay content. No, skins aren't gameplay content.

[UnionGaming]

8 minutes ago, t1morino88eex said:

 

Extra work which I believe should rather be spent on actual gameplay content. No, skins aren't gameplay content.

+1 to this. Where's our TtA?

[BorhilIan]

Yeah I agree work should be spent more on the game itself. But this topic is about fixing the issues with drops. The easiest solution I can think of is disabling drops while players are using godmode. I don't imagine this would be difficult at all.

[leonseye]

23 minutes ago, BorhilIan said:

Yeah I agree work should be spent more on the game itself. But this topic is about fixing the issues with drops. The easiest solution I can think of is disabling drops while players are using godmode. I don't imagine this would be difficult at all.

I'm honestly not sure why this wasn't implemented the second Klei decided that "time on server" was going to be the determining factor for receiving drops, which I still find to be a less than elegant mechanic.

[leonseye]

Why would somebody want clothes for a game they don't even want to play?

This doesn't even make sense.  They wouldn't even see them.

And why shouldn't they just exploit other players for free money?  Seriously?

I'm not sure why I'm even responding to this.. <.<