Let's talk about hidden rapport nerf that didn't get into patchnotes

Short disclaimer → Some NPC at earlier stages of the game used to give gold as rapport rewards, after today’s patch most of them (all?) give silver instead at the rate ~ 100 gold = 10 000 silver.
According to the maxroll and one kind user of the forum, we are missing around 5300 gold.

To be honest, I don’t care that much about the amount of gold since 5300 gold doesn’t make that much difference to me (still pretty sure it would be better to get gold instead of the silver we are offered) but I would like to talk about 2 other topics that are directly connected to this situation:

1 - Why these changes weren’t included in the patchnotes? What is the point of even making patchnotes if you also include other changes you don’t bother to mention about them? This is a really dangerous precedence for the future where developers can do ninja changes (that are hurting players) in hope that the majority will not notice. I don’t know what are standards for game devs in Korea and from what I have heard about AGS they are working hard to overthrow EA as the most loved western game company but if you are not transparent with people about what you are doing with the game then a lot of people will be at least disappointed with that. I would love to hear what @Roxx has to say about that but I saw them being silent on the more controversial topic so I don’t expect to see any response. Silence is also sort of an answer.

2 - Issue with bots. I thought that a big majority of the people are aware that collective responsibility in most cases is a really bad idea. But here goes AGS with Smilegate… I think all of us can agree that this change was made because bots were able to farm these rapports pretty easily to gain gold and then sell it for real money. What I can’t understand is who decided that punishing all players with cutting their resources will be a good idea? We literally have bots running around in Tier2 or doing infinite chaos 24/7 in Tier3 and all you can do is a sneaky nerf that changes literally nothing in terms of botting? If that’s your solution to the bots problem then you will most likely never solve it.
Also when we are with bots I would like to mention how incompetent devs are. We are already one month in and you were not able to find any solution that would prevent boting. Gold sellers still spam all chat like crazy and multiple people provide evidence of lower lvl areas being swarmed by bots. In one month you did nothing that could prevent this situation that is devastating to the in-game economy + it cuts your profit. Also, what is the point of having this anti-cheat thingy? Apparently it’s completely useless and it only lowers game FPS.

So in summary we have game developers who have no idea how to deal with bots and instead of looking for any reasonable solutions they prefer to harm normal players with sneaky in-game changes. A wonderful start to the western release of LA. I’m truly amazed.

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Its a good nerf thankful that amazon tries to do something before they implement a better anti bot device

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By removing gold from literally everyone?

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Yes its a good start

How is it good? How does it help with the bots/gold trading issue?
A much simpler solution that would not hurt normal players that much would be pushing gold to a higher affinity levels

by the time players hit higher affinity with anyone they will be in T3 making loads of gold

I just ask for them to communicate the changes, no matter how mundane. With some generic excuse like “due to an exploit we have changed the following rapport awards on these NPCs”.

The gold is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but the lack of communication is the issue here. I think people are only going to see the issue that “we’re crying about gold” when that isn’t the issue.

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This is the worse thing. I don’t mind losing a few very inefficient gold sources but the sneaky move that worries me. Did they think they could fool 800k players and get away with it? They could have owned up to it and sent everyone a cool skin or something that can’t be turned into gold to apologize.
Nah they chose the “Eh, maybe they won’t even notice” approach when dealing with almost a million of gamers.
Facepalm.

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@Sylkitty I fully agree with you, transparency should be a basic foundation of how game devs communicate with players and if your solution to any kind of problem is to make ninja changes then I would criticize that even if I thought these changes were good for the game.

@Peon Yeah. I have plenty of blue gems and like 50k gold in my pocket atm so like I said this change doesn’t hurt me at all. It’s more about how they decided to implement it.
It’s hard to believe that they “forgot” to mention that in patch notes and making changes without mentioning them is a really bad habit.

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…yes and?

I’m really unsure if this person is capable of using any kind of arguments to support their opinions so idk how much we can get from them xD

How does not announcing this “functionality” prevents bots from adjusting their code? Normal players noticed that in less than 12h after release so how long it could take for botters to notice that change? 3-4h? Probably much less.

Do you really believe that people who make bots are braindead and are not aware of what is going on in the game? That’s a very naive attitude.

Yeah… So apparently hidden changes are good, and people like me who expect transparency are the ones who are helping bots… Thumbs up.

The Amazon omission strikes again…… they have not , nor will they ever learn!!