Harvesting in priority order? : EverQuest 2 General Discussions

Ok first let me say that I think DOING this is a TERRIBLE idea which is why it's not in the bot. Let me try to first take the opposing side:

If you're harvesting and others are there too they run to (insert your favorite harvest here) quick and get it before I do, with priority order I could have gotten that harvest first!

My reply? Yup, this is absolutely true, now my view on this.

First of all think of this on the larger scale, you are talking about losing what... 10 harvests out of 10,000? WHO CARES. Second if you have Avoid players on and you both arrive at the same time the bot will let the other person have it anyway and if you DON'T have AvoidPlayers on you are !@#$%^&* people off... Trust me you don't want to do that while running a bot, you do NOT want to attract attention in any way but to attract attention AND piss people off creates petitions and that increases the odds of you getting caught and banned.

Second, let's try to keep looking at the big picture and forget the '/whimper I lost my (insert fav harvest) Whaaa'. You are harvesting, you are using a range of say... 50, I use that a LOT (note that that means 50 from center in any direction, literally meaning 100 across) and you are NOT using priority order. Ok, as the bot approaches the area it builds it's DB of nodes and finds the closest one ot you, runs to it and harvests, it then looks for the node closest ot where you are NOW, run/harvest, rinse and repeat. Yes, sometimes this will result in long runs but pretty rarely.

Now the same scenario with priority harvests, you aproach the area and build the db of nodes, the closest to you is 5 away but the closest priority 1 is 50 away, run 50, harvest, next priority 1 is 50 away, run harvest, next is ... getting the idea? When all the priority 1's are gone you begin to do the same thing with priority 2s and by the time you have run all over that 100 range area and finished up 1s and 2s I will have completed all harvests because I run 5 or 10 to my nodes and you run 50 to your nodes and you cover the same ground over and over and over again because you want priority order to get that ONE harvest before someone else does. Your harvesting rate drops to 2 or 3 harvests per minute while mine is 5 harvests per minute. VERY not smart! At the end of the night, I have harvested 2000 and you have harvested 1000? 1500? BUT you got those 2 or 3 right out from under someone elses nodes and they sent in a petition cause they got pissed that you harvested their nodes (again).

Ok, these are my reasons NOT to do priority harvests and my reasons for not bothering to code them into the bot at all. Having said all that here is a poll for you to let me know what you think. Please feel free to comment here on this subject.

In addition to the above reasons, its a commonly known fact that a given node has a weighted chance to spawn as any of the different types of nodes. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that, in a given area, if you run in and just harvest node type X, and ignore the others, those nodes you harvested will respawn as various different types of nodes. If you continue to only havest certain node types, you will very quickly be left with no nodes at all of said type.

I can imagine one scenario in which this would be useful: if the distance to 2 nodes is minimal, (say less than a few clicks) then it would be helpful to have a priority check so you hit the more desirable node first. That way your still harvesting at roughly the same rate, except your grabbing the ones you want first, then cleaning up everything else before moving on. The advantage here is that your more likely to get nodes you want even if there are people in the zone only harvesting 'your' node type. (/rude, btw). Your behavior would look roughly the same, so you'd be no more likely to draw attention than otherwise, and the fact that your cleaning all the nodes (meaning your also spawning the nodes they want without them having to do the cleanup) means they're far more likely to leave you alone, even if you do happen to hit the same node as them. Nobody likes cherrypickers, they'll be more likely to be getting hate from the other harvesters than you anyhow. The harvest range (as Im sure you know) is suprisingly large- IMHO if and only if more than one node is within harvest range, then do a priority check. If no nodes are in range, and your deciding where to move next, if the difference between 2 nodes is minimal, then again a priority check might be nice. Of course, that likely means a substantial re-write: If you take the list, and just sort it by dist. as I assume your doing now, or sort by priority, as you sugested, its pretty straightforward. What I'm sugesting would be assigning a 'weight' to each node, factored by at least 2 things: distance, and priority. Since you'd be building a weighted system, might as well add a few other factors: a nodes proximity to other nodes (so you head for the group of 5 nodes, even if its a few steps further than the single node off by itself), as well as proximity to another player.

Heheh, umm, your talking a huge job I'm not willing to go after, especially since the payoff is minimal. You do make some good points but the basic argument still is, you're talking about 1 node out of 2000 a day... WHO CARES!

Hehheh, I love it, a vote for Botters should be shot in the XU forums.. that's great. Thanks for the laugh whoever it was.

I kinda agree with disco and it is a shame that would be to large a task to do. Everyone (on my server) pretty much harvests ore first looking for that instant 3p sale (ebon cluster) then moves to whatever is nearby.

I would not mind harvesting everything but when you harvest say shrubs and fungi (things with no rare) unless your selling them for coin on the broker OR need them to TS these things are taking up space. Now if you could somehow add a feature to do inventory cleanup where you define what items you want deleted from your inventory and how often to do the cleanup (/cough it could do cleanup while on afk break /cough) then I would have no problem clearing all nodes with extream hostility.

I have mentioned this on another forum, the problem with inventory cleanup is not when to do it but how, I wanted to put in the option DelOnRecpt for any harvest type so when you got it, you deleted it and that was the end of that, but I have been unable to find a way to actually manipulate the user's inventory. In my research and discussions I have come to the conclusion that if you want this feature you will have to ask Wyvern to include it in the service... soo maybe some begging will help. Wyvern?

Is there any ini file that is readable client side that logs you picking these up? Maybe some cmd. hidden in bag UI files???


Loraik

the commands to manipulate inventory are known and well documented. I know I've posted on them not only here but on the Sony boards. The issue is that the parameters for those commands are all based on a numbered index. The game internaly keeps an ordered list of items, and in order to manipulate your inventory you have to know what those numbers are. They are dynamic, and can and do occasionaly change when zoning, even if theres no change to your inventory. So without either packet sniffing or memory peeking, theres no reliable way to know what the items number is. Adding this to eq2service would greatly expand the functionality of XU in eq2. Info we'd like to see:

• the array of items, with the ability to find the english name of whatever is in a given position (not slot, but its number. So when we say inventory move 10 -1 0 20 (aka move item number 10 to autoinventory from <source slot, obsolete>, quanity 20) which item is number 10?) or vice versa: which slot(s) contain items matching [text] (does XU support regexes?)
• all flags for items, searchable (fabled? value? etc.)
• The hash (link id number) for the item
• the serial number for the item (used in such commands as /info inventory <#>, sell_to_merchant <#>. info consignment <#> (for items for sale on the broker)
• data retrived from the broker (price, english name, serial #, link #, and, assuming the server is still sending it, the hidden data not shown in the broker window- ie. condition, value, etc).
• etc.

I Think i have a very nice idea on this, but don`t know if you can do it.
Anyways this will only work if the bags will open allways at the same place.

Think of harvesting rares, but you don`t want all that other crap in your inventory because it gets full after some time.

Now think of this:

Put all the rares you want to harvest in bag 1,lets say slot 1-8, so that they will build up a stack while harvesting.
Now you could write a script that you only delete for example slot 9-24 in bag1, because slot 1-8 is for rare harvests.This way you can delete the stuff from all bags without knowing whats in it, well, you now whats in it, all the crap you don`t need.

I hope its not too difficult to prog. A deleting interval of 6hours and you should be fine.

Does Wyvern still add to the functions of XU or is it in the "time to retire on the profits and keep it running after patchs" phase of development? Not trying to be a smartasss or be mean or anything just seems his input has gone missing as of late and was just wondering (no disrespect intended).

I am personally having more fun botting the game than I am playing it! LOL

Loraik

Yea, me too loraik, making bots is lot's of fun.

As far as mouse deleting, yes it could be done but you better have one of every possible type of rare already in your bag (there are RARE rares...) or you could have one end up in your 'delete' bag and make you cry )

As far as wyvern, I have not seen any enhancements to the service but I think he's very busy tryign to get the next version out as well as working with Tault_Admin on these boards so I would not be expecting much.

Oh and as far as this vote is going... I would put the 'botters should be shot' in the NO catagory so it's not looking good.

thewatcher wrote:(there are RARE rares...).

Thats what i think too. I didn`t know if it existed in my dreams only (lol) but one day i saw it harvested something like "laf laf"?? I really forgot about the name excactly because i forgot that it was harvested, deleted it and wondered 3 days later because there was something.....

I harvested it another time but again deleted it, haha.

Every time i delete stuff except rares i`m under a time pressure, haha

Hehehe, the poll is filling out nicely, one for What is priority order and one for this is a dumb poll. *grin*

I want to change my vote to botters should be shot!

Loraik

Hehehh!