New limit of 30 instances per day on top of 5 per hour...

[nodoze]

Blizzard just announced the new limit of 30 instances per day on top of 5 per hour...

https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/new-instance-limit-in-wow-classic/158896

This applies to both raids and dungeons so if you go raiding on your main before a day focused on heavy grinding you can be locked out before your alts...

Conversely if you grind dungeons a bunch before your raids your main could get locked out of the raids...

[Fuii]

The important side note on this is:


This check is across all of your characters on your realm.

The 5 per 1 hour can be worked around with a different character.
Though the 30 per 24 hours is for your account per server, regardless of character.

More importantly if you are doing things like frequent instance resets to look for a rare mob (like Jed) utilizing multiple characters you'll accumulate those 30 IDs quite fast.

[jak3676]

This check is across all of your characters on your realm.

Is is safe to assume this is per WoW account and not per Blizzard account? Saying "all of your char's on your realm" doesn't really explain it.

[nodoze]

Is is safe to assume this is per WoW account and not per Blizzard account? Saying "all of your char's on your realm" doesn't really explain it.Yes I believe it is per WoW account and not Blizzard Battle.net account. No true confirmation yet though. I think folk are testing to verify.

[Ellay]

I can see it potentially what they are trying to stop - and this should thwart bots somewhat if they are grinding an instance 24/7. As long as this doesn't touch the battlenet ID and is account only - we'll see soon enough. Because capping at 30 instances a day if you run a dungeon and it takes up 5 of those slots. You're limited to 6 dungeons in a 24 hour window.
Can you imagine trying to level a new team, using dungeon finder and you can only play 6 then you're stuck questing?
What happens with Timewalking and you finish it on one team. Swap to another and you are capped.

Anyone in classic - interested to hear how it works.

[nodoze]

Yeah it would be pretty messed up if it were per battle.net and not wow account. Would push folk to want to have as many battle.nets as possible and likely favor botters who likely are using 1bnet per wow account.

[MiRai]

The 5 per 1 hour can be worked around with a different character.
Is this true?

As far as I can remember, which admittedly is only as far back as WotLK because that's when BNet accounts became a thing for WoW, the instance limit, per-hour, has always been for an entire WoW license and not just one character, and that still holds true today in Retail.

[strokes]

I've never been able to juke the 5/hr limit by switching characters. That would be a godsend for boosting.

[Fuii]

Is this true?

As far as I can remember, which admittedly is only as far back as WotLK because that's when BNet accounts became a thing for WoW, the instance limit, per-hour, has always been for an entire WoW license and not just one character, and that still holds true today in Retail.

Well okay, incorrectly phrased. With "character" I meant a character from another WoW license.

[jak3676]

I appreciate Blizz working to restrict/limit the impact bots have. I wish they focused more direct labor on observing & banning botters, but I can understand that actions that make botting less effective can also help. (I think the black lotus changes were more about breaking many of the bots than they were about anything else.)

With a 15 year old game that they're trying hard not to change, its very easy to exploit almost everything. It seems like much of the current meta around AOE instance farming and boosting is all based around unintended behavior. If this were retail I fully expect that Blizz would change mob behavior and/or the environment such that none of the SM/ZF/Mara/BRD/ZG "1-pull" mechanics would work. (Although I do think that pulling off these pulls is one of the most fun parts about classic.) But if I can do it, its probably just as easy for someone else to automate that with bots. Classic seems to have a bigger bot problem than I ever remember seeing on retail.

But I don't get how this will actually impact any botters. People are saying this will make botters buy more accounts. I don't this will have any impact at all, because the limit is per realm, so botters will just switch realms every 6 hours. Its not like the botters care about which server they're on. So I don't see this having any impact on botting at all. What am I missing here?

[nodoze]

I appreciate Blizz working to restrict/limit the impact bots have. I wish they focused more direct labor on observing & banning botters, but I can understand that actions that make botting less effective can also help. (I think the black lotus changes were more about breaking many of the bots than they were about anything else.)

With a 15 year old game that they're trying hard not to change, its very easy to exploit almost everything. It seems like much of the current meta around AOE instance farming and boosting is all based around unintended behavior. If this were retail I fully expect that Blizz would change mob behavior and/or the environment such that none of the SM/ZF/Mara/BRD/ZG "1-pull" mechanics would work. (Although I do think that pulling off these pulls is one of the most fun parts about classic.) But if I can do it, its probably just as easy for someone else to automate that with bots. Classic seems to have a bigger bot problem than I ever remember seeing on retail.

But I don't get how this will actually impact any botters. People are saying this will make botters buy more accounts. I don't this will have any impact at all, because the limit is per realm, so botters will just switch realms every 6 hours. Its not like the botters care about which server they're on. So I don't see this having any impact on botting at all. What am I missing here?You have valid points though it will add some overhead for them to level up multiple teams to 60 to be able to switch servers and if they increase the banning frequency that overhead will be even more painful.

[strokes]

So I don't see this having any impact on botting at all. What am I missing here?I don't think it really does. This hurts hardcore boosting more than botting imo.

I don't really think the DMMMPr bot farms in Stratholme are averaging the 1 reset every 45 minutes needed to hit the lockout.

[Kruschpakx4]

oh boy thats gonna backfire so hard

and botters could just set up more teams across different realms and rotate if they are affected by it

[Moorea]

it is odd it is per realm indeed, doesn't make much sense for the goal (but obviously makes sense in term of implementation/where and how to store that counter/limit, it's probably harder to make classic-wide)

[Purpleflavor]

I can see it potentially what they are trying to stop - and this should thwart bots somewhat if they are grinding an instance 24/7. As long as this doesn't touch the battlenet ID and is account only - we'll see soon enough. Because capping at 30 instances a day if you run a dungeon and it takes up 5 of those slots. You're limited to 6 dungeons in a 24 hour window.
Can you imagine trying to level a new team, using dungeon finder and you can only play 6 then you're stuck questing?
What happens with Timewalking and you finish it on one team. Swap to another and you are capped.

Anyone in classic - interested to hear how it works.
Is dungeon finder effected by the lock out? I never notice it being so. I think dungeon finder is separate but i'm not sure. Would be terrible if you cant dungeon level teams without being gated by this.

[WoW06]

Hello, this limit is for a WoW account or the entire B.net account? Thanks

[nodoze]

Hello, this limit is for a WoW account or the entire B.net account? ThanksEverything I have seen so far indicates it is per WoW account and not per Bnet account.

Arleaus did on twitter put a tweet that seemed to point toward his friend with 5 accounts maybe being penalized by his Bnet but I didn't see any actual testing that confirmed that...

I think I saw someone mention that one reset method may burn 2 resets when trying to reset so that is something that should be documented and avoided if true.

Note that for SM all the dungeons are on the same reset so you could alternate between 2-4 of them and not have to reset that often. If you are just doing mobs and not bosses anyway in the larger instances you may get re-spawns which means you don't necessarily need to reset there either. Some other things that may help may be focusing on larger dungeons like Mara and doing the whole thing or the larger 1 pulls or just switching to HyperSpawns in the open world...

[z0k]

Blizzard is so good at solving the botting problem.... /s

[nodoze]

https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/actions-taken-to-address-exploitative-gameplay/159287


(https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/actions-taken-to-address-exploitative-gameplay/159287)https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/actions-taken-to-address-exploitative-gameplay/558339


Feedback from players on both threads...

[Purpleflavor]

Blizzard is so good at solving the botting problem.... /s
yah they are panicking. Seems like a new wave of botting is hitting hard and they want to deal with it before SL. I've seen so many bots in the last couple of weeks. The last time i saw it this bad was right before the pvp /follow change and the bg's with just bot trains during the AM.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'm not a fan of Asmon but he makes some good points at times.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtHScv2kX8w&t=974s

[nodoze]

I'm not a fan of Asmon but he makes some good points at times.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtHScv2kX8w&t=974sThanks for sharing. His posts under this account seem more mature and reasoned than the streaming related ones.

[Purpleflavor]

They just banned 74,000 classic bot accounts.

74,000

bots

wow

[Acidburning]

there is a weak aura for tracking if you need:

https://wago.io/1Zqr-ccR4

[Moorea]

One solution would be:

- spin off classic as a separate IP/company (so you can't use bnet $ credit to pay for sub)
- pay for classic game $40 (so each time a bot gets banned, it cost them $40 to get back on)
- require auth, maybe US phone number for US region
- $15/month sub (so a bot cost $40+$15)
- ban faster

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/solution-to-get-rid-of-bots-and-make-money/561107

[nodoze]

Hire a few expert botters, if necessary as independent contractors, who are in the know on the forums, tools, tricks and what not and then put in place auto-ban detection systems with some anti-cheat software. Those "now white hats" can remain "undercover" and in the cheating/botting community to help keep up with the adaption over time.

Also get more GMs and/or recruit some customer relations folk in game that can issue bans.

[jak3676]

Probably obvious by this point, but I can confirm the 30 instance/account/realm/day is tied to your WoW account, not your BNet account. I hit the instance cap with 1 of my toons, but was able to keep going with the other 4 just fine.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Probably obvious by this point, but I can confirm the 30 instance/account/realm/day is tied to your WoW account, not your BNet account. I hit the instance cap with 1 of my toons, but was able to keep going with the other 4 just fine.
Good data. Thanks!

[The Crowd]

GM’s never ever banned botters, even back in the day. You would flag them as such and forward them on to accounts/Billings. Who could take anywhere between a week to a month to get through the backlog. With the report system all that’s happened is accounts get flagged by random players and sent to accounts/Billings as well. Exact same chain. The only difference is we only flagged accounts we observed botting where modern players spam report everything. Don’t like someone’s tactic in pvp, report. Guild member got the loot you want, report. Someone got to a mining node/rare before you... report.
this creates soooo freaking many false flags that have to be gone through. I mean if people actually used to report function for what it’s meant for... then it would work the exact same as it used to work in vanilla/tbc.

[Mercbeast]

GM’s never ever banned botters, even back in the day. You would flag them as such and forward them on to accounts/Billings. Who could take anywhere between a week to a month to get through the backlog. With the report system all that’s happened is accounts get flagged by random players and sent to accounts/Billings as well. Exact same chain. The only difference is we only flagged accounts we observed botting where modern players spam report everything. Don’t like someone’s tactic in pvp, report. Guild member got the loot you want, report. Someone got to a mining node/rare before you... report.
this creates soooo freaking many false flags that have to be gone through. I mean if people actually used to report function for what it’s meant for... then it would work the exact same as it used to work in vanilla/tbc.

GM's definitely used to ban botters. I know a guy who got banned running wow glider back in 2005, while he was at his computer. GM PM'd him, he shit himself when the GM alert warning sounded like an air raid siren in his house. He responded. GM said "you're botting", and he got banned. Now? Their MO on how to handle botting has changed. Not sure when it changed, but I know it changed.

[The Crowd]

All that happened there is when the GM passed it on, it got done instantly. The sad truth is GM’s we’re call center type work. You had zero power. Everything you did was PR related. You had the ability to search a players inventory for an item, you had a list of his previous sent/received mail, his AH listings. You could move him around the map and you could force disconnect a player... you couldn’t even mute a player. There was even pdf files of “wow jokes” you could copy paste to reply to people with. But at the end of the day you had no actual control. Most GM’s were minimum wage jobs and got the kind of person who does those jobs. The banning was done by more senior members of staff in accounts/billing. I imagine in your friends case he happened to either ring accounts at the same time he flagged it to get it banned instantly. Or he happened to be sitting next to someone in office who could. It wasn’t uncommon for people to call other people over to look at things on their screens because they were doing something absolutely Hilarious.
I can remember a bunch of about 15 sitting around a screen watching 4 locks and Priest standing in a tower in AV dotting everyone who ran past and watching the ticket count go through The roof.

[jak3676]

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/wow-classic-hotfixes-updated-june-16/361448

I didn't even notice this at 1st, but Blizz took raid instances out of the 30-per-day limit. I wonder if this means all the bots will move to LBRS/UBRS or ZG farming once they hit their cap...


40-player raid instances are no longer affected by the 30-per-day limit on entering dungeons.

Developers’ notes: We have seen only a small handful of legitimate players encountering the recently added instance limit, but we want to ensure that anyone who does hit the cap is still able to freely participate in raid content.

[The Crowd]

MC, BWL, AQ40, Nax will be ok. 20 and 10 man still count. I honestly have no doubt but blizz have decided to try and curb stomp instance farms to stop mage boosts/ single boss multi farms to make the game closer to how it was played back in the day.

[jak3676]

Ha, I read the note, but didn't even process that Blizz specifically said "40-player raid instances", not just all raid instances. Thanks for pointing that out.

I do think the reaction to the instance cap is a bit overstated. I'm still getting an alt boosted right now while I'm working from home. So I have her in instances for 8+ hours a day and I only hit the cap 1 time where I was specifically trying to do that for testing at the end of a night (run in, run out, reset - repeat). In just trying to boost her to 60 its been impossible for me to hit the cap. Maybe if I was trying for world 1st or something, but 30 instances even at 12min per instance would be 6 hours of pure grinding. Most people take breaks, run out to go vendor stuff, etc. And I don't know anyone who's actually spot on @ 12 min - seems like most are @ 15-18 min/run once they do Cathedral+Armory or Mara.

If Blizz wanted to curb stomp mage boosting or dungeon farming there's just so many more effective ways to do it.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

If Blizz wanted to curb stomp mage boosting or dungeon farming there's just so many more effective ways to do it.
Assuming they have anyone left at Blizzard that knows what to do and has any kind of resources (i.e. time and devs) to implement it. Just seems like one of those sustaining tasks that always get shit-canned by management because they don't understand the issue or why the proper solution would save them more money than all the bandaids in the long-run.

[nodoze]

... I do think the reaction to the instance cap is a bit overstated. I'm still getting an alt boosted right now while I'm working from home. So I have her in instances for 8+ hours a day and I only hit the cap 1 time where I was specifically trying to do that for testing at the end of a night (run in, run out, reset - repeat). In just trying to boost her to 60 its been impossible for me to hit the cap.

Maybe if I was trying for world 1st or something, but 30 instances even at 12min per instance would be 6 hours of pure grinding. Most people take breaks, run out to go vendor stuff, etc. And I don't know anyone who's actually spot on @ 12 min - seems like most are @ 15-18 min/run once they do Cathedral+Armory or Mara. ...From what I understand instead of 6 hours it actually takes you 7.25 hours as, if you farm consistently & continuously, you actually only can get 5 instances the first hour and then are essentially stuck at 4 instances per hour after that.

What some folk were doing were getting their pulls down to the most efficient trade off of XP &/or gold to about 12 minutes so they could build into their planning a quick bio break to stretch their legs, refresh drink, use the bathroom, etc. In your 2nd hour of farming and beyond a 12 min average run after 4 runs gives you a 12 min bio break every hour... Four 13 min runs means 8 mins... Four 14 minute runs and you have less than 5 mins...

Some of us can't play very often and when we do we tend to do it for a day or two straight. A little while back I started working on the Mage pulls and after getting bored I decided to go back to 5boxing to progress and I am glad I did (especially in light of this change). Had I stayed with the most efficient Mage pull approach I could have been locked out this weekend when I finally got a chance to play... That being said I agree that it doesn't really affect most people and for most folk there are changes you can make to mitigate most of the impact. For example I could get my 5box to progress all day by focusing on instances where mobs re-spawn and just start over without resetting the instance and kill all the non-bosses again.

The change to not affect 40man instances is likely a good switch as at least that isn't a concern anymore.

[Mercbeast]

This would have been very annoying at classic launch when I was 24/7ing no life styling for 2 weeks.

If they ever release a new batch of classic servers, and I honestly don't see why they wouldn't roll out fresh classic servers every year or two, this will be a big kick in the teeth for people who want to instance grind to cap.

[nodoze]

This would have been very annoying at classic launch when I was 24/7ing no life styling for 2 weeks.

If they ever release a new batch of classic servers, and I honestly don't see why they wouldn't roll out fresh classic servers every year or two, this will be a big kick in the teeth for people who want to instance grind to cap.True but I think there are ways to mitigate the pain. For example:

- In VC/DM the mobs respawn by the time most 5 boxers get to the end boss; Just don't reset as often and reclear for XP and you can go 24/7 with upto 30 end boss kills per day;

-In Stockades the same thing until you start to out-level the instance anyway (for a melee-cleave team at least);

-In SM all the 4 dungeons are in 1 instance ID so you can clear multiple per reset (and, though I am not sure as I haven't tested, the mobs may respawn as well).

I suspect doing full clears of larger instances like mara etc could also give a 5boxer enough time to fill a full day...

Bottom line is that would not be as easy but likely we would adapt and document some recommended routes.

[boxblizzard]

This is a welcome change from my stand point, it’s per 24 hours it’s not per week or month so there always tomorrow.

This is going to reduce unwelcome strategies as one way of putting it....

Sadly it would affect us more as a community but this has happened for good reason and we are taking the grunt of it.