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Forums > Home› Neverwinter Discussion › Player Feedback (PC)

Bots

pprandompprandom Member Posts: 182 Arc User
in Player Feedback (PC)
I've been running a lot of low level dungeons lately and almost every run i was joined by a paladin tank bot.
The main issue is that this bots use alt accounts to farm AD for a main account and transfer it by buying an overpriced item in the AH. This way to ignore the AD limit per day devalues you legit players time, your economy and the game in general.
Some suggestions would include:
- Adding a dedicated report bot/cheat function (your comunity is your best resourse against this).
- Requiring some sort of captcha for those accounts that have been reported several times.
- Creating a watchlist for those who often sell overpriced items (an order of magnitude or more).
- Track those overpriced item buyers and check if they were reported, and punish the main accounts (otherwise there's not point in any of this)

Comments

  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,466 Arc User
    https://support.arcgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017777753-How-do-I-report-a-Terms-of-Service-violation-

    Neverwinter (PC)
    If the violation occurs in this title, please submit the ticket in-game by going to the Game Menu (default key: Escape) and selecting Help.

    Once in the menu, press Request GM Help.

    Next, select Player Behavior, and fill out the description fields as thoroughly as possible. We highly recommend that you send your report as soon as the violation is witnessed.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • sandukutupusandukutupu Member Posts: 2,285 Arc User
    pprandom said:

    I've been running a lot of low level dungeons lately and almost every run i was joined by a paladin tank bot.
    The main issue is that this bots use alt accounts to farm AD for a main account and transfer it by buying an overpriced item in the AH. This way to ignore the AD limit per day devalues you legit players time, your economy and the game in general.
    Some suggestions would include:
    - Adding a dedicated report bot/cheat function (your comunity is your best resourse against this).
    - Requiring some sort of captcha for those accounts that have been reported several times.
    - Creating a watchlist for those who often sell overpriced items (an order of magnitude or more).
    - Track those overpriced item buyers and check if they were reported, and punish the main accounts (otherwise there's not point in any of this)

    I totally agree with plasticbat. I would like to voice concern in a few areas;

    A watch list of sellers of "overpriced" items? You mean a bent fork for 1,111,111 AD? That indeed could be a botter/AD seller or it could only be me giving my son or husband 1,000,000 AD. How can they tell? The seller could come back and say it was a joke. The buyer of such an item could say they like buying bent forks at any price. If they truly desire to stop this sort of thing, just change the rules of the AH. You know when you first toss up any item and the AH gives an average range; min bid = 1302 / buyout = 5390? The quick way to prevent trading AD through the AH is to lock those in as min and max buyout. Another method allow 15% + or - the lowest and highest. If I went to sell a Blue Meany and the lowest buyout price is 1,000 and the highest is 10,000, then I could offer as low as 850 or go as high as 11,500.
    But a watch list? Who are they going to pay cash money to watch the watch list?

    I am all for the CAPTCHA (uppercase for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), in fact, I said this several times, and even went as far as suggesting a simple "bot jail" aka empty dungeon... for many years now. I don't think it's going to happen. Before I stopped running dungeons, at one point, I just asked in chat "How many of us are bots?".

    As plasticbat stated there is a method already in place, but most people in our "online community" just crab about the bots in chat and don't report strange behavior.
    wb-cenders.gif
  • pprandompprandom Member Posts: 182 Arc User
    The watchlist would only affect you if you are regularly trading with players reported as bots, in your case it wouldn't do anything. And I'm not saying it's an instant ban or something like that, more like useful evidence in the case you're in fraudulent practices. Otherwise it won't do anything because the main accounts that benfit from this wouldn't be affected and bots will just create a new alt account.
  • pprandompprandom Member Posts: 182 Arc User
    And about reporting it doesn't really do much, since i've been running with the same bots for days (Some of them i think i reported several times already). But the real issue is the main account that benefits from this, bots are replaceable anyway.
  • plasticbatplasticbat Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 12,466 Arc User
    edited July 2020
    pprandom said:

    The watchlist would only affect you if you are regularly trading with players reported as bots, in your case it wouldn't do anything. And I'm not saying it's an instant ban or something like that, more like useful evidence in the case you're in fraudulent practices. Otherwise it won't do anything because the main accounts that benfit from this wouldn't be affected and bots will just create a new alt account.

    If you are talking about AD transfer from the 'dealer' to the 'customer', keep tracking overpriced item will not help you to catch them. What the pro do (and have been done since the beginning) is to give the 'customer' an item with the similar matching price to the AD 'customer' wants to purchase. For example, for 10 million, they give the customer a (say) legendary mount that worth 8 million. Then, ask the customer to put that in AH for 11 million. The one (A) who gives the item and the one (B) who buy the item are from different account. A is an used once account. B is the AD bot. B will ship out the item to its more 'secure' account right the way after it 'buys' it from the customer.

    How do you figure out B is not a legit buyer without any reasonable doubt (especially when the buggy AH does not always show everything)? Of course, if one does a FBI style of investigation, one may figure that out.
    *** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
  • pprandompprandom Member Posts: 182 Arc User
    You could sthealthily mark items and AD transactions when they pass through an account that was reported for botting, to mark someone who farms from bots. Of course a lot of items would be traded through the legit comunity as well but obviously in a minor proportion to the overall items. Someone whose majority of stuff was ill gotten is probably guilty.
    Although it sounds horribly contrived...
  • sandukutupusandukutupu Member Posts: 2,285 Arc User
    My husband says that bot detection is so simple it could be automated. I am not a programmer, so I take his word for it.

    Suspects would get transferred to an empty dungeon, if it is truly a human playing and not a bot, the human would instantly know how to escape the jail and return to the real dungeon. The bot would continue to run the dungeon until shutdown. At this point, when they get banned for botting, what is their excuse for repeating the same empty dungeon for several hours or days? The only answer could be you were running a bot. The bot would end up with lots of company in there, all the other bots in jail. This solution not only assures the guilt or innocence, it also removes bots from the dungeons, they don't steal any AD, and keeps them out of site.
    pprandom said:

    And about reporting it doesn't really do much, since i've been running with the same bots for days (Some of them i think i reported several times already). But the real issue is the main account that benefits from this, bots are replaceable anyway.

    A conspiracy theory about this subject is based on some articles I have read. Some Asian companies buy up games such as this one and then bot the game and set up the gold selling websites. There are 2 groups of players they get revenue from; the honest player who is willing to buy game currency through proper channels and the dishonest player who believes they are going to a third party seller, but in fact is the corporate headquarters. I am not saying this is going on with PWE, even if that were true, Cryptic Studios would be left in the dark and told chasing down bots is low priority. This is just some of the rumors I have read. I don't believe they are making prisoners play WoW for money either, and beating them with a rubber hose for losing. That sounds way too far fetched.

    Keep reporting the bots! Keep having fun! <3
    wb-cenders.gif
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