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Solutions For Our Bot Problem
viperwitch23
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 205 Arc User
OK My previous post was a bit raw and unfinished so I will discuss solutions here in a greater detail
As everyone ( most people ) know we got a bad bad botter problem on Neverwinter. Botters send random friend requests spam all channels with their adds, send mails with their gold selling offers.
This gotta be somehow stopped it is getting annoying to hell
So after much thinking and experience from another game of mine I put forward several ideas on how to deal with botters without damaging players who don't bot
1. Bind Enchantments and Runestones to account. Making them unsalable by botters. On AH stack of 99 Rank 4 Enchantments cost like 1000 AD
Stack of 99 Rank 5 cost about 8000-9000 AD.
So botter who sells those profits about 8000 AD
Here is how we can easily solve this: we make an item called for example Bond Breaker. This item could be sold from NPC at PE for a sum of 1000 AD. Once player buys 1 of them it goes into the enchantment refine slot. Once it is consumed enchantment is unbound.
Enchantment that was previously bound to account is now fully unbound and can be traded and sold. Upgrading this Enchantment to high rank would keep it unbound
Make the Bond breaker be usable only on Enchantment and runestones of rank 5 and above
So. You are making rank 7 Radiant Enchantment that now cost about 15-20k. Paying 1k AD ONCE to unbind it is nothing. It could even cost 500 ad or even 300 ad.As long as it is unprofitable for botters to unbind everything they got in order to sell it it would put them off botting
1 stack of x99 Rank 5 Enchantments sold for 8000 AD and cost of unbinding them all would cost botter 99k AD - NO botter would go after this.
2. Bind to account only Enchantments and Runestones dropped from:
Dungeon Treasure Chests
Profession nodes on maps
All Enchantments and Runestones dropped from killing monsters would remain unbound
3. This suggestion is from @must6die
1:Place NPC at PE who would sell stacks of Enchantments for AD at about same price they cost in AH now
2: Bind all Enchantments from profession nodes so they can't bot and sell those
3: Thus botters will have no profit any more. If NPC will sell what they are selling now and perhaps NPC can sell it even cheaper by 50% for example it be more worthy for players to buy from this NPC and botters wouldn't sell anything any more as it will be account bound
4: Keep Enchaments and Runstones dropped from mobs unbound so those can go into making high ranking ones
4. This is my modification to the suggestion of @must6die
This is made with Paint so I apologies for rogue picture.
Make NPC at PE called Artefact Refining Merchant
He would sell LESSER ARTEFACT STONE. This stone is universal and can be used to refine artefacts of Union, Power and Stanility.
This stone would be unusable for any artefact weapons and artefact belts and necklaces. Stone could cost may be 1000 AD each and give 10000 refining points to one of those 3 artifacts. As it is not usable for artefact weapons tjis would NOT damage refinery market for those items like market of resonance stones aquamarines peridots and such and it would not be usable for the weapons necklaces or belt and can only be used to refine artefacts of Union, Power and Stability
At same WIPE all Enchantments and Runestones from profession nodes and chests. You can leave chests and nodes where they are just make so they won't give enchantment and runestones any more.
Only source of those would now be Trade bar store, Lock boxes and drops from fighting monsters on maps and in dungeons.
And to refine them another NPC or same one would sell the stacks of Enchantments
5. Elect several community Moderators from old and respectable players who would be online in different time zones. Those moderators would have power to kick bots offline and/or ban them them for a fixed period of time like 24h each time
6. Install text content detection which can recognize specific texts in the chat and if it detects botter messages auto-kick them offline.
Making even 1 of those things would ruin botters over night and at same time legit honest players wouldn't be damaged
Weapon refine market would not suffer
Everyone - except bots - would be a winner
As everyone ( most people ) know we got a bad bad botter problem on Neverwinter. Botters send random friend requests spam all channels with their adds, send mails with their gold selling offers.
This gotta be somehow stopped it is getting annoying to hell
So after much thinking and experience from another game of mine I put forward several ideas on how to deal with botters without damaging players who don't bot
1. Bind Enchantments and Runestones to account. Making them unsalable by botters. On AH stack of 99 Rank 4 Enchantments cost like 1000 AD
Stack of 99 Rank 5 cost about 8000-9000 AD.
So botter who sells those profits about 8000 AD
Here is how we can easily solve this: we make an item called for example Bond Breaker. This item could be sold from NPC at PE for a sum of 1000 AD. Once player buys 1 of them it goes into the enchantment refine slot. Once it is consumed enchantment is unbound.
Enchantment that was previously bound to account is now fully unbound and can be traded and sold. Upgrading this Enchantment to high rank would keep it unbound
Make the Bond breaker be usable only on Enchantment and runestones of rank 5 and above
So. You are making rank 7 Radiant Enchantment that now cost about 15-20k. Paying 1k AD ONCE to unbind it is nothing. It could even cost 500 ad or even 300 ad.As long as it is unprofitable for botters to unbind everything they got in order to sell it it would put them off botting
1 stack of x99 Rank 5 Enchantments sold for 8000 AD and cost of unbinding them all would cost botter 99k AD - NO botter would go after this.
2. Bind to account only Enchantments and Runestones dropped from:
Dungeon Treasure Chests
Profession nodes on maps
All Enchantments and Runestones dropped from killing monsters would remain unbound
3. This suggestion is from @must6die
1:Place NPC at PE who would sell stacks of Enchantments for AD at about same price they cost in AH now
2: Bind all Enchantments from profession nodes so they can't bot and sell those
3: Thus botters will have no profit any more. If NPC will sell what they are selling now and perhaps NPC can sell it even cheaper by 50% for example it be more worthy for players to buy from this NPC and botters wouldn't sell anything any more as it will be account bound
4: Keep Enchaments and Runstones dropped from mobs unbound so those can go into making high ranking ones
4. This is my modification to the suggestion of @must6die
This is made with Paint so I apologies for rogue picture.
Make NPC at PE called Artefact Refining Merchant
He would sell LESSER ARTEFACT STONE. This stone is universal and can be used to refine artefacts of Union, Power and Stanility.
This stone would be unusable for any artefact weapons and artefact belts and necklaces. Stone could cost may be 1000 AD each and give 10000 refining points to one of those 3 artifacts. As it is not usable for artefact weapons tjis would NOT damage refinery market for those items like market of resonance stones aquamarines peridots and such and it would not be usable for the weapons necklaces or belt and can only be used to refine artefacts of Union, Power and Stability
At same WIPE all Enchantments and Runestones from profession nodes and chests. You can leave chests and nodes where they are just make so they won't give enchantment and runestones any more.
Only source of those would now be Trade bar store, Lock boxes and drops from fighting monsters on maps and in dungeons.
And to refine them another NPC or same one would sell the stacks of Enchantments
5. Elect several community Moderators from old and respectable players who would be online in different time zones. Those moderators would have power to kick bots offline and/or ban them them for a fixed period of time like 24h each time
6. Install text content detection which can recognize specific texts in the chat and if it detects botter messages auto-kick them offline.
Making even 1 of those things would ruin botters over night and at same time legit honest players wouldn't be damaged
Weapon refine market would not suffer
Everyone - except bots - would be a winner
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Comments
I doubt I'm alone in saying that I'll take spam in PE over having to pay 10x or more to get artifacts to mythic. In fact, botters are the only reason many of us get them that high. If botters leave, then the price will increase, as there is no reasonable way for the average player to farm enough enchantments to make it worthwhile.
On a side note, because people always complain about friend requests: if you change your visibility, they'll all but go away. I haven't had any in months personally.
If you create an item that be used to refine artefacts THIS would not be a problem.
You missing my point - make botable goods bound and at same time add option for players to use that be equally or greater then piles of botted rocks on AH
The problem with this, and I suspect the reason they haven't been dealt with, is that overall, botters help players through making refining artifacts dirt cheap.
Botters help themselfs and people like you help them to make cash
I NEVER bought AH stacks I collect all myself from opening nodes
Honestly I think Cryptic is just afraid of making big changes like this because they have no idea what the consequences would be (because they're incompetent at handling the economy).
For the record, I don't believe cryptic is dealing with the botters behind the scenes. I do think, however that they know the game isn't doing as well as it should, and are willing to turn a blind eye (for the most part) to the botters for my previously mentioned reasons.
As for creating an item for refinement points, it could work, but it would end up creating a hard cap for RP to AD. (Not to mention flawless sapphires already available from the bazaar). I mean, it could work, but I don't think it will, and would almost certainly mean increasing the cost of refining artifacts to mythic. Beyond that, making some complicated system like this is probably going to not be worth the development time taken, especially considering how poorly I believe the community in general would receive it.
Bots are just playing middlemen when Cryptic could eliminate the need for them though...
Would it really make that much of a difference if you were buying your stack of rank 5s from the bazaar for 8k AD?
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All those AH botters allow us upgrade attifacts to rank higher than epic. Its bad they bot, yes. But without them i wouldnt get my artifacts to mythic or make high rank enchantments. Prices would raise stupid high, not available for 90% of community. Rest just have their AD made in old times. I know some or forum warriors bot things themselves.
When i see the shitload of Gems required for refining or for stronghold coffer, I am happy to buy 99 rank 4 for 1K5 AD.
But I'm in favor of a solution to make the game less botable, and in the same time cut down the cost of refining or stronghold coffer by HUGE AMOUNT (understand 90% cut down) or give us a real way to farm.
I'm sure that if bots were magically banned, everybody would be upset by buying a 99 rank5 stack at 150K still considering the quantity needed.
omg the mess this morning and of course official position is .. nothing to see here.
I have never seen such a messed up system in all of my gaming years..
How anyone can defend this company right now is beyond me.
All the positives get thrown out every 3 week due to some random failure and huge mistake.. then they have to start over.
I don't blame them for being in vacation, but massive blind bans the day before the vacation is just LOL.
Do this every few months and your population will be low enough that the botters will just move away to their next game! \
See it is easy.
1. Give the players an editable spamfilter, so that we can "bann" the goldseller spam from our chat on your own.
The existing "report spam" function is pointless, and no offense, but if you haven't learned that on your own by now, you should stick around in PE for an hour during "prime time" or "rush hour" and see for yourself, how that "report spam" is working out for you...
2. A visible GM presence in game, that takes care of spammers and bots right where they are.
3. A temp. bann for players that buy AD from goldsellers the first time might be right, but it should also involve a complete loss of all the bought AD too. And a second time, that account should be perm. banned right away.
The nerfs that have hit this game in terms of drops are atrocious.
The new content areas drops nothing at all. NOTHING! Not even gold.
Lots of new artifact weapons and nothing to feed them with.
Nerfs created the bots like prohibition aided organized crime in the US.
Since I've been playing, I've watched drops get less and less and less and less.
Get rid of bots? I'd say you're out of your mind. This game has gone 100% grind fest as is.
I've never been that hot on anti-boting. At this point, I'd say they're required.
RIP Real Tiamat, RIP Real Demogorgon RIP real Temple of the spider. Why remove non bis content to give to bis players ????
FORCING the majority of your player base to play 4 mod old dungeons and trial will have a bad result on player base
Changes are getting so bad i would rather prefer no new changes (RIP ICE FISHING in winter fest)
A free account is an account that never did a purchase of real money in Neverwinter.
Free Accounts can't trade, can't sell items in the auctionhouse and can't send mails.
They also can't send messages in zone and all chat and can onky wisper to people on their friendlist.
Solution is make bot detection software, it is expensive and maybe it cant be used because game not value that much so then comes other tweaks what allmost allways backfires against players... what ever... small game - big game, bots exist.
And yes, i played said game and the free account system didn't prevent the game 100% of them but i saw rarely any bot and an announcement ingame. To be specific i saw 2 bot messages in the server wide chat in my 30+ hours of gameplay.
Fact is that such an entry barrier makes it pretty unappealling for such folks to invest their time and money in a game where said money can simply be lost.
And such entry barrier is a joke for people that play MMORPGs for a long time. And said system should be easy to implement into the game.