Allow players 1-2 click flagging from right clicking Bot's portrait.
Delete Playerchar where
(
Select * from Playerchar where (pvp_bot_reports > 50 and reporters_not_in_same_guild)
and where (quests_completed<1)
and (max_gear_level< bot_current_level -20)
and (lifetime_kills==0)
and (average_session_duration> 18 hours)
)
Also checking a char doesn't run over EXACTLY the same co-ordinate 100's and 100's of times a day should be a dead giveaway. sure, they will add some RNG to the bot pathing code, but at the moment even utterly blatant bots are not being dealt with for weeks, no pvper goes into level 40 PVP in level 10 gear, purrrlease! At the moment most of the bots are so crude detection is a non-issue. At least make them work for their RMT.
Oh and not attempting detecting memory injection..I have no words.
Make all PvP rewards soul bound, remove AD reward for PvP participation (daily is fine).
Bug Powder Dust: Chapter 1, 15 mins of Cleric friendly hack and slash, with a nod to Pratchett and G Naylor:- NW-DKHPBAVBO
0
Options
kimberixMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited July 2013
If people playing PVP can spot these bots a mile away, why don't we have in-game GMs that can co-exist in PVP arenas and keep a watchful eye over players and 'flag' the characters.
If a character gets three such 'flags' within a certain time-frame (say 24 hours), then they are banned (even if just from joining PVP queues).
As people have already stated, if Cryptic won't do it due to costs, set up a trusted group of players and flag their accounts as PVP-GM and give them the ability to do it on your behalf for free.
If people playing PVP can spot these bots a mile away, why don't we have in-game GMs that can co-exist in PVP arenas and keep a watchful eye over players and 'flag' the characters.
If a character gets three such 'flags' within a certain time-frame (say 24 hours), then they are banned (even if just from joining PVP queues).
As people have already stated, if Cryptic won't do it due to costs, set up a trusted group of players and flag their accounts as PVP-GM and give them the ability to do it on your behalf for free.
this ^^
and I may be a bit dense, but what is the problem with bots? if they are on your team I get that really sucks (not worth rage quitting the match though). to me they are just free kills, how is that a problem?
free kills = good thing right?
Bots are constantly being dealt with internally and I promise you that once you reach level 60 the bots will all but magically disappear. Bots remain an issue mainly at lower levels and decreasing steadily until you reach level 60.
Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could be further from the truth.
There are just as many bots in the level 60 bracket as there are in the level 30 bracket. It's a huge problem.
I do understand that bots cannot be eliminated completely. However, the OP has a valid question in [paraphrasing] "...where is the bot report option?"
Without an adequate means to report botting, or suspected botting, then nothing is really being done about the issue at all. Accounts need to be flagged as possible botters by the community, investigated fully to ensure a fair outcome, and then banned outright.
Despite what tcarnce states things are being done about bots. It's just nowhere near as simple as any gamer believes.
It isn't simple. Again, I agree.
However, it would be simple AND beneficial to the game if there were a report option for suspected bots. They really do ruin the PvP arena when 3 out of 5 members of your team are bots and you can't do anything other than die and watch the bots repeatedly run the exact same paths to death over and over again.
Fletchette F. Fletch newbie rogue extraordinaire
0
Options
cichardMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited July 2013
you know what game doesnt have bots Rift. for a bit they had bots then their detection software crushed all botting. Then they had fishing bots which to me wasnt a huge deal but in the end they where able to squash those bots. Here in this game botting doesnt hurt people unless they are pvp botting. And we only see bots in pvp because they did teh foundry nerf exp. What they need to do is have a report function for botting so that we can report the bots. Once a character gets enough reports it flags the account for a GM to view its actions. There are some pvp bots that are up 24/7 i mean any time i pvp i see these bots. ive seen the same bots botting during all my toons leveling.
Bots are constantly being dealt with internally and I promise you that once you reach level 60 the bots will all but magically disappear.
Ok i cant help it but to call out on this bs. Mabye you are just bad at spotting one because there are still a ton of bots at lv 60. The difference is that the players running the bots have become smarter, and you guys cant keep up.
A "bot" is really just a script which sends keystrokes and mouse clicks to the server.
There are two major weaknesses which can be used to detect bots with near certain reliability.
1. keystroke/mouse pattern identification
2. meta-detection of activity
I'll go over each one.
1. advanced scripts can use if/then/else, along with Random() functions, to try to avoid detection. This means that the key pattern "1 (pause 0.5 sec) 2 (pause 0.5 sec) 3" will not be reliable, because they could code a random variable for the pauses, and they could code if/thens to substitute a different power for 1,2 or 3. But you can still detect the pattern by using the same concept that "regex" (Regular Expressions) use, which is to look for "(any key)(any pause)(any key)(any pause)(any key)" and log them into a table. You then run analysis of those patterns against each given account, looking at, for example, the last 100 or 1000 entries, and use a heuristic to determine the "standard deviation". A real player is going to have large stdev, because they react differently to PvP situations. A bot cannot "look around to see what they should do" like a human can. It will simply detect a target, advance, engage, repeat. Or, will "advance to a capture point, stand, and defend".
2. Bypass that entire thing and just look for any account which immediately queues for PvP after exiting PvP, and does so for any period of time, repetitively, more than, say, 10 times in a row. Ban that account. Or, if that catches too many no-life players, any amount of queuing which persists more than 8 hours. Anyway, the point is to detect the meta-activity of what the character does, not looking at the keystrokes as in #1 above.
Oh, and it goes without saying, you do both of them and in conjunction, to increase your detection power. i.e. if someone is logging some suspect keystroke patterns *and* is queuing repeatedly, it raises the level of suspicion.
I really hate it when companies say "detecting bots is hard". It is the opposite of hard, its quite easy. What is hard is getting the funding and/or project approval to spend developer time on writing the code, Operations time to maintain the code, and support time to tweak and modify the code as bots advance. i.e. its a commitment, and a lot of companies just don't have the political will to invest in bot detection. It has nothing, however, to do with complexity.
Allow players 1-2 click flagging from right clicking Bot's portrait.
Delete Playerchar where
(
Select * from Playerchar where (pvp_bot_reports > 50 and reporters_not_in_same_guild)
and where (quests_completed<1)
and (max_gear_level< bot_current_level -20)
and (lifetime_kills==0)
and (average_session_duration> 18 hours)
)
Ohmygod! my girlfriend is a bot and I did not even know it!!
And FYI, its not selling pvp armor for gold / very low AD what pvp botters aim for... the PROFIT is elsewhere.
If he needs to tell you how to do your job, then he might as well just take over you.
Huh? It's not my... "job"... to code. I'm a volunteer forum moderator. As in I do not work for Cryptic. What I also am is a gamer that's invested in the game's success. What I also am is someone who looks out for the benefit of the community.
Therefore, it's in my best interests, as well as in the best interest of the community as a whole, to hear him out, assuming he is what he says he is, and even though not everyone tells the truth on the forums (Revelation!)... I'm interested to hear him out!
It's really not hard to spot bots in this game. They always run on the same path. They always follow any enemy that gets within 10-15 meters, and if the enemy gets farther away than that without attacking, they return right to their preset running path. They use the same exact attack patterns, in most cases just spamming at wills. Some of them are so blatant that they just literally follow people around and don't attack at all.
I don't see how it can be classified as difficult to see that if you were actually looking at people playing PVP. *shrug*
Honestly, the only way I can see to prevent bots is very swift IN GAME GM action on any bot reportings. It sure as hell would not take many GMs to do this (eventually, these guys are going to get tired of getting banned in level 10-19 pvp and give up on that method. Whether the game is free or not, making new accounts and getting banned in the first 20 levels is not going to make them any sort of profit -at all-. I can promise you that would be true :P) And harsh consequences to people who use the bot reporting option in false reports to get their tickets escalated or something.
You cannot look me in the metaphorical face and honestly tell me that a bot could level from 1-59 solely through pvp (I saw this with my own eyes. Fighting with and against this same exact bot, over and over and over, in the course of a week as I leveled an alt to 60 through pvp and questing) without getting banned somewhere in the 20s-30s AT THE HIGHEST if there was in game GMs that acted swiftly on reports of some guy being a bot.
I would do this 'job' for free. I could probably clean up every server within a week, easily. Maintaining that is the 'hard' part. I say 'hard' because they'll be just as easy to spot and ban again. God forbid someone actually has to lift a finger and do some 'work' by watching for bots and responding to instant reports.
Quoting this for emphasis.
This problem can not be fixed by coding. You and I both know this.
And Evil, that wouldn't work either. Much like the chat banning system it could easily be abused and subverted (even the at will spamming bots get a lucky kill every now and then with a real player beating someones face in... or in many cases... killing a bot on the other team -_-)
There's no need to sacrifice anything but time of 1-3 willing and honest people who want the bots gone just as much as the rest of us.
Coding will be part of the solution. Live GMs would be great but most likely wont happen. Even with a live real time gm, free or not, there would be coding involved in updating the reporting system.
I know what you are trying to say.. but they aren't going to hire in game GMs for PvP bots, exploits, chat, Foundry, etc etc. It's just not going to happen. I do not see them granting such powerful in game roles to volunteer folk, and in some jurisdictions may even be against the law (when the jobs are mostly drudgery, regulators often state it is clearly illegal not to pay interns, which is essentially what the role could be deemed.)
Ohmygod! my girlfriend is a bot and I did not even know it!!
And FYI, its not selling pvp armor for gold / very low AD what pvp botters aim for... the PROFIT is elsewhere.
Just demonstrating, if I can write a multiple queries a day that flag literally 100's of benefit/tax frauds, I'm sure PW can cut some code that manages the infinitely simpler task of catching bots.
Bug Powder Dust: Chapter 1, 15 mins of Cleric friendly hack and slash, with a nod to Pratchett and G Naylor:- NW-DKHPBAVBO
Coding will be part of the solution. Live GMs would be great but most likely wont happen. Even with a live real time gm, free or not, there would be coding involved in updating the reporting system.
I know what you are trying to say.. but they aren't going to hire in game GMs for PvP bots, exploits, chat, Foundry, etc etc. It's just not going to happen. I do not see them granting such powerful in game roles to volunteer folk, and in some jurisdictions may even be against the law.
I realize there would be some coding involved to create the tools and such but the tools cannot run themselves.
Do you see any other solution? I don't. No amount of coding, without a live person guiding the justice, so to speak, could marginally disrupt botting much less "wipe it out" as it were.
I think the combination of 1-2 GMs dedicating a few weeks to wiping out bots in pvp, combined with said bots needing to level all the way vack to 10 if they even want to start botting in pvp again, would wipe out a good 90% ( yes I am pulling this number out of my rear end but I believe it to be true, if not higher of the people even trying to do it in less than a months time. If they have to get more advanced botting techniques, then so be it. If a bot is so good people cannot tell it is a bot just by watching them for less than two mintes then we no longer have a problem.
The bots aren't the only thing ruining pvp its all the hacks that are now emerging.
I read about a few earlier and didn't think much of it, seeing is believing an all that.
Well in a pvp match right now everytime I mounted/dismounted my horse my character suffered an attack animation from a GWF that wasn't there and suffered damage..( i'll test all encounter powers to see which one it was as I cant remember )
Add to the mix the terminator like bots that are now appearing and pvp is just about finished..
Awful truly awful, probably the worst pvp ive ever seen/played in an mmo and I like this game..:/
I realize there would be some coding involved to create the tools and such but the tools cannot run themselves.
Do you see any other solution? I don't. No amount of coding, without a live person guiding the justice, so to speak, could marginally disrupt botting much less "wipe it out" as it were.
I think the combination of 1-2 GMs dedicating a few weeks to wiping out bots in pvp, combined with said bots needing to level all the way vack to 10 if they even want to start botting in pvp again, would wipe out a good 90% ( yes I am pulling this number out of my rear end but I believe it to be true, if not higher of the people even trying to do it in less than a months time. If they have to get more advanced botting techniques, then so be it. If a bot is so good people cannot tell it is a bot just by watching them for less than two mintes then we no longer have a problem.
I agree, but hiring staff just to monitor the PvP problem I just don't see happening. We need to come up with an automated solution, because that's what will most likely be employed.
Either way, all bots wont go away with any method in this game, and it won't get better at all without major shift in thought, and some crisp code that stays on task. The code is where the solutions reside. As I see it, the report, reward, and banning features need serious overhauls.
I agree, but hiring staff just to monitor the PvP problem I just don't see happening. We need to come up with an automated solution, because that's what will most likely be employed.
Either way, all bots wont go away with any method in this game, and it won't get better at all without major shift in thought, and some crisp code that stays on task. The code is where the solutions reside. As I see it, the report, reward, and banning features need serious overhauls.
We know what could fix it easily, and seem to be in agreement.. so why should we settle for less?
What sophisticated automated code can swiftly and accurately ban bots? You wanted answers from others so I would like one from you. What solution, specifically, would you use?
We might not be able to wipe bots from the game entirely, but PVP is the most important place we need to be able to do so. They harm no one directly if they farm alone. They can easily be kicked if they join a dungeon and do nothing. But since the kick feature was removed from pvp... pugs are simply entirely helpless... at the mercy of PWE/cryptic to fix it.
It boggles the mind that the answer is clear as day, right there in front of us. But yet we have to sit here and come up woth some bass ackwards automated coding solution because PWE does not want to pay up for their customers experience to run smoothly?
Unfortunately it is probably not possible to reveal parameters of such a system, to avoid your antagonist using such information against you.
While pure security through obscurity is a bad idea, it's best not to make your methods too public, just to delay your opponent, even for a short time.
I really cant see any fault with an easy report system for flagging a player for investigation and auto-banning from PvP for 24 h, based on the existing chat-ban system, without the ridiculously low number of required reports (and exclude multiple reports from the same guild/ip address). Banning PvP for 24h is significantly less constrictive then the current chat ban system, which is positively draconian and easy to game for griefing purposes.
Bug Powder Dust: Chapter 1, 15 mins of Cleric friendly hack and slash, with a nod to Pratchett and G Naylor:- NW-DKHPBAVBO
Unfortunately it is probably not possible to reveal parameters of such a system, to avoid your antagonist using such information against you.
While pure security through obscurity is a bad idea, it's best not to make your methods too public, just to delay your opponent, even for a short time.
I really cant see any fault with an easy report system for flagging a player for investigation and auto-banning from PvP for 24 h, based on the existing chat-ban system, without the ridiculously low number of required reports (and exclude multiple reports from the same guild/ip address). Banning PvP for 24h is significantly less constrictive then the current chat ban system, which is positively draconian and easy to game for griefing purposes.
The problem with a pvp ban system like the the chat ban is that a lot of people get enraged for no reason at people. Like there was this certain control wizard in zone chat once that started cussing out people for playing the TR as a class; it was the most ridiculous rage I had ever witnessed in pvp, but I digress. If the pvp ban system was in place, that CW would have just started reporting people who played TRs just because they killed him. Also people would start reporting people who just, well aren't good at pvp when they got angry and all sorts of other stupid reasons.
Metrics are used by every game company as main methods of detecting bots. The issue becomes how quickly they can be detected and normally it's long, long after players notice them.
In game bans do happen on basically every MMO. Still there's only so many DM/GM's that you can hire in order to ban before you actually have no money left to make any new content.
Furthermore there's a large margin in error on those reports. What makes a player a bot? Doing similar actions over and over again? What if I just don't care about the PvP match and decide to keep running to mid and fighting just so I am doing something productive. Bans based on behavior and the human eye are always extremely fallable.
Subscriptions are dead. Sorry. Subscriptions are nothing but a wall which prevent players from even trying the game. SWTOR proved this when they stayed firm that they would never go free to play until the players spoke with their wallets and refused to pay the entrance fee.
MMO's live by having a large amount of players and the best way to do this is to not do anything which prevents possible players from playing the game. Within the next decade I believe we'll start seeing younger gamers join in the communities which have never (and will never) pay subscription fees.
ive played probably over 100 different MMOs since 1999 (both FTP and sub..), if 75% of those companies were able to keep bots out of their game or at least in PVP i dont see why this company cant... Rift doesnt have bots in PVP, World of Warcraft doesnt have bots in PVP, there are some games where botting really doesnt have a purpose (ie. DDO), Ive played many MMO's where botting wasnt in pvp. Granted in WoW there were afk'ers in matches but they fixed that, they also fixed people leaving with the deserter debuff also. This game hasnt.
What I see here is LOTS of bots in LOTS of matches (I have a 60 cw, a 60 rogue, a 52 rogue, and a 43 gwf, so dont tell me I dont know, ive pvped on all of those characters.) and I have been in many matches. I also see a company that doesnt care. How do I know this? In every game I played where bots got out of control (such as on here) it was patched or resolved or at least fixed to a point where it was bearable. If maybe 1 out of 10 games had ONE bot that would be acceptable but almost every game I am in either most of my team or most of my opposing team has bots. This is ridiculous and I shouldnt have to be relegated to making a premade just to win a match let alone avoid bots! Where is the challenge in that? I mean that goes against the reasoning for queuing for pvp in the first place. I mean if that were the case then just remove queuing and make everyone make their own teams! =/
I have stopped playing this game because botting has gotten so out of hand. Never you mind class imbalance or bugs, pvp is unplayable with so many bots. Yeah its cool to not have to wait for hours to queue for a single match because theres 25 bots waiting in the queue, but at least if the AI was better and didnt get stuck running in a circle and not capping, it wouldnt be so bad. I have come to the conclusion that either the bots are PWE/Cryptic controlled or they just dont care. I have seen other players mention this in posts that I lurk as well so I know its not just me.
I have seen not one iota of acknowledgement from cryptic/pwe about the bots. I mean if they said "hey guys, we know we have a bot problem, and we are working on it", would be great, but not a single word. If you dont pay your bill with your power company and you dont call them or anything all they can do is assume that you no longer want to do business with them. So likewise with all of us stuck here in the bleak black void of non comunication. If you dont want to communicate with us and let us know that you know about the issues at hand and what you are doing/plan to do to address them and hopefully fix them, all we can do (the paying customer) is assume you dont want to do business with us and take our business elsewhere to another company/game. Because after all, this is a business you are running isnt it?
I have seen not one iota of acknowledgement from cryptic/pwe about the bots. I mean if they said "hey guys, we know we have a bot problem, and we are working on it", would be great, but not a single word. If you dont pay your bill with your power company and you dont call them or anything all they can do is assume that you no longer want to do business with them. So likewise with all of us stuck here in the bleak black void of non comunication. If you dont want to communicate with us and let us know that you know about the issues at hand and.... {snip}
Have you noticed this comment one page before your rant?
Thanks everyone! We're actively working on multiple solutions. We take all reports of this very seriously and are investigating them. Cheers!
Cryptic knows about it, and is actively working on multiple solutions. This is an industry wide problem. The blame should never lie at the feat of developers, but at the feet of those who cheat.
I have seen not one iota of acknowledgement from cryptic/pwe about the bots. I mean if they said "hey guys, we know we have a bot problem, and we are working on it", would be great, but not a single word.
Cryptic knows about it, and is actively working on multiple solutions. This is an industry wide problem. The blame should never lie at the feat of developers, but at the feet of those who cheat.
There should be repercussions for those who cheat, but the blame is most definitely at the feet of the developers. They, and they alone, are responsible for preventing this.
Everyone knows there are players who will cheat if they can, this isn't some astonishing revelation to anyone who has anything to do with any kind of game development. And honestly, there's really no good excuse for why it's so prevalent here. They simply haven't put in the effort to prevent it.
Put in safe zones around respawn points that cannot be entered or attacked in from outside the safe zone. Players aren't allowed to be in a safe zone for more than X consecutive seconds without being booted.
Put in a /votekick system, if a player is targeted with /votekick they are required to attack or heal another player, or be gaining capture points in X seconds otherwise they are booted.
Problems solved, and it's not like I just made this up, it's pretty much exactly what other games in the industry have been using for the last 5+ years. The fact that they're just now getting around to implementing these types of things, and so far not very successfully, is the only astonishing thing here.
The problem with a pvp ban system like the the chat ban is that a lot of people get enraged for no reason at people. Like there was this certain control wizard in zone chat once that started cussing out people for playing the TR as a class; it was the most ridiculous rage I had ever witnessed in pvp, but I digress. If the pvp ban system was in place, that CW would have just started reporting people who played TRs just because they killed him. Also people would start reporting people who just, well aren't good at pvp when they got angry and all sorts of other stupid reasons.
I agree, the current chat ban system is way too easy for one person to influence, which is why I include the predicate that all reports from one IP or guild should be treated as a single report. From the various posts on these forums and personal experience (a single LFG request in my case) the threshold for chat bans is clearly too low, but I trust the devs are looking at that too, since its a real easy "quality of life improvement" in coding terms.
Bug Powder Dust: Chapter 1, 15 mins of Cleric friendly hack and slash, with a nod to Pratchett and G Naylor:- NW-DKHPBAVBO
Have you noticed this comment one page before your rant?
Cryptic knows about it, and is actively working on multiple solutions. This is an industry wide problem. The blame should never lie at the feat of developers, but at the feet of those who cheat.
Well you're right AND wrong Andre..
Youre right in the sense that yes, people shouldnt cheat. People shouldnt try to bypass mechanisms in place to make you do a certain thing in a certain way. This is very true.
BUT! OTOH its the devs RESPONSIBILITY to prevent this from happening and to implement fixes to prevent it from
happening in the future. People will cheat, its the efficiency expert part of our human nature. The fastest route between two points (abolishing string theory any way) is a straight line... So yes, people will try to find the easiest and most fastest way to a goal.
Take the AH exploit for example, do you think whoever the head honcho over in the dev dept is did NOT yell at/reprimand/"discuss" the issues with the dev dept over it? I'm pretty sure that SOMEONE got in trouble over that.
But then again, maybe it is ME who is wrong, I mean I am not a software guy, I am a hardware guy, I don't know beans about coding, I just make sure machines are running properly and the network is up to par. But ill tell you if I was in security, if someone hacked my network through my VPN because I oversaw a security hole I am pretty sure
my job would be on the line. It is Cryptics job to keep things like this from happening. You do realize there are sites with hackers saying that the client is so easy to reverse that its silly. You also realize that they are also saying that and I quote "...they practically give the code away.". I understand its your job as a forum admin to defend your company, I dont blame you, but Cryptic seriously needs to try harder, and not just a little bit. I am coming from the PoV if THIS WAS MY TITLE also, so youre preaching to the choir chief.
I did not read all 9 pages of this thread. Didnt think it was required before replying. Its not is it?
Why wait until now to give us an acknowledgement? I mean seriously.
I am glad we finally got a response, but why is it so hard to have a "State of the Game" thread that can
be updated regularly with this kind of information.
I care about this game, I really do. I dont necessarily think highly of the company hosting it whether its PWE or Cryptic,
because before I started playing I never knew much about Cryptic. On a few other MMO sites like MMORPG.com other players stated that they were sad when they heard about Crpytic picking up this title. I read that and hoped that they were wrong about Cryptic, and I so wanted them to be proven wrong, but since ive played theyve actually been proven right... This makes me a sad panda...
Most players could argue, "well dont play, since you hate it." and I agree, and I shouldnt, and currently I dont. I think I logged in for like 5 minutes last night on my CW just to check my mail then I logged off, didnt even bother praying or doing any profs. I have lost the will to play this game until they fix the issues at hand. I feel as though I am not alone. I watch Twitch TV almost daily and one of the more popular twitch streamers who played this game a lot already quit and went to WoW, and so many others I used to watch have quit. There was about 18 streamers during prime time now im lucky to see 10 people streaming this game, and thats a small sample of people. There are a lot of people done and frustrated with the issues that have been discussed and have left. I feel as if its too late for this game, the damage has been done, what with the exploit ruining the economy, the bots, the exploits to bypass content, gauntlegrym launch being a massive failure and a let down, its just too much. I honestly feel as if A DIFFERENT DEVELOPER was to pick this title up maybe they could save it but I guess thats just wishful thinking.
Right now I am playing Vindictus and Firefall to tide me over. Maybe until Archeage comes out, if it ever comes out. I probably wont play this game again at least until module one comes out AND they resolve the botting issue, and resolve the "player DCed" issue. I will continue to be a lurker on this forum and maybe reply to some posts if I can. I want to help Cryptic, just like many other players, I mean we aren't TELLING you how to implement your game, we are HELPING you save your game. We know its your baby/PWE's baby, but we are the customers, an integral part of the business model and if you dont listen to us, you put us in the position to have to decide to move on and leave this game or stay, and if we arent happy do you expect us to stay? Really now..
Not threatening just saying how it goes and being painfully obvious.
Comments
Delete Playerchar where
(
Select * from Playerchar where (pvp_bot_reports > 50 and reporters_not_in_same_guild)
and where (quests_completed<1)
and (max_gear_level< bot_current_level -20)
and (lifetime_kills==0)
and (average_session_duration> 18 hours)
)
Also checking a char doesn't run over EXACTLY the same co-ordinate 100's and 100's of times a day should be a dead giveaway. sure, they will add some RNG to the bot pathing code, but at the moment even utterly blatant bots are not being dealt with for weeks, no pvper goes into level 40 PVP in level 10 gear, purrrlease! At the moment most of the bots are so crude detection is a non-issue. At least make them work for their RMT.
Oh and not attempting detecting memory injection..I have no words.
Make all PvP rewards soul bound, remove AD reward for PvP participation (daily is fine).
If a character gets three such 'flags' within a certain time-frame (say 24 hours), then they are banned (even if just from joining PVP queues).
As people have already stated, if Cryptic won't do it due to costs, set up a trusted group of players and flag their accounts as PVP-GM and give them the ability to do it on your behalf for free.
this ^^
and I may be a bit dense, but what is the problem with bots? if they are on your team I get that really sucks (not worth rage quitting the match though). to me they are just free kills, how is that a problem?
free kills = good thing right?
There are just as many bots in the level 60 bracket as there are in the level 30 bracket. It's a huge problem.
I do understand that bots cannot be eliminated completely. However, the OP has a valid question in [paraphrasing] "...where is the bot report option?"
Without an adequate means to report botting, or suspected botting, then nothing is really being done about the issue at all. Accounts need to be flagged as possible botters by the community, investigated fully to ensure a fair outcome, and then banned outright.
It isn't simple. Again, I agree.
However, it would be simple AND beneficial to the game if there were a report option for suspected bots. They really do ruin the PvP arena when 3 out of 5 members of your team are bots and you can't do anything other than die and watch the bots repeatedly run the exact same paths to death over and over again.
newbie rogue extraordinaire
until then just stick with world pvp, the rewards are about the same.
Ok i cant help it but to call out on this bs. Mabye you are just bad at spotting one because there are still a ton of bots at lv 60. The difference is that the players running the bots have become smarter, and you guys cant keep up.
There are two major weaknesses which can be used to detect bots with near certain reliability.
1. keystroke/mouse pattern identification
2. meta-detection of activity
I'll go over each one.
1. advanced scripts can use if/then/else, along with Random() functions, to try to avoid detection. This means that the key pattern "1 (pause 0.5 sec) 2 (pause 0.5 sec) 3" will not be reliable, because they could code a random variable for the pauses, and they could code if/thens to substitute a different power for 1,2 or 3. But you can still detect the pattern by using the same concept that "regex" (Regular Expressions) use, which is to look for "(any key)(any pause)(any key)(any pause)(any key)" and log them into a table. You then run analysis of those patterns against each given account, looking at, for example, the last 100 or 1000 entries, and use a heuristic to determine the "standard deviation". A real player is going to have large stdev, because they react differently to PvP situations. A bot cannot "look around to see what they should do" like a human can. It will simply detect a target, advance, engage, repeat. Or, will "advance to a capture point, stand, and defend".
2. Bypass that entire thing and just look for any account which immediately queues for PvP after exiting PvP, and does so for any period of time, repetitively, more than, say, 10 times in a row. Ban that account. Or, if that catches too many no-life players, any amount of queuing which persists more than 8 hours. Anyway, the point is to detect the meta-activity of what the character does, not looking at the keystrokes as in #1 above.
Oh, and it goes without saying, you do both of them and in conjunction, to increase your detection power. i.e. if someone is logging some suspect keystroke patterns *and* is queuing repeatedly, it raises the level of suspicion.
I really hate it when companies say "detecting bots is hard". It is the opposite of hard, its quite easy. What is hard is getting the funding and/or project approval to spend developer time on writing the code, Operations time to maintain the code, and support time to tweak and modify the code as bots advance. i.e. its a commitment, and a lot of companies just don't have the political will to invest in bot detection. It has nothing, however, to do with complexity.
Ohmygod! my girlfriend is a bot and I did not even know it!!
And FYI, its not selling pvp armor for gold / very low AD what pvp botters aim for... the PROFIT is elsewhere.
Huh? It's not my... "job"... to code. I'm a volunteer forum moderator. As in I do not work for Cryptic. What I also am is a gamer that's invested in the game's success. What I also am is someone who looks out for the benefit of the community.
Therefore, it's in my best interests, as well as in the best interest of the community as a whole, to hear him out, assuming he is what he says he is, and even though not everyone tells the truth on the forums (Revelation!)... I'm interested to hear him out!
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
Quoting this for emphasis.
This problem can not be fixed by coding. You and I both know this.
And Evil, that wouldn't work either. Much like the chat banning system it could easily be abused and subverted (even the at will spamming bots get a lucky kill every now and then with a real player beating someones face in... or in many cases... killing a bot on the other team -_-)
There's no need to sacrifice anything but time of 1-3 willing and honest people who want the bots gone just as much as the rest of us.
Coding will be part of the solution. Live GMs would be great but most likely wont happen. Even with a live real time gm, free or not, there would be coding involved in updating the reporting system.
I know what you are trying to say.. but they aren't going to hire in game GMs for PvP bots, exploits, chat, Foundry, etc etc. It's just not going to happen. I do not see them granting such powerful in game roles to volunteer folk, and in some jurisdictions may even be against the law (when the jobs are mostly drudgery, regulators often state it is clearly illegal not to pay interns, which is essentially what the role could be deemed.)
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
Ok so instead of one-line wisecracks... what is your solution? You do have the answer it appears.
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
Just demonstrating, if I can write a multiple queries a day that flag literally 100's of benefit/tax frauds, I'm sure PW can cut some code that manages the infinitely simpler task of catching bots.
I realize there would be some coding involved to create the tools and such but the tools cannot run themselves.
Do you see any other solution? I don't. No amount of coding, without a live person guiding the justice, so to speak, could marginally disrupt botting much less "wipe it out" as it were.
I think the combination of 1-2 GMs dedicating a few weeks to wiping out bots in pvp, combined with said bots needing to level all the way vack to 10 if they even want to start botting in pvp again, would wipe out a good 90% ( yes I am pulling this number out of my rear end but I believe it to be true, if not higher of the people even trying to do it in less than a months time. If they have to get more advanced botting techniques, then so be it. If a bot is so good people cannot tell it is a bot just by watching them for less than two mintes then we no longer have a problem.
I read about a few earlier and didn't think much of it, seeing is believing an all that.
Well in a pvp match right now everytime I mounted/dismounted my horse my character suffered an attack animation from a GWF that wasn't there and suffered damage..( i'll test all encounter powers to see which one it was as I cant remember )
Add to the mix the terminator like bots that are now appearing and pvp is just about finished..
Awful truly awful, probably the worst pvp ive ever seen/played in an mmo and I like this game..:/
I agree, but hiring staff just to monitor the PvP problem I just don't see happening. We need to come up with an automated solution, because that's what will most likely be employed.
Either way, all bots wont go away with any method in this game, and it won't get better at all without major shift in thought, and some crisp code that stays on task. The code is where the solutions reside. As I see it, the report, reward, and banning features need serious overhauls.
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
What sophisticated automated code can swiftly and accurately ban bots? You wanted answers from others so I would like one from you. What solution, specifically, would you use?
We might not be able to wipe bots from the game entirely, but PVP is the most important place we need to be able to do so. They harm no one directly if they farm alone. They can easily be kicked if they join a dungeon and do nothing. But since the kick feature was removed from pvp... pugs are simply entirely helpless... at the mercy of PWE/cryptic to fix it.
It boggles the mind that the answer is clear as day, right there in front of us. But yet we have to sit here and come up woth some bass ackwards automated coding solution because PWE does not want to pay up for their customers experience to run smoothly?
Silly question, but I don't suppose a.slight elaboration would be possible on the multiple solutions being brainstormed?
While pure security through obscurity is a bad idea, it's best not to make your methods too public, just to delay your opponent, even for a short time.
I really cant see any fault with an easy report system for flagging a player for investigation and auto-banning from PvP for 24 h, based on the existing chat-ban system, without the ridiculously low number of required reports (and exclude multiple reports from the same guild/ip address). Banning PvP for 24h is significantly less constrictive then the current chat ban system, which is positively draconian and easy to game for griefing purposes.
The problem with a pvp ban system like the the chat ban is that a lot of people get enraged for no reason at people. Like there was this certain control wizard in zone chat once that started cussing out people for playing the TR as a class; it was the most ridiculous rage I had ever witnessed in pvp, but I digress. If the pvp ban system was in place, that CW would have just started reporting people who played TRs just because they killed him. Also people would start reporting people who just, well aren't good at pvp when they got angry and all sorts of other stupid reasons.
ive played probably over 100 different MMOs since 1999 (both FTP and sub..), if 75% of those companies were able to keep bots out of their game or at least in PVP i dont see why this company cant... Rift doesnt have bots in PVP, World of Warcraft doesnt have bots in PVP, there are some games where botting really doesnt have a purpose (ie. DDO), Ive played many MMO's where botting wasnt in pvp. Granted in WoW there were afk'ers in matches but they fixed that, they also fixed people leaving with the deserter debuff also. This game hasnt.
What I see here is LOTS of bots in LOTS of matches (I have a 60 cw, a 60 rogue, a 52 rogue, and a 43 gwf, so dont tell me I dont know, ive pvped on all of those characters.) and I have been in many matches. I also see a company that doesnt care. How do I know this? In every game I played where bots got out of control (such as on here) it was patched or resolved or at least fixed to a point where it was bearable. If maybe 1 out of 10 games had ONE bot that would be acceptable but almost every game I am in either most of my team or most of my opposing team has bots. This is ridiculous and I shouldnt have to be relegated to making a premade just to win a match let alone avoid bots! Where is the challenge in that? I mean that goes against the reasoning for queuing for pvp in the first place. I mean if that were the case then just remove queuing and make everyone make their own teams! =/
I have stopped playing this game because botting has gotten so out of hand. Never you mind class imbalance or bugs, pvp is unplayable with so many bots. Yeah its cool to not have to wait for hours to queue for a single match because theres 25 bots waiting in the queue, but at least if the AI was better and didnt get stuck running in a circle and not capping, it wouldnt be so bad. I have come to the conclusion that either the bots are PWE/Cryptic controlled or they just dont care. I have seen other players mention this in posts that I lurk as well so I know its not just me.
I have seen not one iota of acknowledgement from cryptic/pwe about the bots. I mean if they said "hey guys, we know we have a bot problem, and we are working on it", would be great, but not a single word. If you dont pay your bill with your power company and you dont call them or anything all they can do is assume that you no longer want to do business with them. So likewise with all of us stuck here in the bleak black void of non comunication. If you dont want to communicate with us and let us know that you know about the issues at hand and what you are doing/plan to do to address them and hopefully fix them, all we can do (the paying customer) is assume you dont want to do business with us and take our business elsewhere to another company/game. Because after all, this is a business you are running isnt it?
I rest my case...
Have you noticed this comment one page before your rant?
Cryptic knows about it, and is actively working on multiple solutions. This is an industry wide problem. The blame should never lie at the feat of developers, but at the feet of those who cheat.
TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
No Drama. Camaraderie. TEAM Focus. That's the TYRS way. If that's your style, come join us!
Research our Guild here: Read our official Recruitment thread | Sign up here: Tyrs Guild Website! | NEVERWINTER GUILD LEADERS: Join the Fellowship!
Well.... If you bothered looking back one page:
"The harder the game, the better."
There should be repercussions for those who cheat, but the blame is most definitely at the feet of the developers. They, and they alone, are responsible for preventing this.
Everyone knows there are players who will cheat if they can, this isn't some astonishing revelation to anyone who has anything to do with any kind of game development. And honestly, there's really no good excuse for why it's so prevalent here. They simply haven't put in the effort to prevent it.
Put in safe zones around respawn points that cannot be entered or attacked in from outside the safe zone. Players aren't allowed to be in a safe zone for more than X consecutive seconds without being booted.
Put in a /votekick system, if a player is targeted with /votekick they are required to attack or heal another player, or be gaining capture points in X seconds otherwise they are booted.
Problems solved, and it's not like I just made this up, it's pretty much exactly what other games in the industry have been using for the last 5+ years. The fact that they're just now getting around to implementing these types of things, and so far not very successfully, is the only astonishing thing here.
Okay, Panic.
I agree, the current chat ban system is way too easy for one person to influence, which is why I include the predicate that all reports from one IP or guild should be treated as a single report. From the various posts on these forums and personal experience (a single LFG request in my case) the threshold for chat bans is clearly too low, but I trust the devs are looking at that too, since its a real easy "quality of life improvement" in coding terms.
Well you're right AND wrong Andre..
Youre right in the sense that yes, people shouldnt cheat. People shouldnt try to bypass mechanisms in place to make you do a certain thing in a certain way. This is very true.
BUT! OTOH its the devs RESPONSIBILITY to prevent this from happening and to implement fixes to prevent it from
happening in the future. People will cheat, its the efficiency expert part of our human nature. The fastest route between two points (abolishing string theory any way) is a straight line... So yes, people will try to find the easiest and most fastest way to a goal.
Take the AH exploit for example, do you think whoever the head honcho over in the dev dept is did NOT yell at/reprimand/"discuss" the issues with the dev dept over it? I'm pretty sure that SOMEONE got in trouble over that.
But then again, maybe it is ME who is wrong, I mean I am not a software guy, I am a hardware guy, I don't know beans about coding, I just make sure machines are running properly and the network is up to par. But ill tell you if I was in security, if someone hacked my network through my VPN because I oversaw a security hole I am pretty sure
my job would be on the line. It is Cryptics job to keep things like this from happening. You do realize there are sites with hackers saying that the client is so easy to reverse that its silly. You also realize that they are also saying that and I quote "...they practically give the code away.". I understand its your job as a forum admin to defend your company, I dont blame you, but Cryptic seriously needs to try harder, and not just a little bit. I am coming from the PoV if THIS WAS MY TITLE also, so youre preaching to the choir chief.
I did not read all 9 pages of this thread. Didnt think it was required before replying. Its not is it?
Why wait until now to give us an acknowledgement? I mean seriously.
I am glad we finally got a response, but why is it so hard to have a "State of the Game" thread that can
be updated regularly with this kind of information.
I care about this game, I really do. I dont necessarily think highly of the company hosting it whether its PWE or Cryptic,
because before I started playing I never knew much about Cryptic. On a few other MMO sites like MMORPG.com other players stated that they were sad when they heard about Crpytic picking up this title. I read that and hoped that they were wrong about Cryptic, and I so wanted them to be proven wrong, but since ive played theyve actually been proven right... This makes me a sad panda...
Most players could argue, "well dont play, since you hate it." and I agree, and I shouldnt, and currently I dont. I think I logged in for like 5 minutes last night on my CW just to check my mail then I logged off, didnt even bother praying or doing any profs. I have lost the will to play this game until they fix the issues at hand. I feel as though I am not alone. I watch Twitch TV almost daily and one of the more popular twitch streamers who played this game a lot already quit and went to WoW, and so many others I used to watch have quit. There was about 18 streamers during prime time now im lucky to see 10 people streaming this game, and thats a small sample of people. There are a lot of people done and frustrated with the issues that have been discussed and have left. I feel as if its too late for this game, the damage has been done, what with the exploit ruining the economy, the bots, the exploits to bypass content, gauntlegrym launch being a massive failure and a let down, its just too much. I honestly feel as if A DIFFERENT DEVELOPER was to pick this title up maybe they could save it but I guess thats just wishful thinking.
Right now I am playing Vindictus and Firefall to tide me over. Maybe until Archeage comes out, if it ever comes out. I probably wont play this game again at least until module one comes out AND they resolve the botting issue, and resolve the "player DCed" issue. I will continue to be a lurker on this forum and maybe reply to some posts if I can. I want to help Cryptic, just like many other players, I mean we aren't TELLING you how to implement your game, we are HELPING you save your game. We know its your baby/PWE's baby, but we are the customers, an integral part of the business model and if you dont listen to us, you put us in the position to have to decide to move on and leave this game or stay, and if we arent happy do you expect us to stay? Really now..
Not threatening just saying how it goes and being painfully obvious.