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Thx for allowing the bots to ruin PvP

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  • aandrethegiantaandrethegiant Member Posts: 3,369 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    baddobb1 wrote: »
    Lmfao

    That's like saying the "The blame should never lie at the feet of the bank who keeps making its safe easy to break into, but the thieves who keep breaking into it day after day!"

    Seriously, are you for real?

    Naturally. I am not going to fault Cryptic because you or anybody else decides to cheat at NWO, any more than I'd blame the NY Yankees organization for allowing you to jump the ticket line in front of an old lady, or blame the government because you decided to cheat the government because you decided to not pay your taxes.

    In real life, if you cheat vs me in sports, cut in front of me in line, cut me off on the freeway (no, I'm not blaming Ford), or I catch you cheating in a game of scrabble, I'm blaming YOU. Nobody else.

    What I am going to do is expect Cryptic to continue to tighten code and clamp down hard on those who cheat. And I'm going to thank decent community members who take the time to report foul play.

    TYRS PALADIUM - A Premier Neverwinter Online Guild
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  • vallistarvallistar Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    As someone who actually has developed a popular bot for another title 10+ years ago, I feel the need to weigh in here. Firstly, Neverwinter is currently considered one of the easiest MMOs in the industry to reverse engineer. I'm not sure if I am allowed to say why here so I'll hold that unless an admin wants to ask me. Needless to say there is very little obfuscation in place. (Disclaimer: I only know this from word of mouth and interest. I no longer hack games, and even when I did, I never cheated myself... I simply find the methodology interesting. Its been over 10 years.)

    How do you fix it? Frankly, there are just two steps that need to be taken.
    1. Make more diverse profitable areas of the game so that every single botter isn't funneled into the same area competing with legit players. I suggest making foundry missions more profitable. This also goes along with my belief that foundry is the most unique and interesting feature in Neverwinter. Also, to my knowledge, bots that run in these areas have more issues and are less advanced relying on pushing mobs off ledges. PvP botting is only popular because it is the easiest to run and the most profitable thing in the game to do by far in XP and loot.

    2. Play the cat and mouse game as a deterrence only. This will never stop botting, but it will help. You need to be banning these guys regularly... whether that takes GMs ghosting players, or adding code cave scanning algorithms into the game, it will get them talking.
  • lostmarblesherelostmarbleshere Banned Users Posts: 654 Bounty Hunter
    edited July 2013
    vallistar wrote: »
    As someone who actually has developed a popular bot for another title 10+ years ago, I feel the need to weigh in here. Firstly, Neverwinter is currently considered one of the easiest MMOs in the industry to reverse engineer. I'm not sure if I am allowed to say why here so I'll hold that unless an admin wants to ask me. Needless to say there is very little obfuscation in place. (Disclaimer: I only know this from word of mouth and interest. I no longer hack games, and even when I did, I never cheated myself... I simply find the methodology interesting. Its been over 10 years.)

    How do you fix it? Frankly, there are just two steps that need to be taken.
    1. Make more diverse profitable areas of the game so that every single botter isn't funneled into the same area competing with legit players. I suggest making foundry missions more profitable. This also goes along with my belief that foundry is the most unique and interesting feature in Neverwinter. Also, to my knowledge, bots that run in these areas have more issues and are less advanced relying on pushing mobs off ledges. PvP botting is only popular because it is the easiest to run and the most profitable thing in the game to do by far in XP and loot.

    2. Play the cat and mouse game as a deterrence only. This will never stop botting, but it will help. You need to be banning these guys regularly... whether that takes GMs ghosting players, or adding code cave scanning algorithms into the game, it will get them talking.

    Thank you for your post. Its good to hear from someone from the other side.
  • leg3nd831leg3nd831 Member Posts: 13 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    If there was some fix out there they'd of bought into it.

    However even if there was some magical person who could solve the problem this falls under the armor versus weapon issue that mankind has been dealing with for a millennium.

    A weapon will come out and then the armor smiths devise a way to stop that weapon from being effective. Weaponsmiths will then make a weapon to bypass the kinks in that armor. And the better is never-ending with armor always being one step behind.

    It likely started with leather preventing stone tools from penatrating skin and went all the way to Kevlar protecting people from bullets. However as basically everybody this day in age knows there are armor piecing rounds which will circumvent Kevlar. So the fight goes on.

    Every additional piece of armor that prevents bots from taking hold in MMO's is circumvented much, much faster than any company can dream of rectifying. Prove me wrong and hire a bunch of people who can fix the problem. However I promise gamers under-estimate the issues which plague the world and the ingenuity of those who wish to circumvent the rules humanity has decided upon.

    I manage a software product for a living and deal with high level challenges like this all the time. Sure, there may not be a technical solution available. Why? Because its challenging, similar to the anti-virus signature detection industry - simply a chicken and egg problem.

    If your product owners would think outside the box - then maybe you'd have more success in this area. Increase your investment into responding to customer reports of bots; or use that investment to automate a script to inspect bot related tickets. In addition to this, you need to provide a "report" button with a special (simple) form for reporting bots. This creates a workflow of detecting false positives, which takes much less man hours then manually inspecting every ticket.

    A separate method involves removing the incentive for botting. As an avid PvPer, I play to win and/or for fun - not for items and gold. Make the items BoP and less people will bot for gold. This does however leave the problem of experience, which is an incentive to bot from 1-59.

    /Magical person solves problem
    [PC] Buds <Lemonade Stand> - Trickster Rogue
    [Xbox] Skill <Iron Lotus> - Trickster Rogue
  • justkazjustkaz Member Posts: 67
    edited July 2013
    Some of you people are delusional if you think PWE is going to hire actual GMs and customer service reps to handle botter reports and investigate / ban them. They don't even have GMs and CS reps to handle paying customers' issues. There's no way in hell they'd spend money to get rid of botters and hackers / exploiters. They're sweeping this problem under the rug and hope people ignore the massive amount of bots in Neverwinter.
  • vallistarvallistar Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    leg3nd831 wrote: »
    I manage a software product for a living and deal with high level challenges like this all the time. Sure, there may not be a technical solution available. Why? Because its challenging, similar to the anti-virus signature detection industry - simply a chicken and egg problem.

    If your product owners would think outside the box - then maybe you'd have more success in this area. Increase your investment into responding to customer reports of bots; or use that investment to automate a script to inspect bot related tickets. In addition to this, you need to provide a "report" button with a special (simple) form for reporting bots. This creates a workflow of detecting false positives, which takes much less man hours then manually inspecting every ticket.

    A separate method involves removing the incentive for botting. As an avid PvPer, I play to win and/or for fun - not for items and gold. Make the items BoP and less people will bot for gold. This does however leave the problem of experience, which is an incentive to bot from 1-59.

    /Magical person solves problem

    This isn't so simple. The problem is not that current exploits and hacks can't be blocked. The problem is that a number of extremely talented programmers specializing in game hacking are working hard on nothing other than bypassing any securities you implement. And they love every minute of it. The guys making these programs are half motivated by money, but more so motivated by that part of them that loves to challenge authority and defeat the system. The best you can do is go back and forth.

    Nerfing rewards is a bad solution. This seems to currently be their answer, and its flawed logic. You are also nerfing the reward that real people get from playing, and having an enjoyable game is more important. This leads ever closer to making the ultimate solution to bots: make the game so undesirable to play that nobody wants to bot.... A solution? Yes. A good one? No.
  • vold316vold316 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    But, if they would modify the PvP items to be BoP, then it would still be "profitable" for Players but useless for botters.

    Also, the problem with Bots in PvP is that they are so bad in PvP that it makes it an unbalanced team vs team match; players wouldn't complain much if the bots would take advantage of other aspects of the game that do not kill the fun for them.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

    "The harder the game, the better."
  • havocwhavocw Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 72
    edited July 2013
    Without having read the previous posts, I want to bring this new hack to Cryptic's attention: http://www.twitch.tv/flyyyyyyyyyyyyy13/c/2505746

    Please fix this. I have also seen Control Wizards using the same hack at a pvp match yesterday. The only thing that can kill these are teneberous enchantments.

    Fix this ASAP. Its ruining the whole pvp aspect.
  • leg3nd831leg3nd831 Member Posts: 13 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    vallistar wrote: »
    This isn't so simple. The problem is not that current exploits and hacks can't be blocked. The problem is that a number of extremely talented programmers specializing in game hacking are working hard on nothing other than bypassing any securities you implement. And they love every minute of it. The guys making these programs are half motivated by money, but more so motivated by that part of them that loves to challenge authority and defeat the system. The best you can do is go back and forth.

    Nerfing rewards is a bad solution. This seems to currently be their answer, and its flawed logic. You are also nerfing the reward that real people get from playing, and having an enjoyable game is more important. This leads ever closer to making the ultimate solution to bots: make the game so undesirable to play that nobody wants to bot.... A solution? Yes. A good one? No.

    Did you even read the post?

    I am a programmer and exploit developer. Been doing it for 15 years.

    My solution automated the process of banning based on user submitted tickets.. not trying to detect the program in memory or layer 7. I was specifically saying NOT to do that. The reason most bots are detected are from actual people reporting them; this has always been the case. My solution says put more effort into that, the solution that has proven its ability.
    [PC] Buds <Lemonade Stand> - Trickster Rogue
    [Xbox] Skill <Iron Lotus> - Trickster Rogue
  • aladnisaladnis Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    It's easy to say bots are a problem. It's significantly harder to come up with a solution to the botting problems.

    In fact it is so difficult that the entire gaming industry poors millions of dollars a year into bot detection research and the bots always manage to stay one step ahead.

    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.

    Despite what tcarnce states things are being done about bots. It's just nowhere near as simple as any gamer believes. :)
    Instead of constantly making excuses for the ineptitude of the developers of this game, why not just admit there are wide-spread issues with Neverwinter and take the right side for a change?

    The game is rife with bugs. It is plagued by poor network performance. Cheating is rampant. Bots are a major issue in PvP. Dungeons are a travesty of design -- every single boss fight is nothing but infinite adds. Really? -- The AH is still bogged down with duped items. Exploiters are still exploiting known bugs in class powers.

    The list just goes on and on.

    Yet, you always say "it's easier said than done."

    Really? WoW has done a fine job in dealing with this sort of stuff. While it may not be a 100% solution, they have cut it so far down that it's not an experience breaking issue for 99% of the playerbase. Sure, this isn't WoW. Sure, this is f2p unless you spent real money, like myself and lots of others, but it is still an issue none-the-less.

    Ridiculous. I think we all deserve refunds until they fix these issues.

    Bots can be dealt with. It has been done in every MMO that has ever had them, with far greater success than this one. Are you trying to tell me that they absolutely CANNOT stop any sort of automation at all? I am sure that is a fail prospect, even for this game. They can reduce the instances of botting. They can stop most of the cheating (yes, there are HACKS/CHEATS for this game) and they darn sure can stop 99% of the exploiting.

    Having most character events decided client-side is so fail on so many levels it just boggles the mind. Don't think that is an issue? Visit any cheat site and see for yourself the client events dumped into easily used functions CSV files and made available for ANYONE to use to make a cheat for this game.

    Stop trying to hand them excuses. START trying to convey to them that they need to start doing more.
    Fletchette F. Fletch
    newbie rogue extraordinaire
  • vallistarvallistar Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 8 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Heuristics like this have been in use for years and have failed to stop botting, plus they require a staffing investment that I don't believe this company wants to engage in to review those flagged accounts.

    As far as BoP rewards, this would not work unless you also removed sell values. I believe most of them are selling potions for gold rather than selling the gear rewards in a saturated market.
  • silvernitesilvernite Member Posts: 107 Bounty Hunter
    edited July 2013
    Sadly, I agree that Bots and gold sellers are ruining the game. I'm getting tired of having to block a gold spammer every 5 minutes or less when in town.

    All it takes to put a damper on them is for someone a Cryptic to monitor the game and ban people. They can easily ban 20 people per hour if they would care enough to do it.
  • possum440possum440 Member Posts: 145 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Some suggestions.

    Kensem little brother. Don't worry looking this one up on the internet, you wont find it, and I doubt Cryptic would ever be able to afford it.

    Software hopping. Again created by military contractors, works like the digital radio frequency hopping system only with software. Again, cryptic couldn't afford it and I highly doubt the developers working on this game have the training to implement it, if they ever got their hands on it.

    Bind to account, EVERTHING, except crafting items. No currency is tradable nor is any gear. This sounds draconic, but it is not, common sense implementation goes along with this solution. There is no such thing as an economy in a game world, so that argument is moot. Since the only thing that goes on is greed oriented trading, nothing is lost and the community will adjust. The plusses outweigh the negatives

    Three others on this thread have listed some rough initial fixes also.

    Developers of Never winter need to ask for outside help and get the funds to do so.

    Hire someone to manage the developers that lives in the real world and is not just learning to make a game, like the developers are currently.


    So you see, there is plenty the developers can do but simply do not want to or cannot afford to. I would bet it is more cant afford, operation costs aside and the implication that goes with that.
    There is no worse feeling in the world than the moment during an argument you realize you are wrong.
  • lewstelamon01lewstelamon01 Member Posts: 7,415 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    justkaz wrote: »
    Some of you people are delusional if you think PWE is going to hire actual GMs and customer service reps to handle botter reports and investigate / ban them. They don't even have GMs and CS reps to handle paying customers' issues. There's no way in hell they'd spend money to get rid of botters and hackers / exploiters. They're sweeping this problem under the rug and hope people ignore the massive amount of bots in Neverwinter.

    Unfortunately, this statement is so untrue, I don't even know where to begin. The fact that some of these bots HAVE been addressed and dealt with only goes to show the fallacy in your statement.

    Really all I'm going to say to this, and I'll refer back to the posts that have been made to refute your statements and leave it at that.
    ROLL TIDE ROLL

    Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?

    PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
  • nukenoodlesnukenoodles Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    <Link redacted. Please do not name and shame.>

    this is video proof of a hacker in neverwinter
  • runebanerunebane Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    this is video proof of a hacker in neverwinter

    You should send a link of that video to them. In a ticket or at least PM the mods. Posting it here might get you in trouble for naming and shaming though.
    Halgarth's Legacy - NWS-DSTGFZHFR
  • clcmercyclcmercy Banned Users, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 308 Bounty Hunter
    edited July 2013
    Simplest solution will HAMSTER a lot of people off, but it'd get rid of all botting in PvP guaranteed.


    Take out all rewards. You get nothing from PvP. No xp, no glory, no seals, no gold...nothing. All you get to do is gloat and teabag.

    The REASON bots are there are to get rewards for minimal effort. No rewards, no reason to bot. They'll move on.

    However, Cryptic will NEVER institute something like this as it is more PROFITABLE for them to keep rewards in, and the players just NEED something to brag about other than just having bragging rights. So, really...it's not just Craptic's fault here. It is you. The players. The ones who PvP and simply INSIST on having a reward for it other than what I stated before.

    Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
  • yesbrasilyesyesbrasilyes Member Posts: 39
    edited July 2013
    It's easy to say bots are a problem. It's significantly harder to come up with a solution to the botting problems.

    In fact it is so difficult that the entire gaming industry poors millions of dollars a year into bot detection research and the bots always manage to stay one step ahead.

    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.

    Despite what tcarnce states things are being done about bots. It's just nowhere near as simple as any gamer believes. :)

    (1) "Pours" millions of dollars.

    (2) How is it not simple? Don't give rewards for losing matches, all bots gone.
  • yesbrasilyesyesbrasilyes Member Posts: 39
    edited July 2013
    If there was some fix out there they'd of bought into it.

    However even if there was some magical person who could solve the problem this falls under the armor versus weapon issue that mankind has been dealing with for a millennium.

    A weapon will come out and then the armor smiths devise a way to stop that weapon from being effective. Weaponsmiths will then make a weapon to bypass the kinks in that armor. And the better is never-ending with armor always being one step behind.

    It likely started with leather preventing stone tools from penatrating skin and went all the way to Kevlar protecting people from bullets. However as basically everybody this day in age knows there are armor piecing rounds which will circumvent Kevlar. So the fight goes on.

    Every additional piece of armor that prevents bots from taking hold in MMO's is circumvented much, much faster than any company can dream of rectifying. Prove me wrong and hire a bunch of people who can fix the problem. However I promise gamers under-estimate the issues which plague the world and the ingenuity of those who wish to circumvent the rules humanity has decided upon.

    This is why you don't try to stop bots by detection and banning, you stop them by removing the benefits of botting.

    AKA only reward winning. Look at WoW, you won't find many bots in arena PvP. But copying the financially successful giant of a MMORPG that is World Of Warcraft would be cheating, right?

    Jesus Cryptic, hire someone who has played a MMO before, pointless grinding of battlegrounds that promote running around and trying to cap nodes rather than fighting the other team isn't even fun. Arena PvP would solve your problem of "nothing to do once I get all my gear" as well the endless complaints of bots.
  • runebanerunebane Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    (1) "Pours" millions of dollars.

    (2) How is it not simple? Don't give rewards for losing matches, all bots gone.

    Then you create a different problem. With 0 rewards for losing, players will quit the moment they realize they might not win. Some will think its better to start a match over instead of dragging it out and getting nothing.
    Halgarth's Legacy - NWS-DSTGFZHFR
  • rhoriangelusrhoriangelus Member Posts: 703 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    runebane wrote: »
    Then you create a different problem. With 0 rewards for losing, players will quit the moment they realize they might not win. Some will think its better to start a match over instead of dragging it out and getting nothing.

    Then you make it so that you have to wait an hour before queuing for another match if you voluntarily leave one before it's over just because you're losing.
  • runebanerunebane Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Then you make it so that you have to wait an hour before queuing for another match if you voluntarily leave one before it's over just because you're losing.

    The game can't tell why you're quitting the match. Or if its voluntary or not. Anyone can pull the plug. You'd have to add that punishment to everyone. Then if you get disconected for some reason, *poof* there went your pvp bonus hour.
    Halgarth's Legacy - NWS-DSTGFZHFR
  • rhoriangelusrhoriangelus Member Posts: 703 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    runebane wrote: »
    The game can't tell why you're quitting the match. Or if its voluntary or not. Anyone can pull the plug. You'd have to add that punishment to everyone. Then if you get disconected for some reason, *poof* there went your pvp bonus hour.

    But the game can tell the difference between selecting 'leave party' and getting disconnected.
  • runebanerunebane Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    But the game can tell the difference between selecting 'leave party' and getting disconnected.

    It doesn't matter. If they put the penalty in for only selecting leave party, then everyone would just pull the plug. Face it, the solution isn't as simple as some people think.
    Halgarth's Legacy - NWS-DSTGFZHFR
  • g0ld3n4c3g0ld3n4c3 Member Posts: 79 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    It's easy to say bots are a problem. It's significantly harder to come up with a solution to the botting problems.

    In fact it is so difficult that the entire gaming industry poors millions of dollars a year into bot detection research and the bots always manage to stay one step ahead.

    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.

    Despite what tcarnce states things are being done about bots. It's just nowhere near as simple as any gamer believes. :)

    maybe a system for auto ban will work? just like the one in fps games.

    Ask Gaben for some VAC security...!!!
  • dread131313dread131313 Member Posts: 32 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    inserting a bunch of random text here for character limit because although you can bot/hack/exploit the hell out of this game you CANT post about others doing it here on the forums. Good game Cryptic.
  • aandrethegiantaandrethegiant Member Posts: 3,369 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    Did no one even notice a couple pages back SOMEONE POSTED A LINK...

    This is known and currently being addressed. This website in not a place to air specific bots and exploits for all to see. In the future, please do not post links displaying these things on the NW forums. "There's an app for that."

    Report Exploits: Done Right

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  • dread131313dread131313 Member Posts: 32 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    This is known and currently being addressed. This website in not a place to air specific bots and exploits for all to see. In the future, please do not post links displaying these things on the NW forums. "There's an app for that."

    Report Exploits: Done Right


    bannable offense for posting video evidence of someone hacking? Okay, so you can be banned NOT BY HACKING/EXPLOITING/BOTTING but you can definitely be banned for posting a link with video evidence, nice.. Welcome to crazy world.
  • lewstelamon01lewstelamon01 Member Posts: 7,415 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    bannable offense for posting video evidence of someone hacking? Okay, so you can be banned NOT BY HACKING/EXPLOITING/BOTTING but you can definitely be banned for posting a link with video evidence, nice.. Welcome to crazy world.

    Rules are rules, chief. We don't write them, we just enforce them.
    ROLL TIDE ROLL

    Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?

    PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
  • shajib1234shajib1234 Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited July 2013
    bannable offense for posting video evidence of someone hacking? Okay, so you can be banned NOT BY HACKING/EXPLOITING/BOTTING but you can definitely be banned for posting a link with video evidence, nice.. Welcome to crazy world.

    Dont bother, these moderators are basically the developers lackeys. In other words, they are useless and their opinions should not be taken seriously.
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