Potential Tool for players to use against BOTs????

So, it would be nice if we can just kill Botters w/o getting corruption but alas, we cant.

OR CAN WE??????????????????????

I wonder if there is a way, or a system that can be created that isnt abused - where if bots has been reported X amount of times, they can turn purple and stay purple until the GM can finally review.

NOW YES OBVIOUS - AS IS - ABUSABLE BY ALL HELLS. How can we prevent Abuse?

Unique "IDs" of sorts.

example

Player 1 ID --- 48392
Player 2 ID --- 43892
Player 3 ID --- 68318

When joining a Guild - a guild ID is added to their player ID
Guild ID - G382

so player IDs will look like:

Player 1 ID --- 48392G382
Player 2 ID --- 43892G382
Player 3 ID --- 68318G382

The report system will identify it is coming from a guild, trying to mass report. it will not flag the potential botter.

The report system will also identify if a mass report is being done in a very short time. IE 10 ppl reported within 2 minutes or less.

Reports must be made seeing the character - so it's not like you can open a menu, type a name to report. you got to see the bot in person and click on them to open the report menu as well.

So with something like that - Maybe you are the 20th person walking by someone you suspect is a bot. You then report the bot, now you get a prompt or you visually see this person gets flagged purple. This is an indication that multiple ppl have reported for suspect bot activity and you are free to kill. Lucky you, you won the Gacha Bot

Also when Reporting players - you have an internal CD to report another user. To prevent all players going around and reporting like mad, creating false flag & getting innocent legit players flagged.

thoughts? found a potential exploit? let me know or share your resolution to that hole.
Or know of a better approach, let's hear it!

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Comments

Strevi

Think how you can stop bots 200 years in future.
Assume there will be possible to create sentient robots, cyborgs and artificial creatures much better than humans.
Assume an mmo is created for the primitive humans like we are, to enjoy ourselves.
What will will the mmo creator do?

that can be done now too

Gui10

If there is a mechanic in the game to identify botters so you dont get corruption, then it will be used to ban the botters, so I dont get the idea really...

Depraved

Strevi wrote: »

Think how you can stop bots 200 years in future.
Assume there will be possible to create sentient robots, cyborgs and artificial creatures much better than humans.
Assume an mmo is created for the primitive humans like we are, to enjoy ourselves.
What will will the mmo creator do?
that can be done now too

then they can make a bot that detects bots

Razor001

It wouldn't work, some people might just not respond to other players, giving people a mechanic to get an actual reward for reporting people is just asking for trouble. If an account is being a bot once, it will do it again and probably often, if they get reported i would hazard a guess that they will be investigated even if it isn't straight away. If they are reported multiple times, I would hope that it's only a matter of time before they are caught and perma banned. Could you make it so that they would have to buy the game again if a game is linked to the account? The harsher the punishment, the stronger the deterrent. This is the way to deal with these kinds of things, not creating player side mini-games. If someone is getting reported a lot, maybe there could be a higher level admin other than the GM to investigate like a cross server inquisition team.

Razor001

Speaking of disruptive behaviour, I wonder how they will deal with gold sellers.

novercalis

Razor - that is what they are doing - the issue is - once many of us do report legit bots - it still going to be awhile for the GM to finally investigate and confirm before the ban. They will have hundreds of tickets to investigate.

So it is doing something in between until the GM arrives.

Gui10

novercalis wrote: »

Razor - that is what they are doing - the issue is - once many of us do report legit bots - it still going to be awhile for the GM to finally investigate and confirm before the ban. They will have hundreds of tickets to investigate.

So it is doing something in between until the GM arrives.

But if the free pass for killing someone is just "them being reported for botting" then it's literally broken.

ANd from the moment it gets verified (by an ai, or a GM), then the bot should be auto banned.

Another question then becomes .. should the corruption wear off instantly if the person you attacked was a bot, then, possibly yes.But in the meantime, you have to remain corrupted until there is a verification and the bot is banned.

EDIT: possibly yes butttt, actually, probably no haha. Because of the implication is has down the line. You being corrupted affected your interactions with other players, and affected their corruption level also, so it cant work. You have to keep your corruption...

So either accept your fate or just report and dont kill.

Songcaller

Gui10 wrote: »

But in the meantime, you have to remain corrupted until there is a verification and the bot is banned.

I'm not convinced there should be any interference in the corruption application. The ticket might take hours in which time you could have worked off the corruption.

Gui10

@novercalis let me suggest this:

A different kind of tool. Actually, a reward for spotting and reporting bots. (albeit fairly small so that it doesnt get abused by bot managers lol)

Ludullu

I still think that an Nvidia shadowplay-like system would help a ton with bot reports. Afaik it doesn't take a ton of PC resources, so it's not like no one would be able to play if it was in the game. And it would be the most direct and factual report possible.

You see someone who's acting like a bot? Watch him for even 30 secs and hit "report". This will send a supercompressed video to the server and GMs can watch it on their end and see if the report is even worth checking the logs for. I'd imagine that fully responding to a report would take longer than the potential 30s-1m of just watching a video and knowing for sure if the reported player looks like a bot.

This kind of system would also put way more pressure on the false reporters. If GMs get direct proof of false reports - they have more rights to punish the reporter.

Razor001

novercalis wrote: »

Razor - that is what they are doing - the issue is - once many of us do report legit bots - it still going to be awhile for the GM to finally investigate and confirm before the ban. They will have hundreds of tickets to investigate.

So it is doing something in between until the GM arrives.

I just think it would cause more problems than solutions. What repercussions would there be for people who get all their friends and guild to report a single person because that person always beats them in pvp? I can see that your intention is good, but I still think the solution must come from the admin side.

Axarashi

A way to help GMs with identifying who real players are - and for preventing false bot reports - is perhaps to have some kind of verification mechanic upon registration / entering the game. This mechanic could be completely optional, but for those who complete it, they could avoid the trouble of getting false reported and save GMs some time figuring out if they're a bot account or not.

One way of doing this could be for example by having the option to verify yourself by entering your national insurance number (though I can already see many people unwilling to give their private information, and for this reason I repeat: it could be optional, just for those who want to avoid getting false reported etc).

Another way could be through phone number verification. But then, some might argue about throw-away phone numbers which can be easily obtained. To avoid this, perhaps the "phone number way of verification" could require users to renew their verification annually / semi-annually or even quarterly.

These are just two ways on the top of my head, I'm sure others could come up with something better. Even if it doesn't completely eradicate the problem, it could still be a great help, especially to GMs who have to deal with these reports. If you'd combine this together with some of the other ideas mentioned by others before me, I think it could definitely reduce part the bot problem and false reports.

novercalis

Razor001 wrote: »

novercalis wrote: »

Razor - that is what they are doing - the issue is - once many of us do report legit bots - it still going to be awhile for the GM to finally investigate and confirm before the ban. They will have hundreds of tickets to investigate.

So it is doing something in between until the GM arrives.

I just think it would cause more problems than solutions. What repercussions would there be for people who get all their friends and guild to report a single person because that person always beats them in pvp? I can see that your intention is good, but I still think the solution must come from the admin side.

did u bother to read the OP? everything been explained in terms of mass reports

Razor001

novercalis wrote: »

Razor001 wrote: »

novercalis wrote: »

Razor - that is what they are doing - the issue is - once many of us do report legit bots - it still going to be awhile for the GM to finally investigate and confirm before the ban. They will have hundreds of tickets to investigate.

So it is doing something in between until the GM arrives.

I just think it would cause more problems than solutions. What repercussions would there be for people who get all their friends and guild to report a single person because that person always beats them in pvp? I can see that your intention is good, but I still think the solution must come from the admin side.

did u bother to read the OP? everything been explained in terms of mass reports

I did, and who says everyone has to report within a 2 minute window? who says the people reporting are going to be in a guild, but all members of a discord? What if a party of 8 are all in a guild and come across a suspected bot?

Razor001

Again, admin/developer solutions are the way to go. For example, bots are often used to farm gold, if you take away the ability for third party sites to sell gold to players, you've already eliminated a large chunk of the problem before it is a problem in the first place. How about an algorithm that looks at how much a reported player farms per hour and a total to put reported players at the top of any investigation que. These are the kinds of solutions that I would be in favour of.

Taleof2Cities

Liniker wrote: »

Bots are not our responsibility as players, that's on Intrepid to deal with by having active GMs that are not lazy

This is still the correct answer.

Report bots in-game, let Intrepid deal with it, and move on.

Creating a special in-game mechanic opens the door for abuse (against good players).

If Intrepid is able to debut a robust anti-botting feature, it won't be a problem anyway.

novercalis

Razor001 wrote: »

Again, admin/developer solutions are the way to go. For example, bots are often used to farm gold, if you take away the ability for third party sites to sell gold to players, you've already eliminated a large chunk of the problem before it is a problem in the first place. How about an algorithm that looks at how much a reported player farms per hour and a total to put reported players at the top of any investigation que. These are the kinds of solutions that I would be in favour of.

I'm not disagreeing with any of that. But all of that takes time.

As for the 2 minute thing and 8-10 people.. I did say IE - that number is just arbitrary - it's the concept that matter and one that the Dev can decide how many reports in a short amount of time will it potentially flag as abuse and not trigger anything.

Cool - you got a discord of 30 random people. Are all 30 players at the Bot location to make the report? If not - then it means nothing.

Once again - let's say all 30 people are actually there - but you all reported in a short time window - guess what - that bot won't get flag to be killed - cause it was reported too quickly.

These are concept ideas that can be tweaked to find the proper balance for the GMs.

But it allows us to do something in the meanwhile. Last thing we need is the bot to know it is safe for an extra hour, finish farming, selling it to get gold and make a sell.
Even before that - just being able to sell it for whatever cheap price it decided to sell already damaged the economy. We need to prevent those sales. minimize their farm until the GM can finally deal with it and give it the mighty ban.

Razor001

novercalis wrote: »

Razor001 wrote: »

Again, admin/developer solutions are the way to go. For example, bots are often used to farm gold, if you take away the ability for third party sites to sell gold to players, you've already eliminated a large chunk of the problem before it is a problem in the first place. How about an algorithm that looks at how much a reported player farms per hour and a total to put reported players at the top of any investigation que. These are the kinds of solutions that I would be in favour of.

I'm not disagreeing with any of that. But all of that takes time.

As for the 2 minute thing and 8-10 people.. I did say IE - that number is just arbitrary - it's the concept that matter and one that the Dev can decide how many reports in a short amount of time will it potentially flag as abuse and not trigger anything.

Cool - you got a discord of 30 random people. Are all 30 players at the Bot location to make the report? If not - then it means nothing.

Once again - let's say all 30 people are actually there - but you all reported in a short time window - guess what - that bot won't get flag to be killed - cause it was reported too quickly.

These are concept ideas that can be tweaked to find the proper balance for the GMs.

But it allows us to do something in the meanwhile. Last thing we need is the bot to know it is safe for an extra hour, finish farming, selling it to get gold and make a sell.
Even before that - just being able to sell it for whatever cheap price it decided to sell already damaged the economy. We need to prevent those sales. minimize their farm until the GM can finally deal with it and give it the mighty ban.

Just create systems that make the prospect of bot farming not worth it or impossible and it takes the need of using players to be an enforcer group of other players while freeing up the reporting system for other things.

novercalis

Razor001 wrote: »

novercalis wrote: »

Razor001 wrote: »

Again, admin/developer solutions are the way to go. For example, bots are often used to farm gold, if you take away the ability for third party sites to sell gold to players, you've already eliminated a large chunk of the problem before it is a problem in the first place. How about an algorithm that looks at how much a reported player farms per hour and a total to put reported players at the top of any investigation que. These are the kinds of solutions that I would be in favour of.

I'm not disagreeing with any of that. But all of that takes time.

As for the 2 minute thing and 8-10 people.. I did say IE - that number is just arbitrary - it's the concept that matter and one that the Dev can decide how many reports in a short amount of time will it potentially flag as abuse and not trigger anything.

Cool - you got a discord of 30 random people. Are all 30 players at the Bot location to make the report? If not - then it means nothing.

Once again - let's say all 30 people are actually there - but you all reported in a short time window - guess what - that bot won't get flag to be killed - cause it was reported too quickly.

These are concept ideas that can be tweaked to find the proper balance for the GMs.

But it allows us to do something in the meanwhile. Last thing we need is the bot to know it is safe for an extra hour, finish farming, selling it to get gold and make a sell.
Even before that - just being able to sell it for whatever cheap price it decided to sell already damaged the economy. We need to prevent those sales. minimize their farm until the GM can finally deal with it and give it the mighty ban.

Just create systems that make the prospect of bot farming not worth it or impossible and it takes the need of using players to be an enforcer group of other players while freeing up the reporting system for other things.

no game has been successful at doing so afiak.
GM activity is the first big step but it's also not the last.

It takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a community to stop bots and make them realize it's not worth it.

Razor001

novercalis wrote: »

Razor001 wrote: »

novercalis wrote: »

Razor001 wrote: »

Again, admin/developer solutions are the way to go. For example, bots are often used to farm gold, if you take away the ability for third party sites to sell gold to players, you've already eliminated a large chunk of the problem before it is a problem in the first place. How about an algorithm that looks at how much a reported player farms per hour and a total to put reported players at the top of any investigation que. These are the kinds of solutions that I would be in favour of.

I'm not disagreeing with any of that. But all of that takes time.

As for the 2 minute thing and 8-10 people.. I did say IE - that number is just arbitrary - it's the concept that matter and one that the Dev can decide how many reports in a short amount of time will it potentially flag as abuse and not trigger anything.

Cool - you got a discord of 30 random people. Are all 30 players at the Bot location to make the report? If not - then it means nothing.

Once again - let's say all 30 people are actually there - but you all reported in a short time window - guess what - that bot won't get flag to be killed - cause it was reported too quickly.

These are concept ideas that can be tweaked to find the proper balance for the GMs.

But it allows us to do something in the meanwhile. Last thing we need is the bot to know it is safe for an extra hour, finish farming, selling it to get gold and make a sell.
Even before that - just being able to sell it for whatever cheap price it decided to sell already damaged the economy. We need to prevent those sales. minimize their farm until the GM can finally deal with it and give it the mighty ban.

Just create systems that make the prospect of bot farming not worth it or impossible and it takes the need of using players to be an enforcer group of other players while freeing up the reporting system for other things.

no game has been successful at doing so afiak.
GM activity is the first big step but it's also not the last.

It takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a community to stop bots and make them realize it's not worth it.

Well, it's obvious we don't see eye to eye. How about we agree to disagree.

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