We all know it, we all hate it, some does what they can to battle it and some thinks this “activity” does not affect them.
EvE these days have even more serious botting problem than ever before. The best example of it was last year summary stating 42.000 accounts banned for botting and various illicit activities.
42.000… This should be a serious wake up call for all capsuleers who think this is not affecting them and serious eye opener to rest of community.
CCP already did one pie-chart of shame few years back and alliances included in it suffered a loss of reputation. You might think it’s a game, reputation is not important just ISKs. Well wrong again.
Reputation in eve is important, bad rep can cause isolation of that alliance due to shady stuff they doing. You know what i mean, some people and corps and alliances are known thou ought eve for having bad or good reputation, are recommended for newbros just because of their reputation.
I would love to see the pie chart of shame being done again even just once to showcase the bad and ugly that is currently happening in the game.
I recognise the fact CCP is doing what they can to battle it and over 7.000 bans from last year was due to players help alone, but that’s not enough.
Players needs to know.
Needs to know who is causing some entities in game to arm themselves excessively with dirty money.
Then need to know where to fly to try to disturb their illicit activities.
Some alliance good name might be tarnished some might be cleared out of suspicion.
Some might not care and continue and some might actually take a closer look who they accept to keep the game healthy. EvE is unique, let CCP show us the chart… They do it monthly with economic reports.
I would love to see the pie-chart of shame once again.
I’d like to think that I’m an honest miner. In the decade or so that I’ve played, I’ve never ever used 'bots and I’ve never ever cheated. Sadly however, when 'botting statistics get discussed, it tends to be the case that cheating miners are more prevalent than other in-game sub-groups.
I think this is shameful and I think I recognise that it’s the rationale behind a lot of ganking. I definitely don’t support suicide attacks on unarmed ships but I do (I think) understand some of the anger that people have for people who are playing in a lazy way.
I don’t like 'botters or cheats either.
In short, I support this idea.
The one difficulty that may crop up is that CCP will possibly (probably?) cite GDPR (even in a fictional game there’s no escape!) as reason that they can’t name specific offenders, offending corporations, or alliances.
If there was this kind of issue, my thought on this would be to go the other way and create a roll of honour listing pilots, corporations and alliances that have a clean record.
As far as pilots go this list could be of people who have never had any suspicion aimed at them. As far as corporations and alliances go, because they are made up of many individuals the chart could be a percentage league table of honesty with entities ranked by the number of dodgy pilots they’ve had in their ranks over say the last three years.
This number, 42,000 makes me curious, how long has it been since that many people were logged in at the same time?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many, more likely just over half that many at best.
I’m guessing here, but it seems to me that if that number is correct, Eve should be almost, if not completely empty.
Something seems off here to me, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a bot except for the obvious hypernet spammers, if there were 42,000 of them last year I would think it would be something I couldn’t miss.
Numbers like that make me wonder why CCP threatens us when we try to report things, and why they make it so bloody hard to do it in the first place.
Being threatened for reporting something they seem unable to do anything about and making it difficult to report things in the first place makes me wonder what the hell they are thinking and why.
Maybe CCP should be the biggest slice in this pie you are talking about, they are punishing legitimate players for something they did or refuse to do. Or both.
This is costing them, not because there are too many bots making life hard for real players, but because CCP seems to use them as an excuse to nerf everything we do, so shame on them, seriously, what the hell kind of mentality is that?
“We banned 42,000 bots in a year, almost double the actual population online per day, let’s punish the people who aren’t bots!”.
Friggin brilliant.
Am I getting this wrong? I really don’t understand what is going on and I don’t see how any of it makes sense. I just want to play Eve, not fight two invisible enemies like CCP nerfs and changes and a vast population of botters.
Issue is with how we can make accounts in eve.
I am not saying having multiple accounts is wrong or simplicity of just making new one is wrong it was in game since dawn of time and should stay here till last star fades.
It is equal of roughly 100+ accounts botting/rmt on daily basis.
You will not see this drop on active all time player count. But it mounts up.
I just showing how easy it is to create new account.
I often patrol and hunt/report bots. And i can see 2 days gilas with perfect reaction times or 2 week ishtars sitting on havens beating insta spatial ceptor comming at them in less than 2 AU from gate.
I have seen dozens of retrievers named 1/2/3/4/5 etc etc hoovering belts that had less than a week.
42.000 is a number of the entire year.
I do recognise this crappy thing that even accounts for online gaming and any entity involved in it that has a real life operator.
Still i would love to see something done about it… Even if it would mean pie chart of regions in eve where bots are in abundance.
I would still prefer to see names of alliances as a brand like the pirates of old received as punishment.
This is bots doing right there. Those are such a problem that for example before the nulli patch ishtars were sitting at 0 on hubs or even heavens being virtually impervious to be cough by interceptors just because they had a warp stab or even 2 still facetanking the site.
You all can do the math.
Lets take guristas space.
There is like 50 systems with for example single ishtar/gila per system. After ESS payout they do roughly 70mil/h due to rats being weak.
They are botting for 10 hours that’s 700mil now multiply that 50x that’s roughly 35bil isks on average. And you can see 2 ishtars or 3 per system for like nearly 80 systems in guristas space…
This still does not affect you?
Prices or pith modules dropped significantly due to excessive botting, i remember pith A multi-spectral costing 1.3bil, now less than bil.
I don’t even calculate the effect this has on mining.
We can speculate, calculate point fingers but i would really want for people to see WHO and WHERE so them alone could take action if wanted to.
Also in defence of CCP
You cannot nerf particular accounts for botting without changing something fundamental in game.
Game acknowledges bots and real players indiscriminately. From game mechanic is no different if someone real click the rock or bot.
Unless detected and dealt with bots does the job automatically with maximum efficiency. And that in long run hurts the real players who finds themselves working twice as hard for less reward.
But that’s a debate for different topic how to detect them and deal with them.
I am bumping this and i honestly disappointed in lack of response from playerbase.
You ppl either gave up to the problem in game or think you have no power to do anything.
Both cases are completely showing the severity of the issues we have now.
??? You posted in Crime & Punishment, not Assembly Hall or PF&I or General Discussion. Most folks who come to this section are looking to dig into in-game drama, like wars and sabotage and ganking.
You can edit the first post to change the forum category.
You might want to read the descriptions of sections, and not just their names, when it comes to picking a category in the future:
This is the place to discuss the criminal side of EVE Online.
From discussing war, ransoms, scamming, extortion and other illicit activities, to warning other pilots against dealing with unsavory characters, this forum category is for topics relating to the darker side of New Eden.
That’s all about legal gameplay. Botting and cheating are not what the area is meant to discuss.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I suppose it’s time to stop thinking and do something instead.
I think (and hope) I’m going to have some time off from real life soon and should be able to spend a good deal of time in Eve.
If you send me a list of systems and what to look for (I don’t know much about how bots behave) I will be happy to go and make a royal pain in the ass of my self and report them.
I also want to do this in faction warfare areas but have to figure out a way of surviving long enough to actually find, disrupt and report them.
I’m happy to travel pretty much anywhere, but I’m limited in what I can fly in some places if I want to have any expectations of arriving intact. Any recommendations on how to kill these things would be great as well.
Also there’s five of me, I can do some interesting stuff depending on who I am at the moment including logistical stuff if anyone needs that.
That part is easy, it is no secret that guristas space null sec is riddled with bots, a single gila or ishtar per system for like 50 systems, tenal, branch, you can see a week old or max month old ishtars sitting at 0 on hubs or even heavens named consecutive nicknames. Having A perfect reaction time always when you either enter system or just before you land on combat site, sometimes even hanging out in space due to bot malfunction after finished site. In drone lands Malpais Perrigen falls and outer passage but mainly the guristas space is infested. At least these were my primary hunting grounds.
The method is simple or time consuming i use 2 of them.
A blitz with insta warp spatial fitted ares hoping to catch them in act (low chance of success but you cover lots of systems)
Logout method - I have cloak fitted on ares and when i find a anomaly that possible bot is doing i warp at 20 , cloak and exit the game (cloak is disengaged and ceptor warps off from site, important to not have timer on it). The i set up some timer to come back initially after 5 minutes so the moment i log in and i see the screen (btw that takes bloody ages as you are in game way faster than you screen can show you) i might catch an ishtar on site if not i note what site that was and repeat the game exit method on different site. If this continues repeatedly after 3 or 4 attempts and that target still undock and goes for another site i either catch him or just plainly report him.
This method has high chance of success vs bots but can take up to 30 minutes per single system as you have to guess the time set up on bot side to undock and go for another site.
But using this method i sometimes got even 5 ishtars per day and few gilas.
As to determine if someone is botting if the 2nd method did not gave way of the bot software running then it is simple.
Especially now as they cannot really use warp stab module you can point them and see what happens.
Most of the bots go bad ■■■■ crazy, just stopping all actions recalling drones and just sitting there doing nothing. If you release point they will try to warp off and when you point them again the go inert again.
My best personal score (later on those characters were banned) was encountering around 30 covetors in branch bluntly botting sending one covetor at a time to the ore site i was actually IN and i deployed mobile scan inhibitor. That was my personal record there a 30ísh confirmed bans in one day alone.
It would not be a problem doing the pie of shame.
And since EvE is widely known to govern itself by the players, they should know who and where in game does it.
I will be tenacious with bumping this topic. I do want to hear more opinions about pie chart.
Or does player base is numb to the problem so much they gave up?
That’s what i am after. Cheating as stated in last year report is more of a problem than ever before after Pearl acquired EvE.
42.000 accounts banned…
This number is seriously scary. Just shows how without players help (over 7000 of those accounts was banned with players reporting and help) this will be a loosing battle.
This game is a part of gaming history, not only one of the longest running game out there, but with game mechanics other games utterly failed to mimic. And that’s because of the players that are dedicated to the game like nowhere else.
I know you reading this section. I know people are aware of the problem.
Pie chart of shame will help community.
I am not alone, there are others like me who are nearly physically allergic to cheating and botting and they will dedicate their time are resources to help out maby not getting rid of the problem but make the activity even little bit harder by patrolling the areas where cheating activities are mentioned and reporting suspects.
Let me be frank.
I am not about doing the pie chart on monthly basis like economic report.
But problem is more than noticeable.
Do you want this game becoming Metin or world of warcraft?
Make some noise, bring the topic to CSM or CCP attention.
And let make the life of bot that little bit harder for sake of protecting the game we know.
I cannot imagine CCP/PA would like to see how low the server population would drop if all the bots were removed. You wouldn’t be down in the triple digets, but 20k might become the normal maximum peak.
There is just too many anecdotal reports of pervasive bot use to dismiss.
From what was explained by CCP their “Guardian” anti botting system that acts on player reports after reaching some threshold makes that particular account being priority to investigate. But bots are a really bad thing. They makes hard working ppl earn less for the same work they do.
Yeah they do makes modules etc costs less for someone buying it but also makes earn less for someone to sell it and worth less for someone who farm it.
Imagine a new player who potentially due to inflation can afford shiny stuff, one could argue this is good but is it really? It makes your average Joe who want to earn isks skip that activity due to earning potential not equal to time invested.
I did just rough math on the 42.000 accounts banned last year and it goes on roughly 110 per day in all time year scale.
Not much? Well if you consider each of those accounts earn anything from 60 to 80 mil/h, not including extra shinnies from escalations or the elusive exploration bots (yes those are also a thing) that goes into a scary number per day/week/month.
Removing them all at once is impossible but the pie chart is to be informative of who/where is doing it.
Let leave banning to CCP but i for one i would like to know where to fly next to investigate shady activities a shady alliances and corporations in it are participating in.
Just adding that little brick from my side of things to punish bots.
