Assumption is a terrible thing! it normally proves wrong!
A mind is a terrible thing… to waste.
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Anyways, we know CCP Security has a reliable average of 2 bans every 10 minutes of a standard working week, or 2000 a month.
We dont know how many of those bans are for botting.
Why this 2k figure seems to be a constant is unclear.
Either thats max capacity, a policy “hard-cap”/quota, or there arent more than 2k accounts to ban per month.
If both guys on the Security team are working equally hard, and doing the same “job”, thats an average of 1k per team member. (Caveat, might be that the two work on different types of illegal conduct, or a different role in the security process.) I think they both have the same job description, though.
We can therefore deduce that adding a 3rd team member could add another 1k ban capacity per month, so from 2k to 3k per month.
Over a year, that would mean 12k more banned accounts, than now.
Does anyone know if the Security Team used to have more staff, back when EVE was more populated?
Would bots exist if some forms of PVE weren’t so extremely predictable and safe to run?
Yes.
Bots can brute force through content with sufficient EHP/dps.
Completion time is not much a concern for botters, as they are usually afk while running them.
Disclaimer: I have no dog in the fight either way as far as who is right and who is wrong, or what CCP should do either way. I’m just chiming in since I have some expertise in the matter (computer science, AI, etc).
It is true that in general, the more predictable and safe the sites are, the easier they are to automate with bots.
Can bots brute force through ALL POSSIBLE content with sufficient EHP/dps? I don’t think so. If so, it would mean bots (AI, if we are to be precise) could solve all possible problems the developers could throw at them. I doubt this is true, meaning, theoretically I think it is possible to develop content that bots couldn’t run. Or, if theoretically bots could run all content (given perfect programmers, perfect CPUs, etc), practically speaking I think there would be real world limits, meaning, requiring too much programmer expertise, too much bandwidth, too much computing power, etc.
What I’m saying is, my guess, given my expertise in the area, is that it should be possible to develop content which would frustrate bots to a significantly more degree than the current situation. However, I’d like to hear the opinion of others who are ‘experts’ in the field.
EDIT: I think it’s possible that it could work the other way too, i.e. while it might be theoretically possible to develop content to frustrate bots, practically speaking, it may be that you’d run into limits as far as CCP (or anyone’s) expertise and time for such an endeavor, you may run into limits as far as how fun the content would be for human players (or how difficult it would be), etc.
I guess I’m saying, I suspect the answers here are more complex, and less ‘cut and dry’ or ‘black and white’ than we’d like.
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I didnt say all content can be brute forced by bots.
The problem with making PvE more difficult for bots, is it also makes it more difficult for all non-bots.
As far as botting of PvE goes, Incursions and DEDs are impractical to bot. Sure a DED can be botted, but many can be mostly afked in a sufficient ehp/dps ship anyways (especially drone ships. Autotarget missiles too, but their dps is quite crap). You also have manually probe the sigs first. Afaik no bot exists in EVE yet that can probe a site down.
That leaves ratting (ie: running anoms or belts.)
Miner bots are an obvious problem.
There are also the market bots, plus quite strange bots like courier mission runners.
ironic: implement captchas^^
i agree this sounds incredibly stupid. especially when you think of solving captchas during fights. but solving captchas while mining might not be such a big deal.
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It wouldnt be a “captcha” as you think of it.
It would be a minigame.
And no, as was discussed earlier in the thread, it would never pop-up during combat.
Chat and contract scamming bots are still allowed and thriving for years in Jita.
Courier Bots are back. For those interested to see how they operate. Check out Jatate III Moon 10 - Prompt Delivery Storage Station. Or just sit on the Jatate Gate in the Itamo system.
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A few less bots in Jatate 
I reported a total of 16 bots today
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I opened this thread on the 1st of October, its now nearly 11 months later… so whats changed after this time and 1700+ posts.
Nothing, not a thing, other than there are more now than ever
I see the market, 00, faction warfare, courier + exploration missions still riddled with bots.
I see the same old syndicates botting 24/7, with no enforceable punishment having ever been dished out to them
I don’t see any short or long term plan by CCP to deal with the situation, despite all their reassurances at the height of player outrage, having been put into place.
I don’t see any meaningful data concerning how they have been quietly dealing with this.
The facts are, as I suspected all along, CCP are proven by their inaction to be complicit in their use. They make real time money from them, its to do with the cost of plex v cost of subs and where RMT goes… and they use them to artificially inflate Eve’s numbers, smoke and mirrors, propping up their decaying business model.
If they cared they would have sorted this long ago.
They don’t, and they won’t, because its just the way it is now. Bots now form part of their business model and income stream
Was hoping that things had changed and I could resub my accounts and start enjoying once again the game I once loved. Sadly not to be
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I definitely want to see more from CCP than I have seen.
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As outlined here (read it, a lot of background), EVE isn’t just a game of features and mechanisms providing boundaries and pathways for behaviour. EVE functions because features and mechanisms followed behaviour for such a long time that CCP at one point acknowledged that EVE wasn’t a game, but something they called an emergent dynamic. Rightly so, considering all the third parties who use EVE as a petri dish of behavioural studies in sociology, psychology, economics, memetics and other (applied and theoretical) sciences.
So yes, bots are not healthy for the foundation elements of both EVE the game and EVE as life. Keep in mind however that Tranquility is starting to show signs of a tech evolution / transfer in regards to automation in general. There is the traditional botting as players know it, with the tiers of individual and organised botting. But there is also the scripting as we know it from Serenity. With the same tiers. So there’s botrunners, easily identified by CCP, depending on resource allocation for Team Security. And there’s scriptrunners, immensely more difficult to identify.
The introduction of F2P and Alpha’s is more or less intertwined with scriptrunners. Different stimuli, different triggers, but above all the introduction of new types of players with different expectations and patterns in regards to already established gameplay.
So yes, Alpha’s have impact on several levels. More bots, more scriptrunners, more widespread EULA violations of concurrent Alpha’s (and/or Omega combinations). But not because they are Alpha’s as such.
Personally I use the show info → report method as applicable, consistantly, even though it’s never yielded any measurable result. Corp / team members do the same. But we also hook up from time to time to do spring cleaning, like using suicide tactics on the myriads of courier agent bots, or pilots being stupid enough to be open on running scripts.
Where we encounter large style organised forms of either botting, script running or RMT, we put reports together and send those off to security@ccpgames.com, as outlined in earlier devblogs by CCP. Unfortunately only very little of this can be seen to end up in Doomheim or more appropriately worse. More often than not, we can see clear historic progression of reported characters. For example from courier agent runner to Gila/VNI runner to ISK farmer in pubbie alliances after the fake buildup of character identity and (more often than not) fake character sales (most of which do not go over the Character Bazaar).
But let’s put one thing clear. CCP are not complicit in their use. They recognise the fundamental risks of automation applied to the foundation element of economies of scale and perception problems being the number one cause of slipping in retention/acquisition.
CCP’s prime focus is and remains on RMT. I think that should be clear to everyone. It costs them, it hurts their venture and their game.
CCP’s secondary focus is on botting. But the introduction of F2P has created an influx of different behaviour and expectation patterns than what EVE and CCP were used to. Logically, CCP aims to maintain and grow EVE as well as the venture, they have had to make difficult decisions in relation to that. For example relaxing sanction rules in relation to botting as part of making allowances for a wider and more diverse learning curve of new arrivals. We can have an opinion about that, but as we do not know (CCP is not telling, unlike in the past) the results of this, such opinions are irrelevant unless they give rise to a negative perception problem at which point CCP will have to engage on that challenge.
CCP sofar does not appear to distinguish between botrunners and scriptrunners. In industry communications they, unlike other publishers or game developers, make no mention of trends, nor do they seem to distinguish between them for either policies or detection solutions. Unlike for example Blizzard, for whom the rise of scriptrunners using cloud gaming became such an upward curve that they decided to simply ban cloud gaming to close that door. Whether that is smart, or something else, I don’t know. Who cares about fantasy games which - unlike EVE - are not real 
CCP seems, but I could be wrong obviously, to focus primarily on individual activity in all this. Only very rarely do they touch on organised variants, which are far more prevalent and cause far wider ripple effects. When they do it appears to originate more in their focus against RMT than from their anti-botting focus. Like when Roman Abramovich’s cousin was dicking around once upon a time with a certain group of in game alliances in the south east of New Eden. Or when external developments encroach on existing policies and/or presence of RMT elements, like with the drivers of the Casino War once upon a time.
Recently null did its cyclic tour of letting drama between organised runners play out as the scapegoat that distracts from the gentleman’s agreements on organised botting that exist out there. CCP missed it, went quiet on it, clouding matters with lack of clarity and contributing to the growth of existing perception problems.
CCP also has a bit of an issue in regards to exactly that risk of perception problems consolidating here. The focus on individual over organised botting, the seemingly absent monitoring or policies on scriptrunners, the relaxation of sanctions and rules - in combination with lackluster communications and (in spite of intentions) a devblog which really should have gone deeper, as it demonstrated exactly the kind of issues present in player perception in relation to the patterns and trends. Not helpful, unfortunately.
What also doesn’t help is that CCP doesn’t appear to allocate much resources to Team Security in relation to player perception and the cyclic nature of monitoring and actions against botting. I don’t doubt, in spite of personal experiences, that CCP regularly do cleanups, but within the constraints of CCP’s own insights, priorities and available information. See the botrunner/scriptrunner distinction and consider how that presents a massive challenge that largely falls outside of the scope as CCP has outlined it to be to players.
But all this is not the same as being complicit. That stipulates active involvement, with clear knowledge, even policy. CCP is not TianCity, where employees were given carte blanche to make a buck on the side with their own automated accounts and out-of-game sales of items, even services, for the entire time of the waiting period until the agreement to part ways came into effect. And let’s be honest, prior to that Serenity had its TianCity specific issues in these matters.
CCP cares. It’s their venture, their game, and for many it still is their baby.
You nailed it.
I get that you love the game and are sad to see that nothing will be done about this. Sort of like finding out the wife you love has been cheating on you. Bitter disappointment. All you can do is accept it and move on.
You did the right thing. Just walk away.
rofl
You wrote this in Oct 2017. Disappeared from the forums Feb 2018. It’s now almost Sep 2018. Good job, bruh.
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They dont care, or are profiting from it.
They reduced the 30day suspension to 3days.
I think that says it all with glaring obviousness.
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Does CCP make more money when players can utilize more accounts that must be paid for?
YES 
CCP most likely supports botting regardless of random ‘public spectacles’ about banning botters.
NO 
If you answered ‘NO’ you don’t know anything about making money.
I haven’t station traded in several years because of bot activity until I decided about a week ago to stockpile some stuff for price fluctuation trends.
Naturaly I set some buy orders and steeled myself for battling the bots…but…the 0,01 madness I remembered wasn’t there and I filled most of my orders in few hours