How to fix the bot problem and make people happy

[Ramona_McCandless]

@Ptraci

Games are not supposed to be boring.

And yet EA, Activision and Steam make millions every year with even more boring variations on the same themes.

[Nicolai_Serkanner]

@Sukur

Remove or delay local on nullsec.

No, Go away.

[Sugar_Smacks]

What all the “allowed” data mining has made 3rd party programs such that botting has become a problem?

Who would of ever expected that result?

Gee I wonder why other games are so against it.

[Zachri]

@Sugar_Smacks

What all the “allowed” data mining has made 3rd party programs such that botting has become a problem?

Who would of ever expected that result?

That first sentence doesn’t really make sense, I have no idea what you are trying to ask, or present. The second one, keep in mind that correlation /= causation, and that your perception determines your perspective on rationalising (aka, filling stuff in so it suits the vested perception).

[Kaivarian_Coste]

The majority of ppl defending local in null are alts of botters themselves. Don’t be shocked by their defensive, OP. Real money is at stake.

Edit: I’d also like to see more wormholes into null sec. Wormhole distribution should be even across the universe as wormholes are natural phenomena that aren’t concerned by a system’s security level. This should give hunters more opportunity to hunt bots, and humans more incentive to occupy and reside in a system.

[0Lona_0ltor]

@Bjorn_Tyrson

posting in stealth “remove local from null” thread number 2975268 of this year

CCP should probably dleay/remove local in low and null as 98876, is more subs than they have ever had. Achievable online numbers with a delayed local however.

[Dotar_Sojat]

Would it be so bad if Concord and gate/dock guns were removed altogether?
Just remove every scrap of non-player character protection from every single system in the cosmos. As an aside after removing all protection (or even now), can we get some form of identifier beside the names of alpha characters that have exceeded a 30 day non-omega period so a systematic purge could begin?

[Whitehound]

@Dotar_Sojat

Would it be so bad if Concord and gate/dock guns were removed altogether?

No, it would simply be a different game.

What would likely make it bad is the effect a sudden change would have on the player numbers. A slow change, over a long period of small changes, would be needed to avoid chaos and a sudden drop in players.

In the end though do you also have to ask if a game with CONCORD is worse than one without it. One could just expand null-sec, and make it so large that the existence of high- and low-sec only have a diminishing effect on it.

Not sure though what CONCORD and gate guns still has to do with bots.

[Dotar_Sojat]

@Whitehound

Not sure though what CONCORD and gate guns still has to do with bots.

Without Concord, blapping bots would be like shooting ducks in a barrel.

[Whitehound]

@Dotar_Sojat

@Whitehound

Not sure though what CONCORD and gate guns still has to do with bots.

Without Concord, blapping bots would be like shooting ducks in a barrel.

No. See, you’re only assuming that bots wouldn’t change their tactics once you change the game. Bots will always adapt to any change. I’m then not a null-sec dweller, but I hear there are plenty of bots to be found in null-sec and no CONCORD.

And dropping local as a means to fight bots also sounds a bit dodgy, because I’m pretty sure there will be bots and macro users in WH space, only you have no way of telling who is in a WH until you scan it.

[Zachri]

@Whitehound

What would likely make it bad is the effect a sudden change would have on the player numbers. A slow change, over a long period of small changes, would be needed to avoid chaos and a sudden drop in players.

Actually, that’s not correct. There’s quite a bit of history of severe and rapid changes, not resulting in negative impact on retention or acquisition. You might be too young to remember, but one of the most severe ones in terms of established behaviour for the then largest userbase was Yulai. Another was drastically changing the jump / gate mechanisms (anyone remember the spawn point massacres?). The moon mining changes and redistribution of moon minerals, followed by later on another change in distribution, had quite a bit of upheaval as a result. But no impact on either retention or acquisition.

Even things which affected the most active / core types at the time like both the start and end of the Age of Nano had quite the rapid impact and hectic scrambling as a result, but retention and acquisition remained what they were.

In truth, when you look at the subtle changes, and patterns of lack of changes, those are things which do negatively impact retention and acquisition. In fact, this was one of CCP’s own strongest arguments at the time in favour of making an effort on what was called low hanging fruit, a healthy user base requires a constant of change. At minimum this. And from time to time bigger, deeper, wider change. CCP’s economist at the time had some damn good arguments and data analysis on the requirements of change as a constant and upheaval as a cycle - based on historic cumulative data.

Now the suggestion made there in particular is one which would cause upheaval, but also innovation and adaptive behaviour. It’s a little silly anyway, but that is beside the point here.

The only relevance to the topic itself, botting, might be that types of traditional botrunners remain virtually invulnerable due to gate / sentry mechanisms. Like the courier bot types. Removing sentries? Right, yeah it would make using suicide tactics against those a lot simpler, lowering the bar immensely. But is that sufficient to offset the curve of required adaptive behaviour across a wider spectrum? I don’t think CCP would see it that way.

[Whitehound]

@Zachri

Actually, that’s not correct.

Please, I said “likely”. I’m making a speculation. You don’t want to tell me what the future looks like, do you? So stop pretending you knew and I was incorrect.

[Zachri]

@Whitehound

Please, I said “likely”. I’m making a speculation. You don’t want to tell me what the future looks like, do you? So stop pretending you knew and I was incorrect.

Don’t be daft, you’re better than this You projected a likely curve. I pointed out that based on historic evolution and data it is neither likely nor such a curve.

That’s not telling the future You were the one projecting. I merely referred to established developments EVE’s already gone through.

[Whitehound]

@Zachri

Don’t be daft

You’re the daft one. Stop correcting me on how the future will look like. I said it’s a speculation. Stop with the trolling.

[Zachri]

@Whitehound

You’re the daft one. Stop correcting me on how the future will look like. I said it’s a speculation. Stop with the trolling.

I’m not telling you what the future will look like. You projected a future development.

So you stumbled, now you could either be a mature adult and get over that, to move on and continue with the actual discussion. Or, you could fixate yourself and continue to roleplay New Eden’s Sean Hannity and keep trying to spin through repetition. Which pretty much qualifies as trolling.

Now, shall we continue with the actual topic? Or do you want to take door number two?

[Whitehound]

@Zachri

You projected a future development.

Which you called incorrect. Only you cannot prove it as much as I cannot prove it and now you’re just trolling me.

[Zachri]

@Whitehound

Which you called incorrect. Only you cannot prove it as much as I cannot prove it and now you’re just trolling me.

Ah, door number two it is, it seems.

Again, you’re projecting. I’m not the one who was incorrect. You were. But the methodology of constant repetition of reverse mirroring may provide you with some semblance of gratification, it does however not make it correct. Or right, for that matter.

Now why don’t you repeat the reversals some more, throw in some further labels and feel better about it, but do it privately. That way the topic can continue.

[Whitehound]

@Zachri

Ah, door number two it is, it seems.

Don’t troll.

[Fluffy_Moe]

@Sukur

Remove or delay local on nullsec.

Both the guy with 20 capitals and the humble alpha single account relay on local channel to warp to safety. If you remove it they wont have any easy way to know when to warp out.

You dont need to ban accounts. That is useless, since botters simply create others. You need to change mechanics. Remove local and players will sort the problem for you. They will even be happy about bots as they will be free kills!.

And as a bonus, you will get better performance at big battles.

Just remember when you those who profit from the botting, from RMT or from the taxes they generate are in the leadership of 0.0 entities, their opinion may be biased.

Removing local would help. it would of course not solve the problem but it would help.

The only way to really put a very serious dent in botting would be to rework game mechanics so they are unfriendly to botting from the ground up.

Require manual input based on actual visual info for combat, targetting, lining up etc. for example.

Remove some options from the game such as auto target back whatever targeted you. Remove or rework some in game systems such as auto missles, drones.

Remove the auto-agro option from drones and give the ma little better responsiveness and focus instead.

Rework some modules, for example the auto target computer, instead of blindly auto targetting every 10 secs or whatever, make it have a good chance to target through ECM or Damps, add counterplay, kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

Limit number of clients that can run on 1 computer period. Be they omega or alpha, whatever. You reach X, hop on another machine or get “friends” to help you. It is afterall a multiplayer game and corp and alliance mates are supposed to help each other out.

Raise the computer reqs. Update the code and minimum graphics some more, make it more expensive for the bots to bot, not just run 10-20 clients per machine, or even more, because the minimum game reqs are so rediculously low in comparison with whats available on the market today.

Speaking of which, if there are that many clients runnign on a single machine, and they’re at minimum or close to it reqs, that is a good flag for CCP to check out to see if its bots.

Lots of other stuff can be done, but none of it is, only same old same old “algorithm and monitoring memory for automated inputs”…

[Aedaxus]

@Sukur

Both the guy with 20 capitals and the humble alpha single account relay on local channel to warp to safety. If you remove it they wont have any easy way to know when to warp out.

You mean the bot software you write and sell will now have an DLC that offers managing of automated alpha account per gate to keep an eye on incoming and outgoing traffic?