How to fix the bot problem and make people happy

Communications Center General Discussion
62

Delaying Local would be effective at reducing botting.

80% is probably too optimistic though.

Its not Delayed Local in and of itself that would hamper bots, it would still have to be players actively hunting/destroying them. Delayed Local just makes it easier for them to get the drop on prey in the absence of other intel.

Some botters operate while they are quasi-present at/near their PC.
Some botters operate only when asleep/at work.
(Some do both)

Imo, its the latter group that most needs remedying, are most vulnerable, and causing the most harm to the games economy.

Some bots running for 2-4hrs per day or so, are lamentable, but have limited impact.

Its the 6+hr per day bots that are a problem. Those rapidly add up to huge (unfair) advantage.

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63

Botters will keep botting regardless. They will fit more cheaply, use cheaper ships and carry on.

Why do you people always keep thinking one change will fix it all when a bot is already doing a lot of different tasks controlling and monitoring the client already? Any single change will only cause a botter to adjust to it.

And why are these suggestions targeted at changing the game? Itā€™s as if you only understood how the game works and so your suggestion is based on changing just that. What you really want is to catch the guys and take away all their stuff and ban them from the game and not mess around with the game itself.

What it needs is an automated detection of bots. Or perhaps even a new game-play feature, one similar to Project Discovery, where players help detect bots for CCP and where CCP provides player data such as mouse clicks in form of images and audio files, where players can spot patterns or unusual behaviour and get awarded SKINs and other little goodies. Then you had something thatā€™s fun.

64

Delayed Local would help hunters destroy bots ingame.

Sounds like content, explosions, bot reduction and fun to me. Ticks all those boxes.

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65

As mentioned before will bots switch to using d-scan like any player would do. Only bots can spam d-scan relentlessly for hours, while a player can get distracted or just careless, and so your suggestion is going to cause more losses on the side of the players than the botters, which means it just becomes another advantage bots have over normal players.

66

You get it.

The best way to solve a problem is to let the players do it. If they switch to d-scan, then we can use d-scan immune ships. And worst case, we are at the same point.

One of the problems of botters is that they take effort to catch. If you reduce the effort needed, more players will go for the free kill. And while it will hurt the actual null player, its not like nullsec is really dangerous at this point. Players will adapt.

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67

Thats fine.

Battle vs bots is always an uphill struggle requiring innovation/adaptation by both sides.

D-scan bots are preferable to Local bots, in many ways, and easier to detect by CCP as requiring a command sent to servers from the client, whereas Local does not. D-scan bots also have limited range, no flag/rating settings.

68

Well run NS entity already has means to gather intel without immediate Local.

69

They do. Scout networks should be dealt with, but it has passed so much time without CCP doing anything that I lost hope of it.

Still, it will be an improvement. Many of the botters are not on the main groups of 0.0 entities, but on renter corps or so, they may or may not have access to that intel or have it in a degraded quality. Also, the guy who privately use a simple automation to rat or mine will be probably very hindered. And they are a big part of the problem.

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70

how about revamp anoms with more tacklers added in anoms so ā– ā– ā– ā–  cant warp straight away as soon as neut enter local?deny caps on anoms suposed to be run by subcaps and add for them specific anoms with hics npc?ccp dont give ā– ā– ā– ā–  about game content,instead we got moarrr skinsss

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71

That would be really really really really really really really great.

but our eyes wont see it.

72

Iā€™m stupid and youā€™re clever. And weā€™ve reached this point based on no argument from you. Iā€™m sick of the internet now and all the people with no capacity for critical reasoning that now populate it. I remember a time when only intelligent people were here. Now I have to deal with children and loudmouths with no university education.

73

Paid for paper doesnt prove intellect.

Just financial backing.

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74

Theyā€™ll just move to highsec not that they arenā€™t there already thereā€™s bots farming low lvl hs anom and their main does the escalations or hauler bots doing distribution missions and ofc mining bots

76

No just evil truths like people who think ā€œleftieā€ is an insult.

Enjoy exploiting.

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77

Im ok with more tackle in PvE.

78

i earn a lot of ISKs on bot hunting.

DONT FIX ANYTHING. IT IS NOT BROKEN.

79

4 day necro, but I wanna hear how much?

80

The alliances protect the botters. The GM event in Yulai showed that. Those very same alliances profited from bot money. They should release the full info on all botters caught. Iā€™ll bet it will bring to light definitive proof why alliances allow them.

81

How to fix the bot problem?
Easyā€¦

Simply delete all alphas and reinstate 14 or 21 day trial accounts with t1 modules and t1 frigates as maximum possible shipsā€¦and no venturesā€¦

Problem solvedā€¦

82

OP, I feel for you. The fault lies squarely at the feet of CCP. In their desire to get people into null, they made it easier to live there. And to a large extent people have responded, null has gained far more people over the years, to the detriment to all other regions. At one time EvE told people you can do anything you want in EvE, today you can still do whatever you want, but it will always be significantly less effective than living in SOV null.

There is only one solution to the proliferation of caps and supercaps in EvE, make them harder to get. But that would invalidate everything CCP has done over the last 5 years. So donā€™t expect them to even entertain the thought.

CCP has a very clear solution on how to cut down on botting. Note, they can never completely stop it, as you should always expect people to come up with work arounds to any solution. Yesterday I watched a streamer calmly make about 1 billion ratting away in null, with minimum to no real effort, not interacting with anyone, while I was exploring in various wormholes and running a few sites. My luck was bad, and my haul was nowhere near the consistent rewards he was getting. Donā€™t get me wrong, people working together to make SOV null work for the betterment of all - great, EvE performing as designed.

CCP simply has to look at their mechanics in wormholes and implement some of them to reduce botting, since botting in wormholes is much rarer than in null. Like I said, if the goal is to reduce botting by making it harder, then EvE will need some changes.

  1. Delay local, 3 minutes or so should be enough. Obviously the smart alliances will use their intel channels and overcome a lot of the problems with this - thatā€™s fine. Bots must now read (and understand) intel channels (sitting on gates and using dscan are not 100% effective). Not impossible, but harder.

  2. Make anoms visible with probes only. Once again smart alliances will scan down anoms and put them in corporate bookmarks, people will overcome. Bots will have to use corporate bookmarks or probes.

  3. Much like wormholes, the more you rat in a system, the less anoms spawn there. This will have to be modified though, as if we just reduce anoms, people will be unable to support themselves. So the anom spawns in another system in the same constellation. With above, the new spawning anom will have to be scanned down.

  4. Reduce bounties in null (I would actually remove them, but that would be a bit too much to start), by 50%, but make up the difference with drops. Now you must loot and salvage to make iskies, if you did this - increase the wealth in a single anom by 10% to 20%, since you increased the time.

  5. Buff npc ai, make them attack what is attacking them, make them scram, web and in general make life much harder for fighters and drones. NPCā€™s will never be strong enough to take out a super, but CCP can make them defang it. CCP should try to make it harder to solo out there, if done right they could make groups thrive by buffing rewards to teamwork.

Obviously, the normal trolls will line up and fight this, because it would effect their playstyle. They will then resort to name calling, de-railing the discussion, flames, etc, in an effort to get yet another thread closed. Itā€™s funny, the same people who belittle people in a single player corp for daring to want to play EvE solo, support the system that encourages solo rattingā€¦

It doesnā€™t matter, CCP will implement none of my ideas. Eventually SOV null will become a huge blue region as the huge power blocks are reduced to one. Tranquility will follow the path of Serenity, and the players (with the full support of CCP) will have reduced EvE to a shadow.

Yesterday when I left jspace, I jumped back into kspace and watched a 4 man corp mining ice, an orca and 3 skiffs. The oldest player (in the orca) had a character age of 31 days (the rest were all 30 day olds), they were talking so not bots. At one time you needed to be dedicated and plan ahead to achieve something in EvE, not anymore. CCP has made it too easy, They have alienated the player base that planned ahead and dedicated themselves to succeed, and sold out to the ā€˜instant gratificationā€™ crowd. Itā€™s little wonder this group of players doesnā€™t care about the direction this game is heading.

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