Dont agree with all of this, but its definitely in the right direction.
You may have missed the tech evolution in these matters. Itās moved way beyond that already. What was once an option is now a perverse stimulus. Which makes it a much less than optimal approach, at best.
Same thing. Thereās scout bots who do nothing but probe around and dump to database. What used to be a nullsec thing is spreading to other zones as well these days. Here too thereās the problem of unintended consequences and the pitfalls of F2P dynamics. It is already a trend for players to run with an Alpha as realtime tool (intel, scout, scan, etc). Why add impetus to something which is already having adverse effects.
That taps into concepts like depletion, entropy and enviroment. Itās something CCP has repeatedly stated to not want to dive into. Which is a shame. It wouldnāt be just a healthy thing in relation to the subject of botting, but to quite a few more, like the status quo and napoleontic warfare nature of nullsec.
Heh. Remember the drone regions. What happened with that concept? Humans left. Bots ruled. Never forget the lessons of not just game design, but also game theory and behavioural psychology.
For a long, long time, CCP actually considered that experiment worthwhile to continue. Until they could no longer ignore the reality of consequences.
As an aside, this argument will result in a massive confrontation with nullsec PR. And with several factors of high importance to retention. Each of these things is a challenge in their own right, but the combination of them, I canāt see CCP touching that with a ten foot pole. Besides, they are busy cooking F2P frogs, so the priorities of the commercial model are at complete odds with such an approach.
A lot of people seem to miss this, but this is something CCP has been engaging on for quite a while already. Using NPC constructs as a means of influencing both behaviour and patterns. Belt NPC miners, FOBās and their patrols, changes to anomaly npcās, evolution of combat mechanisms of npcās. So yeah, this is a road CCP are already travelling. Carefully, obviously, because balance has to be maintained for impact on humans, but they are busy with it.
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There was a bot problem before Alphas were a thing. Try again.
Hell, Serenity was 99% bots and didnāt even have alphas.
And you missed the point I was making.
You can not stop botting. It will always happen, but if you make it harder you have the chance of reducing it. Make no mistake, if you make it harder on botting, it will be harder on people. The goal would be to add or at least make sure that there were tools where people working together could overcome and maybe even surpass what a bot acting alone (or with alts) can achieve.
For example, lets say we removed all anomalies/sites from dscan. You would have no idea what is in any system. Dscan would let you see wrecks/ships/structures/drones, but you would have to use probes to find any belt/site, since this would hurt new players in highsec who canāt probe, you might want to leave belts visible there. Obviously, alliances would task people with scanning down their systems and bookmarking the sites. This would enable people to work together, lets say if this was implemented, we increase the value of sites by 25% (i.e. you make 25% more).
Lets look at how this impacts the botter, they have to revise their program to either scan and/or read corporate bookmarks. They need to move around (if you implement my 3rd suggestion), which increases their vulnerability (moving ships normally arenāt aligned and up to speed ready to instadock). They need the intel channels that people provide for their greater safety. Their job got harder, they have to adapt. People will always be able to adapt to change better, the bot must always react. Implement things that slow down the ability to react.
I am not looking to stop botting as I believe this canāt ever be done. I would like CCP to make it harder, make them adapt. CCP has made it too easy to make obscene amounts of isk in null for minimal risk, bots are exploiting this. CCP needs to change these rules such that they reward people working together far more than they reward solo botting. I take it you donāt think my solutions will work, well present your own. What do you think CCP can do to reduce botting? I think the GMās actions last week clearly showed CCP doesnāt support it.
Delayed Local will certainly make bot profiteering more difficult in NS.
The notion that making botting more risky somehow adds impetus to bot, is flat out false.
Anything that makes it more difficult for players and botters at the same time will become an advantage to the botter. And Iām telling you this, because Iām a software engineer, Iāve used bots in another game and I have written them myself. That you donāt understand this or just donāt want to accept it doesnāt make it false.
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It doesnāt make botting more risky. Iām not sure why you canāt see the behavioural challenge here. Bot- and scriptrunners couldnāt care less about mechanisms. They know how to map and replicate them, and are in a position to compensate or even utilise those without any tresholds getting raised.
Now what would make botting more risky, is visibility of differences in behaviour between the bot/script and human activity. CCPās slow but ongoing focus on improving NPC AI is a step in the right direction. The bot can still replicate the mechanisms and automate them, but increasingly (even if CCPās experiments are still extremely small and limited) the mapped response differs from the human response.
This doesnāt provide an instant confirmation on visual or other monitoring, N=1 is rarely an optimal approach where it comes to monitoring of behavioural choices, but it does provide a much better observation starting point than ever before.
Keep in mind that it is still a race in terms of technology. When CCP introduced FOBās, nobody thought twice about them. Then they tweaked the escorts and then the patrols. Suddenly tons of orcaās and skiffs began dying to frigate type npcās. Players figured out conditions, and stopped dying. The botmakers figured out limited options, and died less but became more visible in their patterns. Sadly CCP seems to have stopped there, maybe because they want to be sure than any changes do not arbitrarily or in an unbalanced manner affect human players, but as a small step it was a pretty good step.
Because it introduced risk to botting. That of low key recognition of the differences between human and automated patterns of behaviour in a belt. There are limits to what automation can replicate without it requiring its own AI approach the way CCP has decided to venture towards.
Obviously CCP still needs to do something with the increased number of reports, but well, Iād say āTeamā Security should by now very well be able to demonstrate increased resource allocation requirements.
The reason why we botted in Hellgate: London was simply because the company had gone broke and sold their IP. A small company took over, but stopped all development. There was no longer an official forum and the number of bots rose. Eventually did it become a āmust haveā for every player and it turned into a modding scene. A new forum developed, run by players, where we made all development public. The company simply didnāt care. Nobody ever got banned for it. It was a bot haven. The gameās source code eventually was leaked (an admin of the company made a mistake and left some directories on their web server openā¦) and now the entire game itself is run privately.
There will always be some players who feel the need to challenge a game company, but the best tool against botting is to keep making a game for players, for it to be fun and to go after botters so that everyone who plays by the rules can continue to do so.
To make a game riskier means bots and players will both have it more difficult. The bot will however dominate over the player. So while many of the suggestions made would provide more bot kills do these also provide more player kills, and with very likely a lot more killed players than bots. This then becomes the advantage of the botters even when they lose a few more ships than before. All they need to do in order to win is to lose less ships than an actual player.
Tell us then, as a software engineer and ex-Hellgate botter:
- How CCP could best curtail botting in EVE?
- How Delayed Local in Player NS would become an advantage to botters?
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Not reallyā¦
It was minor at bestā¦
NOW bots are all over the place like a stdā¦
Oh no. Hell no.
The difference isnāt that botting was / was not prevalent. But that before F2P it was cyclic in nature, whereas after F2P itās continuous and consolidating, integrating even.
CCPās role in this is a factor. The changed commercial model is a factor. The changed policies (sanctions) are a factor.
But it isnāt just F2P as such, already prior to its arrival bot- and scriptrunners were becoming integral, due to several significant tech developments and adoption of organised EULA violation. Examples of that were nullsec group policies to not report, but also to enable / facilitate, as well as the integration of automation in both resource and intel activities.
Overall, quite a few things came together, resulting in both deep and broad developments. Which is exactly what gives way to trends and the normalisation of perverse stimuli (on top of the challenge of new customer types coming from different places with different expectations and different behavioural norms).
During that time CCP has done a lot. Some of it good, like NPC AI developments. Some of it bad, like curtailing the resource allocation for these matters due to priorities changing. A big question that is still unanswered, CCPās latest devblog is uncannily quiet on it, is the curve of repeat offenders versus retention and the ratios of individual / organised botting focus. During fanfest one often heard comment was that the emphasis for CCP is on rmt, as it represents competition, and botting was at one point considered an individual pilot phenomenon, marginal after the Great Decision to curtail input broadcasting.
The problems are more visible today. But letās be honest, weāre going through a period where there is - public - attention on it. Which increases visibility. Keep in mind that this only means that the problem that was present is more visible. The problem was already there.
The forms the problem takes have also changed. It isnāt a case of 4K concurrent mission runner bots like in previous cycles or scripted Titan portals pushing dozens of freighters going back and forth milking NPC trade goods in cross-region trading when that was still possible. Itās more advanced and diverse now. Thereās still the thousands of courier bot groups, but thereās advanced market automation routines. Thereās grouping of listener accounts (characters embedded in other places to collect data). Thereās high level organisation of networks. Thereās the Planetary Interaction factories no human ever clicks through.
The problem isnāt new. Itās always been with us. But it evolves.
- You cannot fight software with software. Itāll always be an even match. All you can do is to remove the players, ban their IPs, improve the detection and keep throwing them out.
- Already explained above.
Your problem is that you see botters as the enemy, thinking you can beat them in the game. Because of this do you fail to see that a botter is just like you - another player - who is better than you at the game, because the botter can use additional tools, which you arenāt allowed to. Anything you think would hinder the botter will also hinder the player, but because the botter remains the better player will they always come up with a solution, which beats your game-play, because this is the very nature of botting, to create an advantage over you and to use it.
If all you then do is to try and fight the botter in the game do you simply not have a chance to win. It looks cute and shows your affection for the game, but thatās all it really does. Machines have beaten man in chess and they continue doing so. Here is what seems to be a rather telling example of what bots can do these days: OpenAI vs Humans in DOTA2.
Thatās why botters need to be removed from the game and banned, because you need to stop them from getting into the game in the first place. Once they are in are they just like any other player, but with better abilities.
Apart from directly removing botters does CCP really just need to provide a great game with continuous support to eliminate the incentive to use a bot in the first place. A game needs to be fun for the player so they have less reasons to cheat. Thatās also why I play EVE, because I like it and itās fun and there is no race among players who create new and better bots every week. That said, I also like the API, because it allows me to still do a bit of programming on the side and for the game, while Iām still being fully compliant to the rules of the game and can enjoy it to the max. The security report for the last quarter also is encouraging and shows CCPās commitment to fighting bots, which gives me the feeling theyāre doing something and I can continue to enjoy my game.
Donāt try to fight them on your own or think of them as loot pinatas. You want them completely gone. Report them, and try not play their game.
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This.
Continue the public debasement and condemnation of botting. Make it āuglyā in conversations and interactions. Those who choose to do it should feel a constant pressure by their peers and the community to expose them, report them, or just blow them up (repeatedly). NOT doing so is condoning it.
CCP can choose to enable more people to actively hunt and report them. The events in Yulai, for example, are a good thing.
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This. Ultimate analogy of cops vs robbers. Basically the formula tv producer Dick Wolf has used for his fortunes, Sir Aurther Conan Doyle used this for Sherlock Holms. (Spelling is likely terribad, but its a curse of mine.)
Also seen in geurrilla warfare, which it is sort of. CCP is bound by certain codes of conduct and regulations like the Geniva Conventions governs national armed forces.
Personally I believe CCP should be able to hire a team to go in and search through everybodies Eve logs on their computers and find bot patterns. Compile a database of IPs, names, corps/alliances, and when theyve searched 50-75% of all accounts, go in swinging the ban hammer like Hellen Keller at a pinata party. Full deletion of every isk, mod, mineral and component. Secretly. With out warning. With no explination. That way they could do it again.
You did not read the questions accurately, nor answer them specifically.
I did read the question just fine and only you donāt understand the answer, which is ok. Itās not the first time youāve had difficulties grasping an issue. Nico did understand the answer just fine. Play the game and donāt concern yourself with things you donāt understand.
Iām surprised a software engineer doesnt understand how to answer specific queries in the correct syntax.
Your answers should begin:
-
The best way for CCP to curtail botting would be ā¦
-
Delayed Local in Player would become an advantage to botters because ā¦
Instead you evaded the actual questions, and answered two of your own making, which I never asked.
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Donāt troll.
You are the one trolling, by playing silly games inorder to avoid answering specific questions.
Even a kid in highschool knows how to answer in correct syntax, as specific to the query.
I did not ask that which you answered.
You did not answer the questions I asked.