ED - A Script Kiddie's Wet Dream

ShimEnki

ShimEnki
Crimson Kaim said:
If there weren't stupid limitations like that and if players could unfold their full potential in regards to work and reward per time unit, then bots wouldn't be a thing.
They only exist because the game limits the player's capabilities and thus their potential. Bots bypass these limitations by fulfilling a basic task in the absence of the player.
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Well said cmdr, although I'm only cutting out a portion of it I'm adding to.

If only players responded to games that limit players capabilities by limiting their own interest in those games things would change and quickly so.

Instead, many of us operate on subc programs that most people have no idea about leave alone how to remove, reconfigure, etc

We are acting as bots ourselves responding to the devs and coders of these games by the very action of logging into and participating in these self insulting game formats and philosophies.
 

ilo

ilo
You can use whatever argument you want, the only reason for cheating is because you don't respect other's people time. Any other justification based on game design premises is just a lie you need to tell you to convince you because you know it is first, not accepted by the game; second, not accepted by other players.

You can blame everyone to justify the use of bots, but still one's fault.
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
sollisb said:
Do you seriously believe that?

A person or group of persons, paid hard cash to buy accounts to use bots to annoy and break the will of other players?? Then those accounts got banned and they bought more accounts to do the same?

What if this is true, and the will of the players is broken, and the bots win Mahon. What will the bots do with Mahon? Have an 'Electronic Rave Party' ? And then... Geez, I dunno, maybe they'll clean out the 'Aliens in a USS' farce. (We could hope) :D

Seems to me some kids having fun at someone else's expense. And the gullible ones are falling for it left right and centre.
Click to expand...

If your google-fu is up to it, you can read the posts in question about exactly why it was done. The driving force is malice, compounded by being obsessive and more than a little dumb.
 

Ralph Vargr

Ralph Vargr
Stigbob said:
If your google-fu is up to it, you can read the posts in question about exactly why it was done. The driving force is malice, compounded by being obsessive and more than a little dumb.
Click to expand...

I guess I'm just not malicious enough for PP, or BGS play.

I'm just a poodle, who wants fish sandwiches. :)
 

Deleted member 38366

D
Brett C said:
As for the botting, please report the accounts, via the in-game report tool and please do file a Customer Support ticket regarding it. CS will act on it, and will take needed actions.
Click to expand...

My 2 cents after witnessing various Cheats/Hacks etc. over the last ~3 years :

- one can't report Players using another Mode nor Players one isn't instanced with
- past experience and many reports would indicate Frontier exclusively relies on manual Reporting and possesses zero (nil) automated detection mechanisms or Telemetry
(otherwise Cheaters boasting and being reported even over months wouldn't have seen over this long period unpunished, same for Credit-Exploits which only ever got fixed after manual Reports; existing Telemetry would have caught the issue within a single day)
- it's crystal clear that Frontier doesn't even remotely have the personnel assets to seep even through existing manual Reports
- known Cheaters barely ever got to face any meaningful punishment, some shadow-ban lasting a mere month is 100% ineffective and only encourages such behavior (since there's nothing to fear)
- the "trust us - but we don't ever provide any feedback of any form" Philosophy seems selected only for serve the purpose to create intransparency and hide the lack of potent tools to fight cheating; it only discourages even filing such a Report
- action is only ever taken when a sufficient amount of public pressure arises, otherwise you guys are "Silent Running"

That's not how to build, let alone retain credibility. And IMHO that's what's severely lacking by now. The trust of Players having seen such things going on for years is already lost.

Bottom line :
If you want Players to cooperate - you have to do the same. It's not a 1-way road.

And that means
- no dependence on individual CMDRs to be reported (a hint to a System or multiple Systems suffering anomalies should be more than sufficient to investigate and pull full logs)
- full feedback to the reporting individuals, including CMDR names, Ship types, cheat/hack types and most importantly : sanctions issued against these cheaters. Full Transparency, oust them for all to see. That's the only way it works.
-> bi-directional, open and transparent communications
 
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Ralph Vargr

Ralph Vargr
Stigbob said:
Now that was taking power play too far, the v-weapons were clearly bots.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Ike had to perma-ban that account.

FalconFly said:
My 2 cents after witnessing various Cheats/Hacks etc. over the last ~3 years :

- one can't report Players using another Mode nor Players one isn't instanced with
- past experience and many reports would indicate Frontier exclusively relies on manual Reporting and possesses zero (nil) automated detection mechanisms or Telemetry
(otherwise Cheaters boasting and being reported even over months wouldn't have seen over this long period unpunished, same for Credit-Exploits which only ever got fixed after manual Reports; existing Telemetry would have caught the issue within a single day)
- it's crystal clear that Frontier doesn't even remotely have the personnel assets to seep even through existing manual Reports
- known Cheaters barely ever got to face any meaningful punishment, some shadow-ban lasting a mere month is 100% ineffective and only encourages such behavior (since there's nothing to fear)
- the "trust us - but we don't ever provide any feedback of any form" Philosophy seems selected only for serve the purpose to create intransparency and hide the lack of potent tools to fight cheating; it only discourages even filing such a Report
- action is only ever taken when a sufficient amount of public pressure arises, otherwise you guys are "Silent Running"

That's not how to build, let alone retain credibility. And IMHO that's what's severely lacking by now. The trust of Players having seen such things going on for years is already lost.

Bottom line :
If you want Players to cooperate - you have to do the same. It's not a 1-way road.

And that means
- no dependence on individual CMDRs to be reported (a hint to a System or multiple Systems suffering anomalies should be more than sufficient to investigate and pull full logs)
- full feedback to the reporting individuals, including CMDR names, Ship types, cheat/hack types and most importantly : sanctions issued against these cheaters. Full Transparency, oust them for all to see. That's the only way it works.
-> bi-directional, open and transparent communications
Click to expand...

Anyone taking odds on this happening?
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
FalconFly said:
My 2 cents after witnessing various Cheats/Hacks etc. over the last ~3 years :

- one can't report Players using another Mode nor Players one isn't instanced with
- past experience and many reports would indicate Frontier exclusively relies on manual Reporting and possesses zero (nil) automated detection mechanisms or Telemetry
(otherwise Cheaters boasting and being reported even over months wouldn't have seen over this long period unpunished, same for Credit-Exploits which only ever got fixed after manual Reports; existing Telemetry would have caught the issue within a single day)
- it's crystal clear that Frontier doesn't even remotely have the personnel assets to seep even through existing manual Reports
- known Cheaters barely ever got to face any meaningful punishment, some shadow-ban lasting a mere month is 100% ineffective and only encourages such behavior (since there's nothing to fear)
- the "trust us - but we don't ever provide any feedback of any form" Philosophy seems selected only for serve the purpose to create intransparency and hide the lack of potent tools to fight cheating; it only discourages even filing such a Report
- action is only ever taken when a sufficient amount of public pressure arises, otherwise you guys are "Silent Running"

That's not how to build, let alone retain credibility. And IMHO that's what's severely lacking by now. The trust of Players having seen such things going on for years is already lost.

Bottom line :
If you want Players to cooperate - you have to do the same. It's not a 1-way road.

And that means
- no dependence on individual CMDRs to be reported (a hint to a System or multiple Systems suffering anomalies should be more than sufficient to investigate and pull full logs)
- full feedback to the reporting individuals, including CMDR names, Ship types, cheat/hack types and most importantly : sanctions issued against these cheaters. Full Transparency, oust them for all to see. That's the only way it works.
-> bi-directional, open and transparent communications
Click to expand...

Perma-bans would be a good idea, but given the popularity of things like cash exploits, clogging and 5-1 engineering cheats they do need lesser punishments or the playerbase would be pretty thin on the ground. However FDEV have always been good at banning for hacking, google the banned cheats complaining about it if you don't believe me.

This bot attack is the third this minor faction has experienced, the first two were obviously dealt with by FDEV already via some perma's and some temp bans. This time it coincides with the rollout of a major patch and FDEV are busy, realistically we should all cut them some slack for that.

As for feedback including CMDR names, no chance there are just too many angry nutters on the internet (or this wouldn't be happening). They could let us know how many accounts have been banned and for what in very non-specific terms but that's about it.
 

[VR] Merkir

[VR] Merkir
As to motivation, the most obvious to me is that to many people, coding, or writing bots, is just plain fun. Many people choose software engineering as a career because they find it fun, not toil, not a chore.

Coding is puzzle solving... fun.

Bot coding would be the ultimate puzzle solving to many... challenging and fun.

And if ED happens to be a game you love, why not do both? (especially if it's more fun than the game itself, ahem). Writing a bot to farm infinite credits?... yeah, definitely fun to some people.
 

CMDR EDGEL0RD

CMDR EDGEL0RD
Autopilot should be just legally added in-game. Doing this will make botting-induced activities easy to track.
That way, BGS influence by botting can be made to roll back some via NPCs activity or just blatantly reduced.
As things are now, externally controlled bots are hard to trace.
 

Schmack

Schmack
FalconFly said:
My 2 cents after witnessing various Cheats/Hacks etc. over the last ~3 years :

- one can't report Players using another Mode nor Players one isn't instanced with
- past experience and many reports would indicate Frontier exclusively relies on manual Reporting and possesses zero (nil) automated detection mechanisms or Telemetry
(otherwise Cheaters boasting and being reported even over months wouldn't have seen over this long period unpunished, same for Credit-Exploits which only ever got fixed after manual Reports; existing Telemetry would have caught the issue within a single day)
- it's crystal clear that Frontier doesn't even remotely have the personnel assets to seep even through existing manual Reports
- known Cheaters barely ever got to face any meaningful punishment, some shadow-ban lasting a mere month is 100% ineffective and only encourages such behavior (since there's nothing to fear)
- the "trust us - but we don't ever provide any feedback of any form" Philosophy seems selected only for serve the purpose to create intransparency and hide the lack of potent tools to fight cheating; it only discourages even filing such a Report
- action is only ever taken when a sufficient amount of public pressure arises, otherwise you guys are "Silent Running"

That's not how to build, let alone retain credibility. And IMHO that's what's severely lacking by now. The trust of Players having seen such things going on for years is already lost.

Bottom line :
If you want Players to cooperate - you have to do the same. It's not a 1-way road.

And that means
- no dependence on individual CMDRs to be reported (a hint to a System or multiple Systems suffering anomalies should be more than sufficient to investigate and pull full logs)
- full feedback to the reporting individuals, including CMDR names, Ship types, cheat/hack types and most importantly : sanctions issued against these cheaters. Full Transparency, oust them for all to see. That's the only way it works.
-> bi-directional, open and transparent communications
Click to expand...

The problem with the name and shame game is that the likelihood of anyone being named as a recognized player here would be very small, so you could just make up some names and say those are the cheaters for all that's worth. It's not like you know which CMDR name is tied to which account anyhow.

Example: CMDR )))((((.exe was caught cheating

WOW I KNEW that guy was a fraud!11!
 

[VR] Merkir

[VR] Merkir
Egy Ace Fyke said:
Autopilot should be just legally added in-game. Doing this will make botting-induced activities easy to track.
That way, BGS influence by botting can be made to roll back some via NPCs activity or just blatantly reduced.
As things are now, externally controlled bots are hard to trace.
Click to expand...

Huh? I'd like to know your reasoning as to why adding legal autopilots "will make botting-induced activities easy to track"?
 

CMDR EDGEL0RD

CMDR EDGEL0RD
Merkir said:
Huh? I'd like to know your reasoning as to why adding legal autopilots "will make botting-induced activities easy to track"?
Click to expand...

Cause if some limited autopilot will be added in-game (that is, not allowing any full cycles), then it will be up to external software to make it fully automatic. But, as it will be using in-game functionality to do so, it will be easier to track down. As things are now, FDev needs an incentified peoples' reports or bot's operations being massive.

Furthermore, its effect and effectivenes can be reduced and counteracted, and selectively at that. As simply as adding captcha for cases if someone was using autopilot AND it's his third market transaction in an hour. Or effect on BGS/Powerplay can be reduced via automatic NPC's counteractions or just blatantly.

Even further, with some autopilot in-game which is enogth for most peoples' needs, demand for illegal externals will drop, more so with unavoidable rise to it's prices.
 
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[VR] Merkir

[VR] Merkir
Egy Ace Fyke said:
Cause if some limited autopilot will be added in-game (that is, not allowing any full cycles), then it will be up to external software to make it fully automatic. But, as it will be using in-game functionality to do so, it will be easier to track down. As things are now, FDev needs an incentified peoples' reports or bot's operations being massive.

Furthermore, its effect and effectivenes can be reduced and counteracted, and selectively at that. As simply as adding captcha for cases if someone was using autopilot AND it's his third market transaction in an hour. Or effect on BGS/Powerplay can be reduced via automatic NPC's counteractions or just blatantly.

Even further, with some autopilot in-game which is enogth for most peoples' needs, demand for illegal externals will drop, more so with unavoidable rise to it's prices.
Click to expand...

I still see no reasoning for why you think it will be easier to track down. You make the statement, but don't say why. Never mind, drop it.

As for your last statement, I disagree. If you make it easier for people to make bots, more people will make bots. An autopliot doesn't allow completely automated gameplay for hours on end. Bots do. And if you give bot developers more building blocks to create the bots (ie. autopilots), it's even easier for them.
 

CMDR EDGEL0RD

CMDR EDGEL0RD
Merkir said:
I still see no reasoning for why you think it will be easier to track down. You make the statement, but don't say why. Never mind, drop it.

As for your last statement, I disagree. If you make it easier for people to make bots, more people will make bots. An autopliot doesn't allow completely automated gameplay for hours on end. Bots do. And if you give bot developers more building blocks to create the bots (ie. autopilots), it's even easier for them.
Click to expand...

Thing is, unlike with external, devs will know when those building blocks are (over)used, as it is an in-game process. And it would be easier to counteract the BGS damage inflicted.
Someone using an autopilot for 3 days non-stop is a good indicator of a bot, amrite?

Not a lot of people do want to bot. A lot of people want an autopilot, though, hence creating a market for both.

Furthermore, some things can be added to restrict prolonged autopilot usage, dumbest is the captcha, making those blocks unusable for botting. And making full external autopilots will be a long stretch with a niche market for it.
 
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