It's true, and that's one of the reasons I quit after 3.3 dropped. But FDev have had £300 off me; perhaps they are right to think they are better off chasing new money, even if it is to the detriment of the end-game experience.
FDevs vision conflicts with Elites features: Another win for bots.
It's true, and that's one of the reasons I quit after 3.3 dropped. But FDev have had £300 off me; perhaps they are right to think they are better off chasing new money, even if it is to the detriment of the end-game experience.
FDev has a vision? Wow.
Suggestion: anytime an account logs off while not docked/landed while carrying powerplay materials/points those points/materials are lost. If bots force quit whenever they are interfered with (which presumably includes NPC interdiction) this should significantly hamper their ability affect the BGS and maintain their PP rank even in solo.
So how widespread is this botting phenomenon? I am not asking about some turret tank sitting in a RES as that could very well be some lazy sod with one eye on the monitor and one eye on Netflix. No, asking about those bots that can take off, leave a station, jump to a new system, reorientate towards the destination station, fly there, exit SC, get landing permission and land. Is it 50% of the ships, 25%, 5%, 0.001%, just how wide spread is this?
It does feel like they suddenly acquired one, or may be it is just a desperation because their monetization scheme is almost as ancient as their gameplay.
Good point, the botters are already using scripts outside of game functions. If botters are still using their old scripts, the adv. docking coded behavior could be a baseline to compare how an outside bot script differs. A ship acting like a bot without the new modules could also serve as a red flag and narrow down filter. The new modules also takes away more of the advantage botters had, allowing manual pilots using the new modules to be more efficient in hauling.
It could very well be the case that there were more rallying of motivated live pledgers than botters for the winning side in a PP weekly contest. Often it seems the losing side are more likely to loudly claim it was the other side 's overwhleming use of bots to win.
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The OP posted this a while ago that explores the issue with observational evidence: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...o-further-abuses-of-bgs-and-powerplay.415816/
I was against PP in Open. After reading OP's post, and the linked investigation. I am now in favour of PP in Open.
I get Frontier want to be 100% sure before they just go banning accounts, so, rather give the tools to the players and let them sort it out the best way they know how: Squadrons of super angry Powerplayers, in op engineered ships, fueled with justified righteous fury and indignation.
OP, for whatever it's worth:
*
* and by bow I mean support in a non-combat manner because I don't play in Open.
I get Frontier want to be 100% sure before they just go banning accounts, so, rather give the tools to the players and let them sort it out the best way they know how: Squadrons of super angry Powerplayers, in op engineered ships, fueled with justified righteous fury and indignation.
OP, for whatever it's worth:
* and by bow I mean support in a non-combat manner because I don't play in Open.
Anyone who can't cope with docking/undocking&SC isn't going to make it past friendly fire or their first rebuy so this is an issue not worth fixing IMO.
If the primary goal of the BGS was to infuse the galaxy with life, then the BGS should move itself. To make any sense the actions of NPC's should be taken into account when determining system states and system states should have a clear effect on neighboring systems in turn informing NPC actions. All of this will add complexity to the BGS that will give the system inertia making it harder for players to manipulate the BGS, while this will not solve the botting problem it will reduce the effect botting can have. It will also make it harder for player groups to expand their influence and wage their little wars but frankly they shouldn't have been able to in the first place.
As for Power Play, it should be more tightly integrated into the BGS with more actions effecting it and rather than targeting individual systems to take over or undermine the overall wealth and military strength of a Power should decide how a given Power is doing. As with the BGS PP should have a fair amount of inertia to limit the damage that can be done by botters and player groups.
The current systems for both the BGS and PP are ridiculously unrealistic and far to volatile; give the scale of those system they should move at glacial speeds and take the actions of large numbers of players to make a difference.
Oh, and no Open only PP isn't still not going to solve the botting problem as it is perfectly possible to play in Open without even seeing an other player and those that have no issue with breaking the rules by automating gameplay will have little issue with breaking the rules some more by editing some network settings.
Even the most aggressive client side anti-cheat software has so far not been able to kill off botting in multi-player games so it's unlikely that Frontier is going to succeed where everyone else has failed. The best we can hope for is for FD to find a way to reduce the damage bots can do to somewhat acceptable levels and the only way to do that is to make the BGS and PP harder to manipulate and that the added complexity will make these systems more interesting and realistic in a nice bonus.
As for Power Play, it should be more tightly integrated into the BGS with more actions effecting it and rather than targeting individual systems to take over or undermine the overall wealth and military strength of a Power should decide how a given Power is doing. As with the BGS PP should have a fair amount of inertia to limit the damage that can be done by botters and player groups.
The current systems for both the BGS and PP are ridiculously unrealistic and far to volatile; give the scale of those system they should move at glacial speeds and take the actions of large numbers of players to make a difference.
Oh, and no Open only PP isn't still not going to solve the botting problem as it is perfectly possible to play in Open without even seeing an other player and those that have no issue with breaking the rules by automating gameplay will have little issue with breaking the rules some more by editing some network settings.
Even the most aggressive client side anti-cheat software has so far not been able to kill off botting in multi-player games so it's unlikely that Frontier is going to succeed where everyone else has failed. The best we can hope for is for FD to find a way to reduce the damage bots can do to somewhat acceptable levels and the only way to do that is to make the BGS and PP harder to manipulate and that the added complexity will make these systems more interesting and realistic in a nice bonus.
As I said in my other discussion, the problem of botting is the following: If the game rewards would be a conclusion of personal skill and creative (strategic & tactical) thinking, then there would be zero bots in this game.
Problem is, rewards are a conclusion of repeating mundane tasks, which do not require any skill or creative thinking. And thus we have bots infecting the game.
The problem really boils down to the gameplay being extremely simplified, with no real depth. If your games mechanics overwhelmingly consist of "push button, aim at target, push button ... wait ... aim at target, push button, get reward ... repeat", then you can't be surprised that people will be doing everything possible to avoid the grind.
Or in other words, if you're treating players like bots, then you will get players using bots.
Also, the engineer system is making things worse, by x1000, because it makes it ridiculously easy to pimp your ship so far that it's invulnerable to AI ships (and most other players).
And it takes one only a week of grind to buy a fully A graded & engineered Imperial Cutter. After that, all you have left to do is Powerplay and doing stupidly mundane tasks (missions) for that.
So how can anyone be really surprised that people are botting?
Problem is, rewards are a conclusion of repeating mundane tasks, which do not require any skill or creative thinking. And thus we have bots infecting the game.
The problem really boils down to the gameplay being extremely simplified, with no real depth. If your games mechanics overwhelmingly consist of "push button, aim at target, push button ... wait ... aim at target, push button, get reward ... repeat", then you can't be surprised that people will be doing everything possible to avoid the grind.
Or in other words, if you're treating players like bots, then you will get players using bots.
Also, the engineer system is making things worse, by x1000, because it makes it ridiculously easy to pimp your ship so far that it's invulnerable to AI ships (and most other players).
And it takes one only a week of grind to buy a fully A graded & engineered Imperial Cutter. After that, all you have left to do is Powerplay and doing stupidly mundane tasks (missions) for that.
So how can anyone be really surprised that people are botting?
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Sounds like politics in America... Wait, I'm agreeing with you? Holy smokes, that can't be right! One of us must be A BOT!
Exactly...
Sorry about my cynicism, but Frontier "address" botting like beauty pageants "address" world peace.
Statements like that mean very little without the corresponding actions.
The point is... Why players would need bots? Because gameloop is boring and repetitive. Same action many times without variations. If gameloop is fun you do it yourself. So here we go again.. Fdev needs to add engaging and funny gameloop rather than develop new ways of punishing bored players.
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No way to know for sure but less widespread than they will be after next release is my opinion
This is what I don't get. The game loop IS the game! And I DO enjoy the game loop. If people don't why spoil it for those who do by cheating why not just find another game?
Goose4291
Banned
Paige,
Thanks for your repetition of FDevs policies. I think it's safe to say we are aware of them.
However, it doesn't answer the big question: How are FDev going to take extra measures for bot detection, when you've just made the 'harder' parts of coding (undocking and travel) they require an accessable, valid part of the game?