Proposal Discussion Anti Botting Agreement Idea 3.1 Player incentivised, VR compatible in-station "not-a-literal-Captcha"
- Thread starter Jane Turner
- Start date
Among the things suggested to fix botting, an effective CAPTCHA would have the worst implementation difficulty to reward ratio while also annoying the hell out of people who aren't affected or don't care.
Can anyone point to any examples of this approach being used in a game effectively? I've only seen it in horrible browser-based games in the early 2000s (pre-reCAPTCHA, homemade, easily broken).
This should be an absolute last resort kind of solution. I'd say it's more likely we'd see open only bgs/powerplay than this as a solution (which is off the table too).
If you're trying to make a serious case for your cause you should try to start with the strongest ideas first and try to bury the bad/controversial ones which will get people to actively oppose you.
Can anyone point to any examples of this approach being used in a game effectively? I've only seen it in horrible browser-based games in the early 2000s (pre-reCAPTCHA, homemade, easily broken).
This should be an absolute last resort kind of solution. I'd say it's more likely we'd see open only bgs/powerplay than this as a solution (which is off the table too).
If you're trying to make a serious case for your cause you should try to start with the strongest ideas first and try to bury the bad/controversial ones which will get people to actively oppose you.
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
The CZ just repawn in the same place btw - so having to relocate a few Mm each time wouldn't affect a human who leaves afterwards anyway. FD managed to make some move so fast you couldn't keep up with them, so its possible.
I am utterly against captcha in any form. That would ruin gameplay. It's bad enough on the FD websites. If that's the best current thinking, then there's a lot more thinking that needs to be done. I'd prefer bots to captcha, thanks.
"Welcome, Commander. Name the paint job correctly on the ship at docking bay 17 or your ship will be vaporised."
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Actually - looking a for a read on what incentive a player would need to for example select an option that would fox a script. Hence it's called incentivised. Would you make a few more keyboard clicks for twice the reward for example?
You saying there is a bot problem, is not proof there is a bot problem. You even say it's "next to impossible to prove beyond any reasonable doubt" and "most people worth their salt are able to figure out there's something suspicious" is not proof there is something suspicious.
More than 17,000 commanders convinced enough there is a bot problem is (say it with me) not proof there is a bot problem.
This should be a thing in it’s own right. The possibilities are endless for proper piracy, blockades, security scans, more involved smuggling, and even just getting to actually fly sub-FTL a bit more and simply admire the pretty stations.
You could tweak it all sorts of ways and make it dependent on security/system states, or the size of the station (outposts with their smaller ‘footprint’ could let you drop closer to the no-fire zone to make them more useful?), but even in it’s crudest form this is a great idea!
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
And its already "stolen with pride"
And I repeat my first question ... why should players have to prove they are not bots?
I can prove to Frontier I am not a bot, in fact, I have done so. Would this be sufficient to mark my account as "not a bot" and therefore bypass any anti-bot measure? Or is it the proposal that regardless of whether I have proved I am not a bot (and I have), I still have to periodically prove in-game I am not a bot.
(Oh, if you're wondering how I've proved I am not bot, I have met in person some of the devs and former community managers of Elite Dangerous)
Some people will just never believe anything. We've taken this into account, and in fact are happy to put up ideas, possibly on a different thread, on how FDev can implement features to help us identify automation by ourselves.
Of course, it would be a great, great shame if the same people who complain about the lack of proof, also complain about alternative suggestions that would make proof more available.
Uhm... What is this hypocrisy!? You dont want bots to ruin your precious litle territories, but its perfectly fine to bring an armada of carriers on auto-flight from the bubble all the way to Carcosa to bring down a single station? Either free for all or no bots at all.
Arrrr!
Arrrr!
I don't know if you are legitimate players.
I don't think big BGS-focused groups should exist at all let alone have such massive influence over systems. If someone decided to step up and topple the whole thing down, I would gladly put my red nose back on and watch in anticipation. Not that I would support their means of achieving it, but I wouldn't condemn them either in such a case.
I don't have any issues whatsoever if people decide to think like this or do this... if they do it legitimately. They do have my animosity if they use cheats or automation. I think yours was a rather unfortunate comment in that regard, as I was sure I wasn't going to find botting apologia at all despite knowing this would have some negativity.
I think another way of sorting out the botting problem would be to change how auto-dock (AD from here out) works in the first place. As it stands if you have AD on your ship you don't need to do anything for it to initiate, unlike with super-cruise assist (SCA). So if AD was made to be a Request docking permission ---> Granted ----> Engage AD ---> "Auto-docking acknowledged commander, Flight control is taking over" (For the record, I would actually love this and just might install AD on some of my ships just for the experience, would feel more immersive) And during power-play and bgs events have a semi-frequent "Sorry commander, all FFC staff are currently occupied, please cancel request and resubmit or dock manually" or a "Appologies Commander, connection to the AD computer has been lost, please resubmit request and we will bring you in" - just as / shortly after they pass through the letterbox, thus meaning that bots would then get trapped there and blown up for loitering / running out of time to dock.
I think we'd all rather have no bots at all... except for one person maybe.
So how would this realistically solve any kind of botting? bots can read text... you only need to capture the relevant text and run it through an OCR reader and now you got readable text.
And there are now better and better voice to text modules that can do that..
So this would not solve the issue, but it would annoy quite alot of players, in the process. It would only cause the one creating the bots to have to figure out some new mechanics to overcome...
Consider this little thing, how do you think these bots ships fly around stars and fly around planets to reach their destination?
Also a very similar problem to solve is how to line with you next hyper jump destination after leaving the station?
Super cruise assists have made parts of this easier, but it is only line of sight...so you still ned to solve the going around things...
Docking at station is easiest solved via a docking computer,
To leave a station got easier to solve as we now have advanced docking computer to take care of that.
So the more of these QoL things we get, the easier it gets to use them for things like automation, or if you prefer to use the word botting...
And there are now better and better voice to text modules that can do that..
So this would not solve the issue, but it would annoy quite alot of players, in the process. It would only cause the one creating the bots to have to figure out some new mechanics to overcome...
Consider this little thing, how do you think these bots ships fly around stars and fly around planets to reach their destination?
Also a very similar problem to solve is how to line with you next hyper jump destination after leaving the station?
Super cruise assists have made parts of this easier, but it is only line of sight...so you still ned to solve the going around things...
Docking at station is easiest solved via a docking computer,
To leave a station got easier to solve as we now have advanced docking computer to take care of that.
So the more of these QoL things we get, the easier it gets to use them for things like automation, or if you prefer to use the word botting...
Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
Going to steal that too if you don't mind - the emphasis of the original idea was more at the mission board/market interface, but by extension, there is a similar opportunity at docking
Sure, go for it. Just tell them to give me a custom paint-job if it's implemented.