Proposal Discussion Anti Botting Agreement Idea 3.1 Player incentivised, VR compatible in-station "not-a-literal-Captcha"

[Darth Ender]

So working with making the game play more rewarding for MORE players in this regard could be another piece of the puzzle to go about this potential cause of why botting is used. So instead of trying to fix the issue we see, we could try identify the underlying cause of the issue and if we can make changes here, we might have removed the reason to even cause the issue in the fist place.
And of course, there will always be the players who do it just because "they can"...

The same things that make people say this game is 100,000 light years wide and an inch deep or all grind or fatigue out after getting the ship they wanted, etc is what drives the behavior associated (correctly or incorrectly) to bot use. It's the same thing that has people always demanding more jump range and/or more wages/rewards. It doesn't just impact faction flipping, but trade, cg's, powerplay, exploration. It's just few other groups of players have the desire (and head count) to track and report to the degree that larger player groups do so we usually only hear from them.

All of these problems are connected back to the same origin. Repetitive non-engaging game loops exasperated by the lack of skill based mechanics to scale rewards providing significant rewards.

Fix that, and you begin a domino effect of improving a wide array of complaints and correcting a wide range of issues we've all been just living with for years unnecessarily. And the few people who still try and bot because they can - can be ignored as they will not have any meaningful impact anymore - but more importantly, neither will the players who just spend all day doing those same activities in person.

 

[Alien]

All of these problems are connected back to the same origin. Repetitive non-engaging game loops exasperated by the lack of skill based mechanics to scale rewards providing significant rewards.

Fix that, and you begin a domino effect of improving a wide array of complaints and correcting a wide range of issues we've all been just living with for years unnecessarily.

You are asking for a solution to one of the most common game mechanics in almost every game ever. Even the Pokemon games have a grind to them. For Frontier to remove any grind from Elite Dangerous, they would have to re-design the entire game from scratch, and I may not be a games developer myself, but even I know that simply isn't going to happen. If you remove all grind from the game, you have a very boring game to play, because grinding for something gives you a sense of earning what you have achieved in the game.

 

[Christopher Roberto]

If you remove all grind from the game, you have a very boring game to play, because grinding for something gives you a sense of earning what you have achieved in the game.

You're really close to realizing here that the game's a skinnerbox with little actual content.

 

[Mizbehave]

You're really close to realizing here that the game's a skinnerbox with little actual content.

Hmm, isn't almost every game like that if you choose to let it be?

 

[Red Anders]

We're overdue an ADS Revival thread. Maybe they have all come to terms with the FSS?

Nah, I've just come to terms with the fact they don't give a crap. Which might have seemed obvious since they literally told us they didn't give a crap (barely paraphrasing there either) back when they first announced it, but foolishly I thought that would be a brave stance to maintain for a game developer. More fool me. So instead my play time is nothing like it used to be and I haven't considered a serious exploration trip in about a year because I can do about 15 jumps tops before I'm bored out of my mind.

 

[Christopher Roberto]

Hmm, isn't almost every game like that if you choose to let it be?

Not really, plenty of games have actual challenges, competitive aspects, etc.. But here we mostly have the "game loop" design of covering for a lack of those things by getting people to do a repetitive task over and over to trigger a dopamine dispenser. It's more addiction than gameplay. It'd be nice if there was more game in the game.

 

[Ouberos]

You could take us as an example from last year. A 10 month campaign of non-stop BGS attacks with no communication and some of the flight logs we saw showed examples of players running missions for what was, in my opinion, an unreasonable amount of time- something like 24h in some cases.

Could I check how you saw these flight logs?

 

[Ouberos]

Pure hypocrisy, especially since those crying the loudest are actively using bots for planning and the surveillance of players.

Could I ask what you are referring to please? That sounds interesting and I'm not really up on these things.

I'm not one of the ones affected by in game Bots (Don't really play the BGS seriously) although I'm pretty certain automated play does exist and would very much like powerplay to improve so I could play it.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

You are asking for a solution to one of the most common game mechanics in almost every game ever. Even the Pokemon games have a grind to them. For Frontier to remove any grind from Elite Dangerous, they would have to re-design the entire game from scratch, and I may not be a games developer myself, but even I know that simply isn't going to happen. If you remove all grind from the game, you have a very boring game to play, because grinding for something gives you a sense of earning what you have achieved in the game.

I think BGS supposed to be the solution to this by helping create a procedural story the players can tell themselves if they engage with it, the problem is that at the end of the day there's no getting around that it's all just about making a number go up and the gameplay does get old, especially after thousands of hours. Keeping things fresh isn't easy, but with how many tools the players have and how complex the systems of elite are I'd think adding a slightly new mission/encounter type or variation every few months should at least be doable.

 

[Darth Ender]

You are asking for a solution to one of the most common game mechanics in almost every game ever. Even the Pokemon games have a grind to them. For Frontier to remove any grind from Elite Dangerous, they would have to re-design the entire game from scratch, and I may not be a games developer myself, but even I know that simply isn't going to happen. If you remove all grind from the game, you have a very boring game to play, because grinding for something gives you a sense of earning what you have achieved in the game.

i never said grind didn't have a place or that it should be removed. I said it shouldn't be rewarded at a level disproportionate to the skill required to do the mechanic. New game loops or improvements on existing ones should be added that allow rewards to scale with skill required for the various roles to reward at higher levels.

That's how good games work.

This would allow fdev to keep the rewards to the "grindy" game loops extremely low. mitigating the impact of any kind of bot or bot-like behavior in the game without having to code anything specific to combat it or even care if it's still being used. Letting the current mechanics exist for newbie players or players that dont need any real rewards. Players wanting more would be engaging the new mechanics that aren't uneventful - predictable mindless loops.

 

[Alien]

i never said grind didn't have a place or that it should be removed. I said it shouldn't be rewarded at a level disproportionate to the skill required to do the mechanic. New game loops or improvements on existing ones should be added that allow rewards to scale with skill required for the various roles to reward at higher levels.

That's how good games work.

This would allow fdev to keep the rewards to the "grindy" game loops extremely low. mitigating the impact of any kind of bot or bot-like behavior in the game without having to code anything specific to combat it or even care if it's still being used. Letting the current mechanics exist for newbie players or players that dont need any real rewards. Players wanting more would be engaging the new mechanics that aren't uneventful - predictable mindless loops.

I look forward to seeing your game, you obviously know better than Frontier how to make great computer games. I do wonder though, if Elite Dangerous is so flawed, so filled with bad game design, so open to bots and cheating, why are you still here? Surely some other game would please you better, some other developer do a better job?

 

[ocflyer]

surely.... surely.... the simplest thing to do is request a random button combination input while requesting docking with auto dock computer,, otherwise docking is denied. (or better still the airlock blows you up)

problem goes away overnight, and everyone not using an autodock is unaffected.

Ha! That is too easy to script.

 

[Bigmaec]

Could I check how you saw these flight logs?

Could I ask what you are referring to please? That sounds interesting and I'm not really up on these things.

I'm not one of the ones affected by in game Bots (Don't really play the BGS seriously) although I'm pretty certain automated play does exist and would very much like powerplay to improve so I could play it.

I never really payed attention to this part of the BGS, I always only ran the missions Paul and the others told me they would make sense.
But I guess your first question is answered by Inara* flight logs. If you use certain add-ons they upload your data to Inara*, and everyone who is
using them and not cautious enough to hide their logs is readable like an open book.

*and other third party tools?

The second one is similar, there seem to be bots able to read out stuff from the game logs and third party sides.
Arguably this is as much "botting" as the botting in game, but out of the game of course, and therefore totally ok to use by those BGS heroes.

There are people much more versed in this matter though, I'd wait for their reply.

 

[Ouberos]

I never really payed attention to this part of the BGS, I always only ran the missions Paul and the others told me they would make sense.
But I guess your first question is answered by Inara* flight logs. If you use certain add-ons they upload your data to Inara*, and everyone who is
using them and not cautious enough to hide their logs is readable like an open book.

*and other third party tools?

The second one is similar, there seem to be bots able to read out stuff from the game logs and third party sides.
Arguably this is as much "botting" as the botting in game, but out of the game of course, and therefore totally ok to use by those BGS heroes.

There are people much more versed in this matter though, I'd wait for their reply.

Its mostly what you thought only the data comes from Eddn or whatever its called directly. So the information you see on inara is also available to you or anyone else in bulk if you want it.

It is useful. I am going to try and pull some down myself and look at it to make my own mind clearer.

When I've done that I might send it to @Alien !
(I'm being light hearted!)

As for the surveillance stuff its essentially the same thing but with more analysis. Its nothing that you couldn't do yourself with the correct numbers.

Overall I'm seeing more information and analysis from one side than the other in this discussion and all of it is pulled from public data you can get yourself.

If anything this just highlights the need for this data to be represented somehow in game. Its there, why not use it?

 

[Misty_Dark]

I never really payed attention to this part of the BGS, I always only ran the missions Paul and the others told me they would make sense.
But I guess your first question is answered by Inara* flight logs. If you use certain add-ons they upload your data to Inara*, and everyone who is
using them and not cautious enough to hide their logs is readable like an open book.

*and other third party tools?

The second one is similar, there seem to be bots able to read out stuff from the game logs and third party sides.
Arguably this is as much "botting" as the botting in game, but out of the game of course, and therefore totally ok to use by those BGS heroes.

There are people much more versed in this matter though, I'd wait for their reply.

But that is just data that players share "freely" by using tools that will upload that data.


So if the data is not upload by the user, then there should not be any shared information for others to look through...

 

[Bigmaec]

But that is just data that players share "freely" by using tools that will upload that data.


So if the data is not upload by the user, then there should not be any shared information for others to look through...

Yeah.
And despite this is generally in the best interest of the player, still every time there was a 4k tritium sale station it took at most
some hours until a random CMDR didn't turn off his plugin and the location was revealed, and shortly afterwards was depleted.
People are dumb, many people don't know half of what the tools do or how Inara works.

 

[Misty_Dark]

If anything this just highlights the need for this data to be represented somehow in game. Its there, why not use it?

I do not agree, why should players have access to that information? From past history we know that players will use such information to simply mess around with people, just because they can.

Would you be as open with the same information on your real life movements be freely available?

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Ha! That is too easy to script.

to be fair you can gain combat rank with a few well placed elastic bands on a Xbox controller so its a fruitless effort to try and stop scripts anyway.

but if you can write a script to get me small seismic charges I'm all ears.

 

[Ouberos]

I do not agree, why should players have access to that information? From past history we know that players will use such information to simply mess around with people, just because they can.

Would you be as open with the same information on your real life movements be freely available?

Thats a weird answer. Why would you equate this to real life? Its a video game. The two things are not the same.

 

[Semivivus]

Would you be as open with the same information on your real life movements be freely available?

It's not like I'm being asked often.