One more thread and they'll get a stock reply from frontier.
Proposal Discussion Anti Botting Agreement Idea 3.1 Player incentivised, VR compatible in-station "not-a-literal-Captcha"
- Thread starter Jane Turner
- Start date
One more thread and they'll get a stock reply from frontier.
From The Great Bot Panic of 2019:
(in case Arf wants to copy&paste)
I thought I'd saw this episode before.
I wonder what next weeks totally new moral panic will be about.
We're overdue an ADS Revival thread. Maybe they have all come to terms with the FSS?
We're overdue an ADS Revival thread. Maybe they have all come to terms with the FSS?
If they're taking requests I'd quite like to see a open only powerplay thread.
I think that was a couple of pages back.
I don't make up the rules but it needs its own thread with a few bullet points and even a captcha to qualify.
Well they did say its not a literal captcha but surely it'll still have to be something designed to infuriate the average person.
I've reported the third thread and I suggest everyone else do so too, it's a clear violation of forum rules and ethics
, also, I believe we're due an obligatory monthly Cobra IV thread roundabout now
Seriously, what is your problem? I didn't make the two open threads.
I wrote my idea.
You are continuing to reply to me by pointing me to write to support.
I think their posts have a much broader purpose.
No, but you got my attention when did throw this sentence in to the mix.
So regardless how you try to spin it. not needing to provide collaborating data to support claims made, makes most claims questionably on their validity.
If there appears to be very limited information to supports the claims that this is a big issue? Also note, no one is denying that bots exists, even I have shown that there are tools out there to do amazing things, that also can be used to make smarter bots, I have also shown that there are less amazing but still very competent tools to make "dumb" bots, but all of these tools require an investment of your time, and for most of us, quite alot of it.
There is a nice saying, Trust but Verify, because trust without verification, is worthless, that is dictatorship, do as I say and nothing else is valid. So if we cannot look at the same data and come to a similar conclusion that this is a widespread problem, then we likely will have problem, becuase if we cannot make check the data, and are supposedly going to support measures to remedy the claimed issue, that most likely will have a negative impact on our ingame experience, that is a trust issue.
So if people are repeatedly claiming foul play, ie bots being used against them, and asks for something to be made about this problem, then it is reasonably to expect them to provide the information they have about why they believe there is foul play at work here! FDev have made their stance on this topic quite clear in the past, always report this kind of things and FDev claim they take it seriously and do investigate this, we cannot be sure about that, but the very limited amount we seems to have about "I reported this and then nothing happened", or "I reported this and then something did happen" is interesting, as those who claim they have the information to support foul play, should report it, and if they did report it, they should be able to see in their data, if the report had any effect, especially around the time when the ticket got closed as very likely should coincide with any action was taken. We have seen claims that people using bots, have said they have been banned for it...
So if we keep up the argument that those making those claim should not need to provide data to support their claim, then I can make my claim, that under the same logic, I do not need provide supporting information for my claims either, that you and an arbitrary selected group of people, are in fact running alot of bots. So the same standard to provide supporting argument about how widespread an issue is,should fall on the party making these claims in the public, expecially if they intend to rally support for it to be fixed.
And here the witch hunt begins.
Asking for proof is now considered attacking the side who wants to "improve" the game.
It is implied that everyone who is asking questions is proliferating cheats and bots.
Nice
But, sadly, to be expected in this debate - as with every other 'debate' on 'improving' the game - dare to disagree and you will be given a label as undesirable, a Luddite, or worse
But, sadly, to be expected in this debate - as with every other 'debate' on 'improving' the game - dare to disagree and you will be given a label as undesirable, a Luddite, or worse
I dont think we need to care how big of a problem botting is or isn't. If adding something minor to docking or non-escapable (boosting away or re-instancing) events during travel can add gameplay immersion / danger while also screwing up botting, then bonus.
Maybe station personnel request you to re-request docking privs pseudo-randomly or request that you confirm something that is language-agnostic semi-frequently or docking is denied / delayed because they've been getting a lot of criminals in the area lately. ( that is nothing for a human to deal with but could prove too complicated for reliable botting and easily disguised as an immersive aspect)
Maybe some space hazards are added that keep you on your toes but usually aren't too hard for a human to deal with but a bot would have a really hard time coping with ...and simply disconnecting and reconnecting wouldn't resolve. (this is needed anyway, and it-alone could gum up any reliable botting but it would definitely impact human players as well)
Maybe a system authority ship comes up to you as you approach or leave a station and demands you to halt and disable/enable a certain submodule(s) as they scan you due to a wanted criminal they're looking for or suffer repercussions. Those repercussions could be becoming hostile to the faction, or declining docking for a certain amount of time or an unescapable interdiction on returning etc. This would not be escapable via re-instancing. (something that can easily be disguised as an immersive feature that creates little to no inconvenience for a human but could be terribly difficult to handle via bot)
How frequently the above npc oriented things happen could be related to system security (edit: and frequency of visit) and provide a level of differentiation between high security systems and low/no security systems. And if income/reputation/bgs-manip potential is tied to it as well (as it should be anyway) then even better as if any kind of botting still exists taking an easier route, it would be less effective and have no chance of being a concern.
good players win with more differentiation between systems/stations and added gameplay around space travel. Bad players fail. So, win win.
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Oh well, in that case, I will assume it was you doing it, and I know how little you care about proof, so we're all OK with assuming it was Darth Ender.
I'm glad that's been settled.
Or maybe ....
YOU do care how big a problem it is and about proving it?
So you are in favor of implementing changes similar to those described previously, to stop me. excellent. Then we're all in favor of the same thing.
essentially, improving the game to make it less prone to reward repetition of uneventful gameplay is automatically anti-bot. I find it hard to see any argument of why we would want to keep rewarding gameplay that consists of repeating uneventful game-loops. So at least some of the changes noted in the thread would be irrelevant to the scope of botting, but have a nice side-effect of effectively minimizing the impact of that kind of gameplay. Regardless of whether they're doing it via script or not. Which is a good thing for players in general.
The way you twisted that did make me chuckle
Well that is a whole other way to go about it, making the game better and hopefully more engaging, and if the side effect of this also would make any benefits from using less beneficial, then there would not be a need for huge discussion about how widely or not the use botting is.
I did some calculation before, about there being 20 000 inhabitable systems in the bubble and there are ~2000 squadrons, so if every squadron supports a minor faction that no one else is supporting, that means that there would be ~10 systems per squadron supported faction, so when we now can see Player groups that have control over 100 systems, we can conlude that this logically means that they must have taken over atleast some other player groups systems... .. What are these smaller player groups left with now in regards to the BGS? they cannot expand, since the big player group most likely will block them from doing that, as just the act to try to gain enough influence to trigger an expansion will first trigger a conflict to take over the system, and that is unacceptable from the big player group point of view...
So where am I going with this, who are the ones behind the "there is a big botting problem"? could it be the very same player groups that run over all those smaller player groups and basically destroys their minor faction in the game? making it pointless for the smaller players to do any BGS works any more? Now, I could be totally wrong here, but if this would be the case, then this issue is basically caused by the big player groups. as they run over the smaller player groups. So player with the knowhow, could hear the small players plea for help, and use their skills and knowledge to walk all over some of thes big player groups , who now will cry for help as they are now at the disadvantage! but they are plenty of happy to basically run over all those weak player groups. I am not saying this is what might have happened, but where there is player interaction and game mechanics that essentially allows a player group to block another player group, then people get desperate, and desperate do desperate things...
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"...