FDevs vision conflicts with Elites features: Another win for bots.

[Ouberos]

Here's my problem with this. How did you find out what the untrackable was doing? Please don't just refer me to a web page; I won't click. Tell me how you saw the invisible.

The only evidence for the existence of bots here can equally be ascribed to activity of opposing players. In the Mobius case that was almost certainly the situation because of the way they survived it: provoking weekly wars in nearby systems so that they could only be in one war at once until the school holidays were over

1) If you aren't prepared to read how they did it why are you so sure it isn't real? I've read their thread and it was well researched and had plenty of supporting evidence. You should do the same, a little education does opinions good.

2) Not sure you are correct there, Order of Mobius publicly stated they were quitting BGS operations because it was too hard. You would be hard pushed to call surrender a valid survival tactic. It would be more correct to say they were allowed to rebuild from the ground up.

 

[Brrokk]

1) If you aren't prepared to read how they did it why are you so sure it isn't real? I've read their thread and it was well researched and had plenty of supporting evidence. You should do the same, a little education does opinions good.

2) Not sure you are correct there, Order of Mobius publicly stated they were quitting BGS operations because it was too hard. You would be hard pushed to call surrender a valid survival tactic. It would be more correct to say they were allowed to rebuild from the ground up.

1. No, it's not me trying to convince you here. I'm just reacting against claims that something undetectable has been detected: that's a contradiction which leaves me unconvinced.

2. Yes, they did publicly state that. And yet, the strategy they followed paid off. Bots wouldn't have stopped for term time.

 

[Gully Foyle]

Tom D:

What about instead of removing the power play, we beta test it as Open only and see if we can go to town destroying the bot invasion?
There has to be tasks for those in Solo to contribute to PP that wouldn't involve anything that can be automated by a script. Combat only against PP NPCs it is then.
The BGS would have to have no connection to PP.

 

[hems303]

Hey everyone, we addressed botting on a previous thread, so I'll pop the response here:

Absolutely no evidence in-game of the veracity of that assertion whatsoever. Beta Backer here; I eventually gave up on my regular (and at the start very enjoyable) involvement in Power Play. I was a top of the line player for Hudson but left in despair at the 5c and botting let run rampant...... it seems as though the genuine Power player base has dwindled to a shadow of it's former self, as the botting scene has just burgeoned unchecked. There is NO evidence to the contrary!!!

The game might have quietly slipped into maintenance mode...but maintaining what is the question?

 

[Floaty Wombat]

One way to address this, while at the same time not giving away intel to the bot owners is to say each quarter, how many bot accounts were suspended in the previous period. That would give an indication of the scale of the problem and how it has been dealt with while not leaking information about the detection tactics

I can give you this information:
Quarter 1, 2019: insert random number of bots have been banned.

Because that's exactly the value of usefulness you will get if you ask for such a report.

Intersting story, but i don't see how it relates.

Bots exist now. Bots will exist in the future, with or without these modules.

The only "cure" is FD developing telemetry to identify bots and take action against them. And not sure they can. It would take a decent coder a matter of mintues to throw in some random factors into the code that would make it appear like a player was twiddling with the controls.

Exactly. And the other side of the coin is that it would result in a lot of false positive bannings, and we all know the storm this would incur on FDev.

Besides, I doubt FDev does actually want to spend the money and effort necessary to develop ways to track, manually check and ban botting accounts. From a simple business standpoint, it makes no sense to do so.
The majority of players is 1. not interested in powerplay and 2. not even aware there are bots. The people who are aware and see it as a problem are an outspoken minority, who are actively participating in powerplay or care at all about the botting issue.

So everyone who demands a "fix" to botting should ask himself, have they spend all the effort they could on fixing & improving powerplay? There you have your answer to what will be done to botting.

 

[CMDR Tom D]

Here's my problem with this. How did you find out what the untrackable was doing? Please don't just refer me to a web page; I won't click. Tell me how you saw the invisible.

You're confusing the issue. They're not untrackable to players that play the game, watch systems and players movements, and study the BGS and Powerplay to such a high degree they can explain how someones bowl movements affected a bust state.
They're untrackable to FDev (or so they say) because some of the known versions of botting software don't touch the game code.

 

[CMDR Tom D]

What about instead of removing the power play, we beta test it as Open only and see if we can go to town destroying the bot invasion?

You're talking to the wrong guy sorry. I've always been highly skeptical about open only powerplay.
In fact now I'm back on this topic, we purposely tried to instance with a known bot who was running in open for some reason. in the 50+ times we attempted it over the course of a month they never instanced. In supercruise or in stations. So we're fairly certain this one was messing around with router settings (of which is beyond my understanding) to prevent them instancing.

So there will always be workarounds. The only way I can see powerplay being saved is a quality gameplay experience over a quantitative. But I don't think the foundation of the game will allow for that.

 

[Brrokk]

You're confusing the issue. They're not untrackable to players that play the game, watch systems and players movements, and study the BGS and Powerplay to such a high degree they can explain how someones bowl movements affected a bust state.
They're untrackable to FDev (or so they say) because some of the known versions of botting software don't touch the game code.

Oh right. Well now you're claiming privileged information: there's apparently evidence which you're capable of appreciating and I'm not. I guess I'll remain sceptical in that case. I understand better why FD are sceptical too.

My scepticism is reinforced by two things:
1 I'm already sure from what I do know that one claimed bot attack (on Mobius PF) was nothing of the sort.
2 I still can't imagine any motivation for creating a PP bot. (But I can imagine a motivation for spreading the idea that there are lots of unseen bots).

But I fully acknowledge that I'm just one player and not a PP expert. In the end it doesn't matter what I believe or not.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

Oh right. Well now you're claiming privileged information: there's apparently evidence which you're capable of appreciating and I'm not. I guess I'll remain sceptical in that case. I understand better why FD are sceptical too.

- @CMDR Tom D right now, probably.

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

NMS is about to become the go to VR space experience for the masses. And the difference between the two games is NMS is accessible,anyone can pick it up and get an immersive experience.
FD want in on that market and it could propel ED to the biggest game on the planet.
The offshoot of all this is ED gets a huge increase in funding.
The unfortunate offshoot of that is it allows easier opportunities for bots.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The only other way to stop bots is for FD to actually make Powerplay and missions less routine and actually dynamic. No bot can adjust for that. The other is to make interdictions harder to avoid and more of them- security should be scanning ships a lot more, and criminals should be fined if they don't comply.

If FD made lots of little changes that few real players would notice, they would all add up and filter out the possibility of botting.

 

[Killnine]

Indeed it is - make Elite Dangerous a Playstation exclusive! This would solve a whole range of problems

 

[Factabulous]

NMS is about to become the go to VR space experience for the masses. And the difference between the two games is NMS is accessible,anyone can pick it up and get an immersive experience.
FD want in on that market and it could propel ED to the biggest game on the planet.

Lol - Space Games : niche. VR : niche. Put them together ... biggest game on planet

 

[Nadreck]

One thing FDev could address is the problem of traders ranking up to 5 by having to load PP cargo 10t at a time by a series of mouse moves that then has to be repeated a thousand times. Why put in features that massively discourage human players and pretty much forces them to consider ways of automating that process?

 

[CMDR Tom D]

Oh right. Well now you're claiming privileged information...

..... we literally put all that information in a detailed report a year ago and I've linked it in the OP.

But it's fine because...

Please don't just refer me to a web page; I won't click.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

..... we literally put all that information in a detailed report a year ago and I've linked it in the OP.

But it's fine because...

There comes a point where you just have to wonder if you're being trolled or not.

 

[CMDR Tom D]

There comes a point where you just have to wonder if you're being trolled or not.

I tend not to respond to naysayers that add nothing to the conversation and have no idea how I got dragged into this one.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The irony of it all is that these changes make botting easier to do as they make ED generally easier- but to make botting harder to do, the game itself needs to be more challenging; more effective interdiction, complex game loops etc.

If interediction strength and number was put back to old values FD would get it in the neck again....

 

[Brrokk]

..... we literally put all that information in a detailed report a year ago and I've linked it in the OP.

But it's fine because...

OK, I admit your point, I'll have a look at your link. I'm sceptical because I've seen people saying that turret boats are bots, that the attack on Mobius was bots, that they know there are bots just because they lost their PP or BGS battles, and I already think they're wrong in almost all of those cases. But at the same time I admit that bots are technically possible. I bow to your knowledge and leave the field to you until I've had a read. (Trouble is, it will have to compete with playing ED in my evenings...)

 

[Rubbernuke]

OK, I admit your point, I'll have a look at your link. I'm sceptical because I've seen people saying that turret boats are bots, that the attack on Mobius was bots, that they know there are bots just because they lost their PP or BGS battles, and I already think they're wrong in almost all of those cases. But at the same time I admit that bots are technically possible. I bow to your knowledge and leave the field to you until I've had a read. (Trouble is, it will have to compete with playing ED in my evenings...)

Turretboats are not technically bots, they are simply a manifestation of EDs poorly balanced features acting together to make something that should be impossible.

Chunky shields + heal beams + private groups + old style CZs

In an Open context a rival player can simply nudge the AFK group apart and let nature take its course. But in PG in formation a group can farm quite happily.

AFK Turretboats stuck in PG with heal beams can be stopped easily if FD grasped the issue by the balls and got rid of healing, or balanced shields and armour- in Powerplay all FD need to do is swap the Powerplay CZs (which are based on the old mosh pit design) for the new where battles are shorter and have an end.