Proposal Discussion: Things that could help player groups identify a possible bot attack

KKomrade Sylas

KKomrade Sylas
Dillon Fallon said:
The extra information is too much. Remove your own inputs and you know exactly what your opposition is doing. At that point the whole thing becomes pointless.

If anything you'll encourage bots because you'll know exactly what values to aim for to beat your opposition without it appearing excessive.
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I think that's a real concern too and something worth keeping in mind. However the bots are either excessive, or useless. Using slightly more effort than the real players doesn't translate in 100% of the maximum influence swing per day, if that makes any sense. It's not just that the bots do more than you, that much is obvious, but they do so much that the contributions of the biggest groups in the game translate into a result that is similar to them doing nothing at all!

If the bots are not excessive... that's a win. Because being excessive is the way that they get to beat people. This would be relevant in things like wars an elections, yes, but in general influence movements, it would be a win for the real players and a loss for the cheaters.

All of this being said, the main thing that I'm looking forward is a more detailed traffic report. The fact that you can't determine the difference between 200 cutters jumping into the system once, as opposed to 1 cutter jumping into the system 200 times, is rather silly, imo. And it raises eyebrows either way.
 

Vedmo

Vedmo
I think it is Frontier who should be finding bots and not players. If you want an influx of bot reports to turn the cheating enforcement arm of Fdev into something akin to the current bug report system, then giving paranoid players more and more info to divine accusations from would be a good start.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
KKomrade Sylas said:
I think that's a real concern too and something worth keeping in mind. However the bots are either excessive, or useless. Using slightly more effort than the real players doesn't translate in 100% of the maximum influence swing per day, if that makes any sense. It's not just that the bots do more than you, that much is obvious, but they do so much that the contributions of the biggest groups in the game translate into a result that is similar to them doing nothing at all!

If the bots are not excessive... that's a win. Because being excessive is the way that they get to beat people. This would be relevant in things like wars an elections, yes, but in general influence movements, it would be a win for the real players and a loss for the cheaters.

All of this being said, the main thing that I'm looking forward is a more detailed traffic report. The fact that you can't determine the difference between 200 cutters jumping into the system once, as opposed to 1 cutter jumping into the system 200 times, is rather silly, imo. And it raises eyebrows either way.
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But thats done via design, not extra information (IMO). For example if bots use basic trading to 'work' then reduce its (trade) BGS impact. This would then make more input heavy activities more impactful and people would naturally use them more.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
KKomrade Sylas said:
Kind of agree. Would love to see the missions killing 50 ships count more than a single trade run :)
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This is what I mean about FD making work for themselves. There are far too many positive inputs for the BGS and not enough negatives- its why I think they added the new states because not enough negative actions actually happened naturally.

If murder was the defacto way to knock a rival down then you'd have all the info you needed to know who and what was going on. You can't automate that, its not like BMs where its invisible or weird hydrogen bomb legit trading that leaves no traces. Instead FD nerfed murder into the floor, made the best ways to screw things up invisible.

Now that BH is much more profitable (that has more unforeseen consequences) making murder more effective is not unbalancing things either, its bringing things to parity.
 

goemon

goemon
Rubbernuke said:
But thats done via design, not extra information (IMO). For example if bots use basic trading to 'work' then reduce its (trade) BGS impact. This would then make more input heavy activities more impactful and people would naturally use them more.
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or render trade useless at all, therefore killing an aspect of the sim game.
in my perspective, playing the BGS since the game started, sandbox activities got more and more reduced in effect compared to guided gameplay (missions and scenarios).
the trade game itself - a signature gameplay of the elite series since the first game - is not "input light" if played completedly. finding a trade source. finding a route. finding the right trade target. optimizing route for ship or ship for route.
of course, a player (and a bot) can skip most of it, and a very often repeated a-b-a run will beat a skillfull scouted and managed trade route in terms of influence.
pve piracy used to be a good way to work a system with a gameloop from fines&crimes, to killings, to black market sales; today you are better off working for the other factions by running data courier missions (as players disliked the reality of being attacked by players activity).
 

Dillon Fallon

Dillon Fallon
KKomrade Sylas said:
I think that's a real concern too and something worth keeping in mind. However the bots are either excessive, or useless. Using slightly more effort than the real players doesn't translate in 100% of the maximum influence swing per day, if that makes any sense. It's not just that the bots do more than you, that much is obvious, but they do so much that the contributions of the biggest groups in the game translate into a result that is similar to them doing nothing at all!

If the bots are not excessive... that's a win. Because being excessive is the way that they get to beat people. This would be relevant in things like wars an elections, yes, but in general influence movements, it would be a win for the real players and a loss for the cheaters.

All of this being said, the main thing that I'm looking forward is a more detailed traffic report. The fact that you can't determine the difference between 200 cutters jumping into the system once, as opposed to 1 cutter jumping into the system 200 times, is rather silly, imo. And it raises eyebrows either way.
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I'd have no issues with the traffic report having more details, it's the other specific numbers being available I'd not be happy with. Knowing how many players are coming in the system is probably useful enough without giving too much away.

The only thing is that I'm pretty sure jumping in on a fleet carrier gets round this.
 
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Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
goemon said:
or render trade useless at all, therefore killing an aspect of the sim game.
in my perspective, playing the BGS since the game started, sandbox activities got more and more reduced in effect compared to guided gameplay (missions and scenarios).
the trade game itself - a signature gameplay of the elite series since the first game - is not "input light" if played completedly. finding a trade source. finding a route. optimizing route for shipbuild. finding the right trade target.
of course, a player (and a bot) can skip most of it, and a very often repeated a-b-a run will beat a skillfull scouted and managed trade route in terms of influence.
pve piracy used to be a good way to work a system with a gameloop from fines&crimes, to killings, to black amrket sales; today you are better off working for the other factions (as players disliked the reality of being attacked by players activity).
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The trouble is, "input light" has two meanings- what we want to stamp out is gameplay that is easy to automate (the physical flying part). A to B trading can be complex but actually physically doing it is not.
 

goemon

goemon
Rubbernuke said:
The trouble is, "input light" has two meanings- what we want to stamp out is gameplay that is easy to automate (the physical flying part). A to B trading can be complex but actually physically doing it is not.
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yep, i get that. as that can be more easily automated.
still, rendering sandbox trade obsolete in the BGS (as already small ship trade is pretty much obsolete for influence now), because it does not require constant unexpected pilot input, would make me very sad.
also note, that of course most here are looking at an a-b-a run as physically non-challenging, but many newer commanders are actually already challenged with that.
 

Bigmaec

Bigmaec
Beer Attack said:
I like some of your suggestions, not for the sake of bot hunting but because I'd like to know more of what's happening in the system I'm in. Otherwise, I believe some folks will get upset over the lack of anonimity, so CMDR lists probably better be restricted to bounty boards.
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Agree. I'd like to have lots of more information. Improve the statistics. Make the game more transparent.
Maybe tie in the anonymous access more.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
goemon said:
yep, i get that. as that can be more easily automated.
still, rendering sandbox trade obsolete in the BGS (as already small ship trade is pretty much obsolete for influence now), because it does not require constant unexpected pilot input, would make me very sad.
also note, that of course most here are looking at an a-b-a run as physically non-challenging, but many newer commanders are actually already challenged with that.
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This is the problem though, and a choice FD have to make- do you favour activities that require direct piloting over those that do not? Remember you can use SC and docking assist (as well as FCs) for trades but no automation exists for things like combat, and that murder requires combat skills and situational awareness at a BGS level.
 

goemon

goemon
Rubbernuke said:
This is the problem though, and a choice FD have to make
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plus the choice to make about the sim level of this iteration of the famous space-trading game elite. "War is a matter not so much of arms as of money." (Thucydides)
it strikes me as odd, that physically input heavy activities generally and like the face of battle for exampel should be very decisive about the economical and political near-future of a system not in war.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
goemon said:
plus the choice to make about the sim level of this iteration of the famous space-trading game elite. "War is a matter not so much of arms as of money." (Thucydides)
it strikes me as odd, that physically input heavy activities generally and like the face of battle for exampel should be very decisive about the economical and political near-future of a system not in war.
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ED is not just about spreadsheet surfing, it (hopefully) be about actually seeing the BGS via the lens of piloting a ship.
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
How BGS players would see walking around in spaceships:

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