69 replies to this topic

[MingMei]

My quality of life in game not affected much 

that is what i want

 

Captcha = can be as Simple as click the right answer 

i only used the word for lack of a better term

and it could be just like an hourly attendance thing only you get to check which one is the right answer 

 

and for the gatherer then you simply add it to the activation list, is it hard to think of that as a solution

 

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i just find it amazing that you'd rather not be annoyed by a notification than a nerf on your quality of life in game

 

 

@toni 

so you dont want anything to be done about it ?

 

 

I got some little background with how bots are made

the bot you are all seeing in game isnt sophisticated enough to do that 

most are just macros

Bots that could at least access the mob HP pointers(which is the first thing you learn how to do) wouldnt be always spamming 

 

for macros my suggestion is good enough 

 

if real programmers made bots here you wouldnt be seeing them at mermaids of FF 

they would have been NPCing stuff 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tonitrua]

@toni 

so you dont want anything to be done about it ?

 

 

I got some little background with how bots are made

the bot you are all seeing in game isnt sophisticated enough to do that 

most are just macros

Bots that could at least access the mob HP pointers(which is the first thing you learn how to do) wouldnt be always spamming 

 

for macros my suggestion is good enough 

 

if real programmers made bots here you wouldnt be seeing them at mermaids of FF 

they would have been NPCing stuff 

 

I would love for things to be done about it, I just also think it's not going to help anyone to try and apply the same methods that have failed in numerous other games (including RO1).

 

From Wikipedia regarding a well known RO1 bot software:

 

Some anti-bot measures expose complete incompetence and/or indifference of game management on official servers. HackShield was installed on rRO despite being already circumvented by [software name removed] for years. CAPTCHA was added on kRO and become supported for manual and automated passing shortly. Such measurements usually only introduce additional problems for all players.

 

Edited by Tonitrua, 18 December 2014 - 06:07 PM.

[samsam2610]

Captcha = can be as Simple as click the right answer

 Yep, some private RO server I played used this. 

 

Questions can be like: 1 + 1 = ? , and answers can be clickable like 1,2,3. 

[Warrantless]

Its a long time issue, many players already did reported some bot and Macro AFK cases.

 

1. It is recommended to use VIDEO rather than just taking a screen shot.

    screen shot are not that convincing, it might get abuse if you hated somebody.

    So USE VIDEO.

 

2. FF - usually only Macro AFK - Again need to do video recording because Macro is not

    against the rule but doing AFK while taking advantage on it is prohibited.

 

3. Bot farmers - I personally don't know if this exist nowadays but before AOV it was rampant

                          for DNA hunt. 

 

 

We been doing police work on Macro AFK since before and players who has been reported has suffered a total

item wipe-out, few days banned.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Warrantless, 18 December 2014 - 06:10 PM.

[MingMei]

I would love for things to be done about it, I just also think it's not going to help anyone to try and apply the same methods that have failed in numerous other games (including RO1).

 

Tell me am i wrong in my observation that most "bots" are simple macros?

 

my suggestion is good enough to counter our kind of "bots" 

[Tonitrua]

Tell me am i wrong in my observation that most "bots" are simple macros?

 

my suggestion is good enough to counter our kind of "bots" 

 

I honestly can't answer that, I don't think any of us know exactly what most bots are using. I do think we can work towards solutions that would curb all types of botting without negatively impacting the entire rest of the population though. Certain game mechanics can be adjusted to make botting less appealing, more difficult, or unprofitable without pestering everyone with captchas.

[MingMei]

if you dont know the difference ask around and also ask around if the answer(whether bot/macro) is capable of solving a random timed captcha

 

1 mouse click is way better than Nerfing general players way of life

i dont know why you and greven insist that it would be annoying XD

but then suggesting something that is even more annoying 

 

if implement im sure people will find it annoying 

but if told that the alternative would be limitation on farmable item

they'll come around im sure 

 

or give me an example of your tweaks that could solve it and doesnt negatively impact the population

then lets weigh it in

if 1 mouse clickper hour or 2 >/</= your suggestion 

if your suggestion is better ill accept it too

 

seeing greven's suggestions i Highly disagree with 4 of them and 1 a questionable No 

id rather be capcha'ed 5 times in an hour than have his suggestion implemented 

Edited by chaseme, 18 December 2014 - 06:27 PM.

[Lyrella]

I'mma just leave this here.... lol

 

[mod]Image removed for containing player information[/mod]

[Lostac]

Road of Bless fly spot I believe?

 

Edit: also, that's very cheap for a 255 stack

Edit2: Another thing, he's also selling a lot Mermaid DNA stacks lol

Edited by Lostac, 18 December 2014 - 09:27 PM.

[MingMei]

thats what i meant by botting = cheap price 

[Matsuyuki]

So let's let bots bot because they cheapen the "price" that's expensive in the first place because the inflation caused by bots themselves?

Smart as fuark, m8.


I'm also sure this person is absolutely and totally legit and there should be no reason to ban them or suspect them and at least remove their items from AH. 


[mod]Image removed for containing player information[/mod]

[MingMei]

@matsuki 

i should have used multi quote

my comment was pertaining to earlier discussion XD

 

Bottable goods = Lower price of goods

i didnt mean this as a good thing lower price doesnt mean healthy market

its a bad thing actually because Legit players wouldnt make profit farming the same goods 

 

 

OP pricing and botting doesnt go together

anything that is macro-able/bot-able gets lower on value 

 

 

heres 1 of an example..... mermaid dna.... use to be 12k per stacks...now is 20k per stacks...some 25k...

 

 

 

Edited by chaseme, 18 December 2014 - 10:05 PM.

[Matsuyuki]

That's neither how economy works, nor a good excuse to keep bots. Bots bring a lot of inflation, so that "lowered" value is just an illusion, and even if they lowered prices, it's not an excuse to keep them, they should be banned and their items removed from AH. Period.

Edited by Matsuyuki, 18 December 2014 - 10:08 PM.

[MingMei]

i only disagreed on Nick's comment that Bots make the prices OP because its the opposite

if you disagree with that point then you know nothing about economy

 

on his particular example

it was the boost on number of people that got access to lvl 4 that made the price higher 

 

im did not  say nor implied about keeping them in fact i made a suggestion on how to tackle it effectively with less effort on the devs side 

 

 

[Greven79]

My quality of life in game not affected much 

that is what i want

 

Captcha = can be as Simple as click the right answer 

i only used the word for lack of a better term

and it could be just like an hourly attendance thing only you get to check which one is the right answer 

 

and for the gatherer then you simply add it to the activation list, is it hard to think of that as a solution

 

-------------------------------------

i just find it amazing that you'd rather not be annoyed by a notification than a nerf on your quality of life in game

 

 

@toni 

so you dont want anything to be done about it ?

 

 

I got some little background with how bots are made

the bot you are all seeing in game isnt sophisticated enough to do that 

most are just macros

Bots that could at least access the mob HP pointers(which is the first thing you learn how to do) wouldnt be always spamming 

 

for macros my suggestion is good enough 

 

if real programmers made bots here you wouldnt be seeing them at mermaids of FF 

they would have been NPCing stuff 

 

See, there are players who created their own UI. So captchas will be made easy to read (single-colored background, etc.) and thereafter, all you need is an image-scanner capable to identify the visuals of the numbers. According to the relative position on the screen, such a macro can extract the calculation and solve it. Sure, a bit more complex than the common mouse macros, but easily doable. I've already seen channel-changing mat bots, those who don't attack, if the target is already 'tagged' and bots that  'tabbed' through opponents until they found the right field boss to attack.

(About these bots: If you lure all the mobs away, the bot will have nothing to kill and will do nothing. So it's an easy way to determine the bot, because a 'real' player would at least get angry)

 

So I prefer in-game solutions that are unnoticable or accepted by players. Adding more material spots while lowering the 'respawn' time is easy and only harms those who don't/can't move. Some bots might be able to circumvent this, that's why you combine it with other features... like the periodically changing drop chances for certain areas.

 

The same way, you could add more quests that grant a high MP reward, while reducing the MPs you gain from mobs... just look at certain DWU quests. Just focus on such a system, balance the rewards and force players to move or turn in regularly and you've suddenly removed all those AFK-ing guys or secondary PC abusers as well. And as you can see with the event dailies, the vast majority of players would be willing to do so.

When was the last time you've bought those "hunt down mob X" scrolls from a monster merchant? So there are already mechanisms for repetitive quests. Just force players to 'farm' on different locations (different mob), and you've almost suceeded.

 

I wouldn't mind, if Dayr gear would be mainly a quest reward. I wouldn't mind, if the elements, potion sprays or recipes would be sold by merchants. I wouldn't care if the weapon would lose durability faster (against mobs of your level, armor breaks much faster) and if the repair kits would require me to choose the gear part to be repaired (as long as there's a visible warning like in Diablo & co.), I think it would be much cooler, if a quest will reward me with a Willow Worker DNA fragment, rather than being a item drop.

 

So there are many 'easy', unnoticable and flavorful solutions.... and that's why a captcha would annoy me and just prove that there's a lack of creativity to come up with more stylish ideas.

Edited by Greven79, 19 December 2014 - 05:18 AM.

[MingMei]

Macro and Bots

 

Macro basically do what you do its like a copy pasting your action

while 

Bots deal with decision 

 

like i have said before 

READING HP is the easiest thing to learn its like the introduction to pointers in bot programming 

and if you want the easy way there is always pixel bots which is also capable of tracking HP and  doing what you said about identifying pixels

the fact that people see "bots" using skills on save points 

should make it obvious that those where just macros

 

changing channel mats macro is easy to do my KB is capable of doing that 

those bots that have anti kill steal is interesting if you saw this on Dna farmsite then i have to call this BS

there isnt a visual marker to make this using pixels( the easy way)

which means the programmer have to access the games memory 

which means he have to bypass hackshield 

which means he should have ADVANCED skills

by advanced i mean people would to pay for it 

lack of people using his advanced bot makes it private

which might be possible 

but if i got half of his skill i would have just farmed muka 

or make my char CC when player comes near me 

or made waypoint (around a radius) 

 

TL:DR 

Majority only got keyboard recorders

Anti kill steal bot = bs ,easier program other stuff than anti kill steal 

cc mat bot = easy to do with macro 

Captcha is enough for now at least if there are still bots then we can to proceed to other measures 

 

you want easy?

that isnt easy should they decide on your idea it would have taken months 

they have to remake most game contents 

Edited by chaseme, 19 December 2014 - 05:25 AM.

[Greven79]

First of all, a macro is a small script. A bot is a character that is run by such a macro.

 

Checking whether an enemy is tagged or not can be done by scanning the color of HP bar or the threat meter. Selecting certain field bosses can be done by pixel analysis as well. Solving a calculation captcha isn't that much harder. A pixel scanner just remembers the visuals of the numbers and the position. Only a few additional lines would be needed to be able to answer that question. That's something a mouse macro could do as well.

 

Using other forms of captchas might not be better. Most of them use a rather small set of 'ideas'. That's usually enough for a web site to avoid randomly checking robots, but isn't enough to secure the content against focussed attempts. But that's what RO2 would have to face. Deformation captchs include the risk that the 'honest' users make mistakes as well, so you must allow multiple attempts and might enrage players even more.

And from what I've seen or heard about HackShield, I wouldn't be surprised if it's rather easy to bypass it, so sure... memory hex-editors could modifiy all those things that aren't double-checked by the server... and I also pointed out the fact that you can manipulate the TCP transmissions, since they aren't secured either (just in case you need to send a 'move' or 'collect' command f.e.).

 

So sure, most issues currently derive from the 'common' keyboard/mous recording macros or scripting tools.

 

But still, before I would consider to add something like a captcha, I'd attempt to solve the issue with the tools I have in my hand... and that's everything related in or around the game itself.

[MingMei]

forgot about Threat Meter 

i guess its possible then 

i just find hard to believe they would bother with it

we better be more vigilant then they might transfer to muka/condor next

its possible to edit map and make pixel way points to NPC 

or make a radial hunting ground with pixel by editing map

Lol there is even a tutorial here on how to edit it 

unfortunately my KB macro doesnt have pixel function T_T 

 

 

it doesnt have to be deformed 

just picture type would have sufficed 

i dont think such things are save on client 

so we cant edit its appearance and you probably cant record them all

they only way to tackle it is to debug it and stop it from ever executing

 

P.s Macro and bots youre right by definition

i just wanted to clear out what i meant when i say 1 thing and the other

 

 

 

Edited by chaseme, 19 December 2014 - 06:55 AM.

[bigfatjiji]

B O T B O Y S

[Greven79]

B O T B O Y S

 

Nope, developers!

 

Thing is, most captchas can be 'hacked' with relative ease because they're either repetitive or methodical. Otherwise they become too cumbersome that they scare the 'real' humans away. That's why they're only used to prevent the common scanners / robots.
 

Making RO2 100% safe isn't possible. but that's not the point. It's effort vs. reward, but also about player acceptance.  So the difference between chaseme and my point of view is that I would try to accomplish a higher level of 'safety' by ingame means. F.e. if Gravity would remove the dayr desert gear item drops and let the nearby merchants sell them, it would be hard to make zenny this way, right? Yet most players might easily accept this as a part of the game. Starting daily / hourly quests might be bottable as well, but makes certain types of bots much more unlikely and most players would accept it (see pre-AoV).

 

And I repeated myself countless times already to make specific items bound on the character (f.e. snowflakes, HHBs, etc.). Sure, that might not be safe (see traded colo gear), but it would eliminate the vast majority of the common macros without 'interrupting' the remaining players and without the necessity to implement a completely new form of bot-protection.

 

Just imagine if the devs would make DNA fragments untradeable... would this bother the 'normal' player?

Edited by Greven79, 19 December 2014 - 09:37 AM.

[RyuMax02]

too much to read..

btw ..the botter that i found at FF and reported still there..no action huh

[Maxscha]

Just imagine if the devs would make DNA fragments untradeable... would this bother the 'normal' player?

 

This would bother me, yes. More than captchas (tho I am not asking for captchas either, mind you).

I hate bound stuff, more often than not. I prefer to keep the bots, lol; only so much storage space...

I'd be more willing to consider bound items if events did not expire, and storage space was unlimited.

 

If the devs make ML mobs as easy for a same lvl ML character to kill as a lvl 50 mob vs a lvl 50 toon,

or a lvl 25 mob vs a lvl 25 toon, or a lvl 3 mob vs a lvl 3 toon etc... then I wouldn't mind... BUT, Fact IS:

It's not comparable farming +/-5 lvls at ML30 as it was at lvl 50 or ML11 or lvl 50 or lvl 25 or lvl 1, etc.

 

SO, they have made certain levels more appealing to farm at, therefore farming that level and trading

the farmed stuff to the toon that will use it is the fair way to balance the inherent discrepancy in difficulty.

If I had to farm snowflakes/HHB in DWU for my ML30 ranger, I'd quit farming, and possibly playing too.

 

Personally, I'd prefer it if my ML30 Ranger could handle PvE w/o runes & refines like my lower lvl toons.

Then I would have no need to trade to my Ranger what other toons farm. Ever. I would also prefer it if

reporting bots resulted in more action, as that's supposedly why stealth got nerfed? So bots got reported?

 

I only threw my 2 cents in here because I wanted to point out that some players would mind some of the

proposed loot-nerfs more than the bots... as it was mentioned, 'what a player might be willing to accept'.

Sure, I may sound selfish, but I DO play the game for MY enjoyment. Not above all others' enjoyment tho.

 

I'd be willing to consider a wide arrange of loot-nerfs if they come with game balances not often mentioned.

I'd be willing to consider captchas, (& I HATE captchas) if I thought it would be worthwhile & well implemented.

For now, I prefer to deal with bugs & class balance, because that will do more for RO2 than anti-bot-nerfs, imho.

 

Peace.

Edited by Maxscha, 20 December 2014 - 06:32 AM.

[Bezelheim]

who cares.. WP isnt even taking this seriously, nothing gets done on reports and stuff. players bug woe, jehoon and still no sanction to those buggers. botting/macro benefits us all at times

just sayin

[Lyrella]

IDK.... my forum warning for posting a picture with someone's name present, insinuating they botted that full page of 255 stacks of chon chon dna (+ full pages of 255 mermaid dna) says otherwise...

 

 

End of the day, if they wanted to do something about the bots, the simplest answer would be for them to do their jobs, enforcing their own rules. But this doesn't seem very high on their priority list. So while the rest of us wait for a savior, the bots will prevail. 

[VuoriDevine]

IDK.... my forum warning for posting a picture with someone's name present, insinuating they botted that full page of 255 stacks of chon chon dna (+ full pages of 255 mermaid dna) says otherwise...


End of the day, if they wanted to do something about the bots, the simplest answer would be for them to do their jobs, enforcing their own rules. But this doesn't seem very high on their priority list. So while the rest of us wait for a savior, the bots will prevail.

3 of savior to eat on the way home, plz q-q