As many of you probably know, discussing third party programs on the forums is not allowed. However, we would still love to get your input if you have any suggestions regarding preventative measure to stop players who are using these programs or macros from being effective in the game. So we have created this thread to gather any suggestions you may have.
Please know this is not a place to discuss these programs, this is a place for suggestions about preventing their use.
Example: "I would like to suggest a verification pop up window for every hour a person is in game, to prevent players from being able to perform actions without being at their computers."
If you do wish to report a specific program, please send a private message to myself or another Community Manager, or submit a ticket with the details to our support team here. Posts discussing macros or third party programs, or promoting them in any way will be removed.
I will make the first step here - as an example - of course I welcome more suggestions from other players!
Suggestion 1
Global Leveling Chat:
The easiest of my suggestions allows players to find other leveling-partners by searching in a global - not on one map limited - chatchannel (on this way new players might also motivate more experiences players to level sidekicks).
+ easy to implement
+ easy to use
- huge risk of abuse by spammers (prevention could be a strict abuse = temporary ban - rule)
Suggestion 2
Low Level Dungeons
From level 50 (or 100) there should be a flawless flow of dungeons available to allow players leveling in Groups effectivly and fast to level 200 - it is obviously the easiest answer to the boring AoE grinding leveling has become (or always been). Of course this should run through the queuing system so also new players won't have trouble finding entrance into the world of dungeons!
+ most entertaining solution if executed properly
+ this will completly negate botting since active playing defeats "Afk-botting" in dungeons by a lot
+ players learn from the beginning the role of their characters, their strengthes and weaknesses and also earn some Valor (?) points to start well into lategame
+ connects players since they have to interact with each other in those dungeons
- time intense to execute (designing/programming might take some time)
- the adjustment of experience rate/difficulty and reward might become tricky and if it ends up being too hard or too easy people will fall back to botting
Suggestion 3
More and especially more visible questlines
Apart from questrewards being worked over to outclass "Afk-botting" one of the biggest factor when it comes to questline leveling is a lack of knowldege of most players when it comes to which quest(line) is experiences/reward effective and which repeatable quest is worth "farming".
As best example I would mention here the World of W******* Expansion Cata****m questlines during the leveling phase (NOT THE RAIDS).
What I think about is when certain level-marks get reached players should get a popup compareable to the "hey you can go to Luna now" popup but with the hint of entering area X and talk to NPC Y if he got some exciting adventures for us to explore.
+ easy to implement
+ easy to use
+ Players might explore the World of Rose apart from the common AoE grind maps
- the adjustment of experience rate/difficulty and reward might become tricky and if it ends up being too hard or too easy people will fall back to botting
- Players might ignore the popups and continue leveling "oldschool" (turn bot on - go sleep)
Overall solution 1 & 3 are in my eyes only mid-term solutions and won't help to evade the time intense rework of leveling in general like in solution 2 by adding dungeons.
Now my statement regarding botting: botting is wrong - everyone knows it is one of the most popular reasons why players get banned and that is in my eyes totally right since botters soak a huge part of the server capacity, but still I don't like the whole anti-botting movement which appeared on forums latly simply because the lack of alternative of AoE grinding for proper leveling.
To me botting should be more tolerated short term wise till proper solutions get implemented (and if it has to be the "anti-afk-popup" so be it.....).
Preventention beats reglementation - if bot leveling becomes time/reward-ineffective people will automatically switch to the better way of leveling!
Edited by VModCupcake, 11 December 2015 - 06:52 PM.
make the server able to notice a certain activity over and over for 20 minutes ; the server will automatically disconect the character . problem solved
The bots would just be modified to pause or use a different algorythm every 15minutes, not taking into account that some people just sit there in the same spot pressing 1-2-3-4 over and over to AoE level.
From level 50 (or 100) there should be a flawless flow of dungeons available to allow players leveling in Groups effectivly and fast to level 200 - it is obviously the easiest answer to the boring AoE grinding leveling has become (or always been). Of course this should run through the queuing system so also new players won't have trouble finding entrance into the world of dungeons!
+ most entertaining solution if executed properly
+ this will completly negate botting since active playing defeats "Afk-botting" in dungeons by a lot
+ players learn from the beginning the role of their characters, their strengthes and weaknesses and also earn some Valor (?) points to start well into lategame
+ connects players since they have to interact with each other in those dungeons
- time intense to execute (designing/programming might take some time)
- the adjustment of experience rate/difficulty and reward might become tricky and if it ends up being too hard or too easy people will fall back to botting
I like this idea because in dungeons you have to be constantly moving ,This alone gives the players for something to look forward to,Instead of sitting in one place pressing the same buttons to aoe over n over, Also it is not easy to find a party unless you have your own buffers or you know some one that will actually will level with you.(It is hard for new players to actually level)
Edited by EveryBodysHatin, 12 December 2015 - 12:38 AM.
there`s should be like a passive skill to all characters like "For not moving(standing still while casting skills) for 30mins or so, you will get auto muted"...then relog and do it again
Hello, I do think this thread is important.
Preventing botting includes discussing why people choose to bot.
As well as why it is advantageous to bot as opposed to just simply not botting at all.
The solution will:
Make bots "inferior"
Thus not being a player that is attentively there, is not the best means to any ends.
Also make multi-client less viable
Now getting rid of all botting in any game isn't always the most viable option. However the more it is not a rewarding way of achieving anything it becomes less viable in the game it self.
Anyone that then uses it is easily swept up in a ban as they should be.
However if we suppose that it literally never is the way to best do anything, then it simply won't be used. Players always do the quickest thing to achieve their end. Not everyone, but certainly the most.
With rose on the grind style leveling all botting would be hard to stop, lots of players play the game because of the fact that they like leisurely hacking away while chatting with friends. Many really don't want to do quests, and just want to *hug* monsters to *sleep* in mass quantities while maniacally cackling at the marvelous genius of their character design.
iMatt your leveling chat idea is nice, I like the lower level dungeons being viable. With the implementation of GA it would be silly not to see it ever before reaching 200, like so many do. No one talks about that to new players as being worth while until 200.
Dungeons require moving which makes them harder to be a bot in. After all the development time it would be a shame to never see a lot of this content until a character is beyond 200.
Many would like to see questing get more love too, which does make it harder to be a bot.
Class skills and passives are all fun and nice but I do wish we would see a utilization of all of the maps we already have at hand, while more dungeoning would be nice we do have lots of cool maps with neat little corners already to be explored.
With the game inherently being an exploration of maps and spots for laying to rest weird and cool looking foes in beautiful surroundings. It would be nice to see the best means to achieve an end also be able to be achieved by almost anywhere.
Therefore I think it is crucial to focus back on what the game revolves around most in the xp/gathering portion, the mobs.
The mobs give us virtually everything, and thus would be the first thing to come into the sights of wanting to bot. Everyone pretty much agrees that a character below max is essentially useless and nothing matters anyways. ( However later on for perhaps farming reasons it could also be useful...) If you are just starting though, nothing matters until you get 230 for the first time. Or so i've experienced with players playing. Yea there are some bench marks, 50,100,120,130,160,180,200,220,230.
You are pretty much told just to earn money and save it for the end game most of the time.
No matter what lvl until max you rely on the mobs for the vast majority of your leveling experience. So the mobs are essentially the leveling experience themselves.
The Mobs:
Spoiler
Are all dealt with the same way.
Attack on (sight/lure to spot), then attack without restraint.
Every fight, pretty much no matter the circumstance is spam skills of some sort.
Moving is kept minimal beyond some sort of lure.
Parties and high level clerics make this all much easier.
The lure aspect is kind of nice because especially in botters you don't see lure really being achieved in any meaningful sense (that being said some would bot while one person lures/or two). Lots of maps already have areas where essentially all mobs need to be killed in a radius ( some are on the outside and almost always have to be run after to get). Orlo at least seems to have spots like this where all the snappers, or scorpions have to be cleared to get a new group. However then there are areas where players don't have to move at all to ever do anything.
Now a lot like this aspect and enjoy just kind of nicely repeating , and being able to talk to others while they group up and have fun.
Botting is most discouraged when events require human interaction to best navigate.
Randomization of events is a key part of that.
For mobs, this really means that it applies to them most over any particular class or player. Thus everyone can experience them essentially the same way. Obviously we have class types and certain mobs are more easily handled by certain classes over others. Sometimes you need a knight
Having to lure an area that can only be achieved by moving makes it harder to bot, randomization of where far spawns are, goes a little farther.
I personally would like to see the focus shift towards almost all mob encounters require a more general (any class) strategy. We have melee procs, and cds and a few other class specific strategies in character building, however since these mostly are always best served by repeating, these aren't strategy that comes into play requiring the player to take notice every encounter.
A shift towards some sort of strategy utilized in every encounter, or the most productive encounters for leveling but preferably always. Loot collection, item farming... There are some boss fights that kind of have forms of this in play, in needing to know what next to do.
Spoiler
If a mob, say puts down a circle on the ground that if players didn't move from it quickly they would be stunned. If the time when it was put down was random it increases how hard it is to bot mob encounters.
Other skills for mobs like this could be used in a similar fashion.
If a mob, say put a debuff on characters only in a randomized time, that required the player to:
move
not attack
don't move
attack
heal
don't be healed
Move, could easily be something like an effect on the ground that someone has to either not sit in (debuff), or even sit in (buff) that aides greatly in combat with the mob or at least doesn't hurt you while you are. Buffs are nice too because they reward the player for strategy as well not just punishment for failing. Same applies to "don't move".
Attack and not attack , could be something like a rewarding buff for not attacking after a mob calls out, "Your hits only feed my conviction!" and ending it with a yawn or something else. Failing could have your attacks heal the mob instead of hurt it. Completing it and not attacking during that time gives +dmg for x seconds.
Heal and don't be healed could be applicable to both healers and solo players. With potions and foods, heals of players could be leeched to the mobs during a time. Even getting FS to realize when they need to run out so that the mobs are not healed by say salamander flames.
Most strategy options could be put only on a single mob or two say in a group that are always around group areas or even better in areas that aren't normally seen. These single mobs could even spawn in other mobs of the appropriate type, like some already do, for aoe purposes and strengthened group play mechanics.
With options that apply to everyone for combat, everyone must be around to tackle the variables at hand.
Ideally if these spots where just spots that aren't commonly used now. But if anything make sure that strategy options that are put forth are the most rewarding way to play. In experience but also for drops and farming. That way the most rewarding way, is to be forced to make choices all the time. But it is so worth it.
This in turn, yes makes multi client harder as well. Keeping it in the realms of vending where I think we can agree it should be for the most part.
I personally really would go on a single mob in packs that spawn that puts down areas of either good or bad, but the player must react. However like healing above there are ways without needing new graphics for the most part in dealing with buffs and debuffs on players.
Spoiler
A debuff saying if you don't move (for 3 seconds)/(10m/y i don't know what are we?) you will be stunned for x seconds.
Saying if you heal now, you will heal your foe.
Saying if you attack now I will heal from your blows.
Saying if you don't move out of the way i'm going to do a special attack that will stun/ect for an area in front of the mob.
Saying if you don't run away now i'll eat you! Mob waits some time then gains 300-400x damage for a period of time, and everyone must run away from it. Attacks the nearest target. It could perhaps have a slower move speed then or move speed skills would sure be handy in group play...
All of these could have rewards given to the players if followed.
All of these ideas aren't as important as the idea that strategy becomes the most rewarding way of doing things. Make sure it gets rewarded, if anything too much at first.
It also has to be simple but powerful tools if failed as well, if you are stunned for say 10 seconds while healing. Then heal the mob comes up as a fs cleric. You gingerly heal the mob back to full because you were stunned and could not move.
Most of these ideas could just be applied to mobs of a certain type or class, and run even on a fairly low encounter scale and it would drastically change the idea of auto skills.
Real strategy to best achieve items in the game and to level in general is the antithesis of a bot.
Take out Auto-target skill, make all AoE's require a target. [You could still have self cast AoE, just have it require a targeted enemy]. That would throw a massive wrench in them being able to do it, but it doesn't solve WHY they do it.
I like the Idea. About the spamming, I also think that it will be a problem. What about break them into rooms/brackets? That way I think it will lessen the spamming.
For example:
Room A 1-40 Levels
B 21-60
C 41-80
D 61-100
E 81-120
F 101-140
G 121-160
H 141-180
I 161-200
J 181-220
Players have to avoid 20 levels of gap if they want to evenly share experience anyways.
You can only enter the rooms if your level is within those specified level brackets.
Online players can receive messages and I think a blinking notification icon will help if someone leaves a message with same level brackets with you.
About leveling on some of the current maps:
Why not make the spawn time of mobs longer? Like maybe some minutes? Depending on the size of the map (Larger map means more monsters/mobs).
I think one reason why players can use bot easily is that it is possible to level up even if they just stay in one spot. They can stay there without worrying that there will be no monsters there soon.
But, if that would be implemented, it would mean that:
Ø It is possible that players can wipe out a certain area.
- I suggest making the monsters a bit tougher so it will take a bit longer to take them out while giving some added experience to compensate for the longer time of defeating them.
- Or automatically re-spawn the mobs when there are no players around/near the spot.
Ø And if you are hunting specific monsters for quests, it would be much harder to finish the quests.
- What about making success chance to obtain quest objectives 100% or just increase it (per kill). Because I tried doing many quests and monsters don’t always give the quest objectives thus making it longer to finish the quests.
- Or add spots for specific monsters.
Ø Less mobs less loots
- I think it’s up to the GMs if they would allow that. I think they can adjust the drop rates :3
I think this will get tricky with planet of Orlo because the competition there is high and the mobs occupy their own spots. But I will personally suggest this for Sikuku Ruins and Oblivion Temple, even in Kenji Beach.
I also like the idea to insert some monsters that might endanger the party or a member if they act careless. I think it will help require players to actively respond if they want to stay in the fight (I think Candle & Yigori Ghosts does it somehow).
I like the quest in Luna where you have to fight Lunaris Bears. I like some quests in Sikuku Ruins too, because they are repeatable and the NPC is just near the area. You can finish them while doing normal leveling and they help give players additional experience. I like gems as quest rewards, maybe they can add the new gems too. I like refining materials too as quests rewards, although I can’t remember any quest that gives refining materials.
Different additional rewards depending on the difficulty of the quests.
sounds awesome to me mhaddy, how about people can read the low level stuff too just not write/reply in that channel? Because, you know there are soooooo many older players in Rose which might have a char stuck in a lower level tier, and when they read that a group needs lets say a tank (if this char is a knight) he could think "hey let's jump on the twinks and help them leveling!".
in my thoughts we should know why they use bot and then we'll find the problem and difficulties.
come on you are in a party and you're a cleric or wizard or tank etc ... you need to go to the bathroom or get something to eat or drink if you're cleric everyone will die this cause you not to cure it, or all stop and hopes to raise that return to start again at the risk of losing the spot, if aoe character and stop attacking the mobs will accumulate and killed all of the party.
definitely have not seen anyone else rising level of the maps given that we have no new players, we will have new ideas and suggestions for the future, so old players
rather have those that are benefiting from the bot to leave it and go to sleep or work it really is boring the more we have those who are always present there.
before claim for that I was gone and could not afk party, but now there is neither party to ask irony not?
So, here's what I would do, given much 'outside the box' thinking.
AFK Timer.
Not performing movement for 'x' specified time = marked as 'away'
If no movement is detected for 'x' specified time while marked as 'away' = kick to character selection screen.
Problems:
Vending.
Solution:
We have 'player states' already in the game. For example, you can't mount if your player state is marked as 'in combat'.
Make a new 'player state' you enter while vending.
If you're player state is marked as 'vending' the 'away' state cannot be entered, therefore, you cannot be kicked to the character selection screen.
We have the core system in place for this already, it would require minor code work, but the result could be quite efficient and cause little interference with normal game-play. No captchas needed, no one gets booted while vending, none of those problems.
So, here's what I would do, given much 'outside the box' thinking.
AFK Timer.
Not performing movement for 'x' specified time = marked as 'away'
If no movement is detected for 'x' specified time while marked as 'away' = kick to character selection screen.
Problems:
Vending.
Solution:
We have 'player states' already in the game. For example, you can't mount if your player state is marked as 'in combat'.
Make a new 'player state' you enter while vending.
If you're player state is marked as 'vending' the 'away' state cannot be entered, therefore, you cannot be kicked to the character selection screen.
We have the core system in place for this already, it would require minor code work, but the result could be quite efficient and cause little interference with normal game-play. No captchas needed, no one gets booted while vending, none of those problems.
Shouts are what they are, and have a cooldown time. Aside from that, you can /ignore, and if the cooldown needs to be longer that is a simple adjustment.
Three key things that people have already mentioned:
Variable spawn locations ( To prevent people from staying in one spot to AOE all the time, and make predefined parties )
Increased Spawn timer
Stronger Monsters, Increased EXP reward
These are three ideas I have also thought about, and wanted to suggest, but it was already said. To elaborate more on the monster spawns, I think that the monsters need to spawn in variable places all over the map, instead of in static positions; additionally, I think the spawn time should be varied as well, so that you can't just jump between two known locations, and time the spawn rate.
Additional Ideas:
Variable EXP per monster ( This is to prevent people from killing one specific monster, in one specific area. The entire map would be used, instead of specific areas )
Logout timer ( As Feuer said ), this would be a very good idea for players that are inactive for too long, such as a leech. I like this idea because it would require ever party member to be active, instead of just standing around and leeching EXP. No more power leveling yourself though, but I don't really see that as a negative. Team play is the point of an MMO.... playing with others... not just yourself
Remove Auto-Target Enemy ( as Feuer said ). No explanation needed here, this skill just begs people to make a bot with it.
As for the Chat botters ( Trade chat ), well there is not much to do about them. My idea is this:
If player has said the same exact message ( or similar message, with a RegEx compare ) message in Trade Chat more than 5 times within the hour, or half hour, temporarily mute them for one hour.
I disagree with making any form of new chat sections, the current system is just fine.
Update the very old chat rooms, people can advertise there.
"First we have to identify why people are using third party software."
the people that bot include, but are not limited to, People who are not willing or can not put the time in farming or leveling, or just want to do it while they are sleeping, working, etc.
we can not negate (all of) these reasons for botting in any way. people will always (try to) bot!!!! there is no permanent solution like global chat or low level dungeons, because "not the best exp/drops available" is still better than nothing at all.
"Then we need to discover the features they're exploiting to solve those reasons why they're using the software."
we could and should discus things like the "target enemy" ability and the lack of reasons to move. we should make it as hard for them as possible.
patching those features/exploits and adding hurdles for them will force bots to be updated, evolve and become more advanced. implement these patches 1 at a time, preferably just after a bot is updated to deal with the previous patch. this will maximize the time during which the game is bot free.
"Then after we've done the above we can appropriately solve the issue, with an immediate but also long term solution."
By the time bots are advanced enough to deal with all the patching and hurdles that have been put in their path they will be using custom/modded clients to directly read game data, inject packets and provide very precise input. at this point there are multiple things you can do.
Spoiler
implement a handshake for when a client connects to the server. the handshake will change i.e.: each week so the client would need to be modded/hacked every week instead of only after content updates. depending on the implementation this could even be a way to flag potential botters when they use an outdated botclient.
implement traps for them, if you know how a bot works, you can fool it. i.e: invisible mobs (assuming the "target enemy" ability will be removed) normal players would never try to attack these mobs or even be able to attack them, bots however would not see the difference code-wise. ofcourse the bot will be updated for this and not fall for it again, but by that time you have a nice list of players who did in fact try to attack that invisible mob in fact the very first players doing this are probably the bot developers this will allow you to punish them with an extra severe ip ban instead of an account ban.
encrypt certain pieces of data bots would need to function. changing up the encryption often enough so it's impossible to crack it before the next encryption is pushed means permanent game over for bots that would need that piece of information.
actively use bots yourselves(the devs) on a test server ofcourse, for researche purposes only learn their weak spots and take advantage of those. make it so bot developers have to invest more and more time to actually keep their bot up to date and working. be carefull though, because bots will get keylogged to get your staff accounts
be creative and try to have fun with them
i would suggest digging into the history of runescape botting. it is very extensive and i'm sure a thing or 2 could be learned. don't reinvent the wheel. moddify it to fit on your own cart instead that said, the extreme resources jagex has poured/is pouring into anti-bot measures are probably not nessecary for this game. the runescape botting scene is/was mostly fueled by people farming and selling ingame currency, and selling leveled accounts. i don't think this will be the case for rose as the item mall is already a sort of goldseller and people mostly bot for ingame benefits. after a google there does seem to be a market for rose accounts/zullies but it is extremely small (as rose's community is relativly small) and nowhere near what i've seen with runescape. i don't think some developer would sacrifice a real job for the low potential income that could come from selling zulie or rose accounts. i think most dev's will give up long before a weekly changed encryption is implemented.
my thoughts on some suggestions given here:
Spoiler
Global chat:
a global chat has been tried by many games for just as many reasons and unless you are willing to monitor it 24/7 it will become the channel everyone blocks. aside from that it will not take away the fact that people want to gain exp/zullie while (litteraly) sleeping
level based chat:
won't work for the same reason mentioned above. a good suggestion to improve the general game experience though. just don't make one for maxed chars and don't allow people to see messages from lower levels. people would just spam the lowest level chat (which still reaches everyone and it doesn't matter if people can't talk back " S>IM 600/100 WM" <---- the opperative there is WM) and i suspect the max level chat would still become a thorn in many players eyes.
low level dungeons:
again a great suggestion for improving the general gaming experience and i'd love to see it happen. keep in mind though that rose doesn't have a huge influx of new players and not everyone is leveling alts all the time, which is the reason most maps are completely deserted. older players will be annoyed at new players not knowing what they are doing causing them to make parties through other channels then GA. i'm afraid it would take a good while to find a party to do these dungeons even with GA, as i have experienced this happening in wildstar, a game that does have low level dungeons. i would suggest expanding GA to a party finder where you can list yourself as looking for a party or member to level in a certain map or do a certain quest.
it won't fix the botting though(aforementioned reasons). also, don't even think a dungeon can not be botted, sure it would be a more complex/advanced bot that might not be worth the time it takes to develop it, but it's deffinatly not impossible and theres a lot of savvy kids/un-employed adults with too much time on their hands.
better quests:
once again, great for the general gaming experience, wont stop the botting. not impossible to bot but probably not very worthwhile to bot either.
make the server monitor players actions for suspicious activity
a good suggestion and pretty much the only thing you can do about auto-talking. compare the time inbetween identical messages and individual keystrokes. flag players that spam buttons for further investigation. its rediculous that we as players have to invest our time into analyzing and reporting this behaviour.
"The bots would just be modified to pause or use a different algorythm, It wouldn't solve the problem."
true it's not a permanent solution, but by the time bots catch on, a lot of them will have been caught and the next trap is on its way. its not bad to force bots to keep updating and evolving, its the only weapon we have. we are/will be locked in an arms race and the only bot free moments we will have is after a game patch/update untill the bot has been updated. i wouldn't even reccomend imediate bans, because this would give the trap away. let some time pass and than ban all of them in one go.
"not taking into account that some people just sit there in the same spot pressing 1-2-3-4 over and over to AoE leve"
which is why they would be flagged for further investigation instead of automaticly banned.
redesign mob behaviour, mechanics and spawns:
would make it harder to bot, while making the game more fun, interesting and challenging to play. not impossible to bot nor will it take a way the reason to bot(yes you are going to read this stated for every suggestion )
Take out Auto-target skill, make all AoE's require a target. [You could still have self cast AoE, just have it require a targeted enemy]
good suggestion as far as making it harder to bot goes, i personally think the auto-target has to go, but the pain of clicking the next mob in the cluster each time your targets dies TT i'm deffinatly not a fan of this, but it does seem kinda nessecary to stopping the current, easy to do, macro-variant of botting.
AFK Timer (with exception of vending):
YES PLEASE!!!! again, not a permanent solution, especially if/when bots become advanced enough to walk (trust me, they will if we push them to it :/).i suggest registering the keys pressed after logging a character out, someone who keeps pressing "124214214214214" after being logged out is either blind and can't play rose anyways or is botting, great trap for as long as it'll last.
capcha style pop-up:
tried in other games(runescape) botters just created a network to solve eachothers capcha's. solved capcha's will grant you points which you need to spend to have other people solve the capcha's your bot gets. not to mention the diruption in gameplay for legit players. either you allow skills to be used while the capcha is popped or you're killing off parties :/ resulting in just a system that flags someone if he doesn't respond quick enough, which i believe can be done better and behind the scenes.
my own suggestion:
Spoiler
force the simple, easy to make and easy to use bot's that are just macro's out of business(the "auto-target/selftarget aoe change" suggestion would do the trick). its the only thing we can do about them unless we want to get stuck with a gameguard like app or code that scans our machines for other apps that are running, etc. which in my personal opinion is a big nono, not to mention that stuff like that can also be modded/hacked/cicumvented.
this will likely cause bots to get updated and more advanced, the arms race has begun. it doesn't seem like much has been accomplished but its better than having someone code a simple macro that will work for the next 4-5 years like the common K**** bot. the more effort people have to put in developing a bot the less worthwhile it will become to do so.
next is ofcourse all hypothetical, i do not know how rose bots will evolve, if they do, if they don't we will have already won after changing the auto-target/sleftarget aoe.
the next thing added to bots at that point will likely be a colour clicker, drag the tool over the rose window to pick the color and the bot will move your mouse to where that color happens to show up aka auto-target for bots. not hard to code and implement, perhaps even code that looks for the color of the healthbar and registers when it disapears, do a 360 degree camera pan to make sure it died and click the next patch of colour...
now you have to do something like changing the shade of mob textures every 15 min, bots will suddenly stop attacking when the change happens and start again when the correct shade is used once more. this will be a dead give away and you can flag players that behave like this.
to get around this bots will finally be forced to actaully look at the game's data to figure out where models of a certain type are located. you pick up a copy of the bot, figure out what it looks for and doesn't look for and use that information to trick it, you can have them attack tree's if you'd want to...
ofcourse you would also be able to encrypt that data in some way.
now we have to force players to move around, FORCE them, people that would not get exp otherwise, because they are asleep or something, don't care if they are penalized a little bit for not moving. a little bit less exp than a legit player would earn is still better than none at all.
now bots are forced to implement navigation tools, when that happens things will become interesting. <--- incoherent blabbering
when more advanced bots pop up they have to be researched(by rose staff) for weaknesses and predictable behaviour which can be flagged for further inspection by staff or be exploited to trick bots to give themselves away. often, by making small changes in how something looks or where somehting is can be enough to break a bot while a player hardly notices anything. depending on how bots will work this could even be changes only noticable by the bot through its mechanisim of interfacing with the server, client(-code) or memory. at that point it might be possible to encrypt certain data and change that encryption at a regular interval to permanently break those bots, if it can't be cracked before the next encryption cycle the bot is dead...
IMHO, the solution to tackle the current bots has already been provided in this threat and is utterly simple and easy to implement. i suggest it just gets done and then we'll see if something new comes along to start the whole thing over again...
to the people here, don't assume something will work based on what current bots can or cannot do, don't asusme anything is not bottable/hackable. just focus on how to force them to update as often as possible and make it as hard as possible to do so.
please note that i'm not condemning suggestions that change gameplay. suggestions to motivate people to stop botting and start actually interacting with the game are still very much needed, people that simply bot because they lack the motivation to actually play themselves are a symptome of the outdated and grindy(sometimes boring) nature of rose's leveling experience. getting people motivated enough to stop botting and actually play the game might also lead to new and old players getting motivated to play the game (again)
p.s.: i'm sorry for the long read and sorry for stating some things twice(if i have done that). i also apolagize for the terrible format and perhaps, sometimes, incoherent blabbering. its late
I would kind of like feed-back from staff about how seriously the goal of no bots even is. The reason I ask is because that changes the kinds of ideas generated. If we think the botting problem is a problem but not game breaking than that is fine, but lots of measures that take a lot of time and investment are not likely what we want then.
Summary of my opinion, feel free to flame.
Problem: Bots
Solution: Intelligence being required for the most lucrative items/events in the game.
I mean a bot is literally describing a programmed level of intelligence and/or literally repetition of events. Therefore the antithesis would be non repeated events or non-programmed levels of intelligence.
Prevention: Fine and dandy but does not solve the problem because it is a constant back and forth that any serious bot developer has no trouble winning, sorry but the truth. Unless prevention rises to the level of the preventative measures not being a program in and of itself , or a literal human dealing with bots. Costly and must be updated constantly as opposed to making a "hard" encounter be the source of the good things in the game.
Oh quick side note on low lvl dungeons, a solution to lack of players is that a dungeon for 100-200 say could be done around a lvl 200 one. Take all the players and let anyone in that range group with one another. Take a look at their stats and translate them to an equivalent amount for that char at say 200. No skills but it allows a super wide range of players to play with one another, and could totally make low level dungeons work.
Auto looter, we could just have some tainted loot occasionally thrown in that does dmg if picked up.
Global chat:
a global chat has been tried by many games for just as many reasons and unless you are willing to monitor it 24/7 it will become the channel everyone blocks. aside from that it will not take away the fact that people want to gain exp/zullie while (litteraly) sleeping
My only real suggestion on chat spam is a focus shift towards monitoring all the time. The people that are on the most to monitor are the players. I know this will sound crazy but a chat system where people can create chat channels or a few in Junon with one controlled by players buyers/sellers that is monitored by everyone in the system by a simple system of votes.
If someone starts to spam, the group puts to a vote taking away someone's ability to spam the channel. That way serious buyers and sellers can keep a private spot for themselves controlled by themselves, instead of the game which will never have a chance to catch trade spammers, unless staff is literally going to monitor it themselves.
Make it a vote of only those that do vote, so if a bunch in the group aren't on the ability to take away chat for the channel can happen during times of few players on.
Keeping a general trade chat like we currently have for those that have been silenced in the other group or just to keep a free, anyone can talk channel.
Make crafting less repetitive and click intensive.
Right now, crafting a single item involves clicking twice on two different buttons. This in itself is fine, unless you want to create stacks of something. I cannot be bothered to create 999 items with 1998 manual clicks, I might even rather cut my hands off if I start crafting many stacks.
We receive exp for crafting items, that doesn't happen very often in games. So please make it less of an extreme pain to make use of this mechanic, I'd simply suggest a craft all button which crafts slower (1.25?) but automatically. That would decrease 3rd party program botting by quite a lot.
in fact the very first players doing this are probably the bot developers this will allow you to punish them with an extra severe ip ban instead of an account ban.
