13 replies to this topic

[shavri]

Long time player, first time poster. Why is the posting about "Have the bots won?" locked? Are we unable to have open discussion about bots on Valk? It's so common that I just figure every person I cross in a dungeon is a bot until they talk/respond--EVERY person! I know I can screenie and report, but I figure what's the point? I could have a full-time job trying to report every bot I see. Can't someone at Gravity actually get paid for a full time job to do this and actually have in-game mods?

[RichestinIRO]

Long time player, first time poster. Why is the posting about "Have the bots won?" locked? Are we unable to have open discussion about bots on Valk? It's so common that I just figure every person I cross in a dungeon is a bot until they talk/respond--EVERY person! I know I can screenie and report, but I figure what's the point? I could have a full-time job trying to report every bot I see. Can't someone at Gravity actually get paid for a full time job to do this and actually have in-game mods?

while in most cases it would seem like it, some are just dual or multi-clienting but if you really think about it we are all bots when we do the grind and keep on killing repeatedly, staring at the monitor for too long. in some party chats, i have read of people actually leveling 14 or more hours non-stop so as to say some people wouldn't even bother to socialize with just anyone for the sake of time. i think gms look into it when you do spend a report though. there was a post somewhere regarding how to tell if it's a bot or not, not replying to you doesn't necessarily mean it's a bot, it might be an anti-social person.

[valgissn]

All I know is that 80% of Ygg. are bots

[shavri]

while in most cases it would seem like it, some are just dual or multi-clienting but if you really think about it we are all bots when we do the grind and keep on killing repeatedly, staring at the monitor for too long. in some party chats, i have read of people actually leveling 14 or more hours non-stop so as to say some people wouldn't even bother to socialize with just anyone for the sake of time. i think gms look into it when you do spend a report though. there was a post somewhere regarding how to tell if it's a bot or not, not replying to you doesn't necessarily mean it's a bot, it might be an anti-social person.

I don't think of myself as a bot when I'm grinding because I'm actually experiencing what I'm playing. So I actually get the satisfaction of accomplishing something in a game when I put in the hard work of clicking on every mob to get to the next level rather than letting some bot client scroll through mobs while I'm sleeping.

I didn't mean to say that every person in a dungeon is a bot. I'm saying that the problem is so prevalent that it's sad that I've reached the point where I believe you are a bot unless there is proof otherwise. Of course there are anti-social people that shouldn't have to respond every time someone walks by, but can you honestly say that the hordes of assassins all with the same hats and name algorithms like "gh3dh2e" are not obvious enough for a GM to "spot" them? Or how about the 18 people I saw stuck in the Hidden Temple trying to get through a door....moving...but going no where--am I supposed to believe they are just being anti-social? Or am I supposed to screenshot every single one of their names to take my time to police a game where it's clearly stated in the User Agreement that you may not use a 3rd party bot client.

And I agree with the person who posted that "the bots have won" because it seems like even explicitly clear violations of the User Agreement (like the one the poster mentioned about the zeny for cash solicitors in major cities on Valk) are tolerated--or at least Gravity has given up trying to enforce it.

Doesn't anyone else feel like the botting/spamming of others takes away from your own fun for the game? Or am I and the locked poster from before the only ones??

[Dukeares]

1.Discussion about bots on valk
2.Have the Bots won?
3.Bot Behaviours?
4.Question Regarding Buff Bots in iRO?
5.Please remove ygg seeds from alligators
6.Gms are not reachable ingame and dont care about botters
7.So I was in the Greatest General Map East of Payon
8.Spammers! Please remove it
9.How do I report bots?
10. Magmarings... Seriously.
11. The Venus Bot Trap
12. Zenny Bots
13.Bot Farmers?
14.Huge amount of bots in Dragonfly's map
15.An idea about spam-bots
16.Botting on iRO?
17.Don't lend out your Zeny!
18.Anti-Bot System
19.Please ban ALL botters
20. A Question Of Integrity
21.Botter tends to report other bots


and alot more...discusion.

[DieNasty]

1.Discussion about bots on valk
2.Have the Bots won?
3.Bot Behaviours?
4.Question Regarding Buff Bots in iRO?
5.Please remove ygg seeds from alligators
6.Gms are not reachable ingame and dont care about botters
7.So I was in the Greatest General Map East of Payon
8.Spammers! Please remove it
9.How do I report bots?
10. Magmarings... Seriously.
11. The Venus Bot Trap
12. Zenny Bots
13.Bot Farmers?
14.Huge amount of bots in Dragonfly's map
15.An idea about spam-bots
16.Botting on iRO?
17.Don't lend out your Zeny!
18.Anti-Bot System
19.Please ban ALL botters
20. A Question Of Integrity
21.Botter tends to report other bots


and alot more...discusion.

I hope Gravity staffs are clicking on these links.

[ryu888]

1.its a free server, bots are expected.
2.they just don't care, and just want your money, bots help with this.
3.players have accepted the bots as long as it doesn't bother them.
4.reporting bots is a useless effort, see #2.
5.if they really care about getting rid of bots, they would have hire better technicians, instead of amateurs who can't code.

[Uruwashii]

Don't want bots? Join ymir. 1% of the population are bots.

[Scuba]

Because most threads regarding bots are rants and flames. Or causing bad publicity for the game. Rarely are they discussions at all. Most of the time its just people going RAWR BOTS EVERYWHERE. They are not productive, same as "im quitting threads" "ragnarok is ending threads" and "Is RO worth playing threads".

[GuardianTK]

They will always find some way to advertise, limiting the trial system is one often used way. Us being a free download and registration certainly makes containment more difficult, and having limited person resources to go around in shutting them up every 10 minutes also helps them.

The means we have limited them in the past is doing things like killing all their zeny (or as much as we could find) but that takes days of doing nothing but that, and then the tickets and other games start to have issues due to the lack of attention on them.

We are working on a long term plan for making it easier to report, and to have more eyes sweeping up the wayward novices, but first step is to get the volunteer mods inplace here on the forums, then we will stare into the void that is the shout bots in-game.

I think one of the things people need to realize is simply what Heim has just reminded us. They have other games and not just RO to manage over. This alone somewhat thins out their management staff on what can be done on a schedule.

RO, Rose, Requiem, Dragon Saga, Crime Craft, Free Style, Eternal Destiny, etc. You have to keep in mind that bug reports and account-related problems highlighted by many of the tickets takes priority first over all bot reports. Some people need to realize that since it's iRO, they'll constantly have to deal with language barriers as well as investigations into the matters. Bot problems take longer for me to get a reply to, but I've yet to get a support ticket where it's account/bug related where it's taken more than 24-48 hours to resolve. At most it'd take about a week. And that's when they're backed up on tickets.
It's common sense to see that not all tickets are gonna be legit things either. Stuff like "How do I patch RO, because I'm getting a patch error?" Yes, people send in tickets asking about that as well. >.> Some of the most common/redundant/pointless things are sent through the ticket system. Did you know that a lot of people send in multiple tickets asking the same exact thing just because they're not getting a reply in a few hours? This alone makes up for slowing down the ticket system by a good part. It's a common misconception to think that all tickets aren't looked through. Though...I wouldn't doubt that many of the CS team merely browses through the tickets and sends some automated response and then sets it aside.

Edited by GuardianTK, 22 June 2011 - 10:03 AM.

[Taokaka]

5 or 6 years ago when I played on Chaos before it merged with the other 2 servers to become Yimir... if I remember correctly Gravity did something that worked and prevented people from botting. (I assume they got around it now) But The amount of people online went down so much I remember that they disabled the /who command that told you who was online. The number of people online never used to be by the server name who you logged on.

But yeah pretty much after that people seemed to start disappearing one after another. Pretty much soon after that.... and soon after they nerfed the Lord Of Death leeching method tons of people had quit.

My only fear is when they get rid of all the bots that there will only be like 700 REAL people online and... well... it just won't be highly populated anymore.

[Anpanman]

Hi all,

I wanted to add that I think it is useful for people to speak up on their concern. Not so much in an angry shouting match, or "I've had it!!" sort of way - but more in a - hey, I think this is a priority that the GMs could really use more resourcing on, because it would improve our play experience. Sure, there is a draconian argument of pay into the system or suffer the consequences, but I think a sub-par gaming experience doesn't inspire the continued playing and encourage financial contribution as much as a good experience. That's the model that Gravity shifted to when they went to F2P, no? Lets give a carrot, rather than build walls with P2P. The carrot, as such, could be more appealing. I don't think the model was to give a carrot infested with robots and hope that people pay into it.

As things stand now, it's just kind of a downer to see all the bots.

It is a bit of a psychological burden to surmount the economic barrier bots create in the marketplace. Human players are both harmed by devaluation of easily farmable items on the low end, and inflated prices on the high end items due to the glut of resources injected by botting. And competing against robots in this respect is sort of... well... I mean how can you win? It's a robot. It will outdo your ingenuity with brute force.

And in another respect, in response to the above poster, I often feel more lonely on a map with a bunch of bots running around on it than when I'm exploring a low-interest map with maybe just a handful of people.

Finally, as I referred to in a post earlier which was very quickly locked for as-of-yet undisclosed reasons (though I've inquired in the hopes of avoiding topic locking in the future), some of... indeed, possibly a great deal of the botting problem may be from our own ranks. That is, people who have normal chars and play normally, run bots on the side. It's not just Chinese zeny and item farmers and zeny spam bots, it's normal players too.

I just suggested that a very public crackdown would help end the inevitable "race to the bottom" (e.g., if everyone else is botting, I have to also to keep up). I really do believe that's the majority of player-botters - they want to do the right thing and play by the rules. But there's that constant pressure of, hey the next guy is botting, if I don't, I'm going to fall behind. And so people give in. Even if they don't, the economy punishes them - they have to mete out their resources to buy the wares of the bot-merchants in Prontera.

Even I, outspoken in my opposition to those that bot, feel the pressure. I don't even PvP or WoE or what have you, where it's direct competition, and more resources may make all the difference. Sadly, and somewhat ashamedly, I had floated the idea of botting once with my friends, but "I will lose all respect for you" was the response I got (literally, that's what was said). While I don't think that would be the case, it's also not really worth it for me to test that. Still, as I approach more competitive goals such as PvP and WoE, the pressure mounts. But I will quit before I bot. I dunno, I'm just sad because it shouldn't even have been a question I wanted to have considered.

I understand resources are thin and this issue is both a perpetual problem and resource intensive. But I also think it shouldn't be left by the wayside, and just wanted to call for a reminder that this is an issue for some players. Thanks.

Edited by Anpanman, 22 June 2011 - 01:36 PM.

[DeltaRay]

Transfer To Ymir.

[Anpanman]

re: DeltaRay, it's true, that is one good solution.

But reasonable minds will differ. Some people's nature is to move and shift to adjust to the world around them, and others try to adjust the world around and make it what they think is a better place.

Call it pride or naivete, but solving the problem for just me by ditching the others seems kind of ... misanthropic (hating other people)? I mean comon, wouldn't it be better to strive to make something better? Or should we just submit ourselves to "oh that's reality, we have no control over things, let's leave and find a better experience elsewhere"?

But like I said, reasonable minds will differ. I dunno, I just hope things can be improved for everyone.