[Suggestion] Easy way to ban all bots in a single day.

Hi there guys,

I've been thinking about this and i've been seeing alot of people getting frustrated by this bot problem caused by RMT businesses.
So here is my suggestion to the problem which is a sure fire way to ban every single one of them.

METHOD:

• Bots do not use RAND code to randomize their walking patterns and always land on the same coordinates for example: Waypoint 1 x25-y42 => Waypoints 2 x29-y40 etc etc.

• A code as simple as a IF ELSE structure even will get this job done lol.
If the character triggers the set waypoint 2 or 3 times EXACTLY as it is in the ban script, proceed to auto ban account.

Players will NEVER behave in the same way as bots with their walking pattern, maybe once by accident but never 2 or 3 times in a row. (Hence the 2x 3x trigger)

BUT THEY WILL JUST RETURN?:
Well offcourse they will.... for a little while :o
Since their accounts will never reach even Lv20 with this ban script they won't make any Gil to sell.
Even worse for them, they bought another account so it's a net loss for them.

BUT WHAT IF I GET BANNED BY THIS, IM NOT A BOT? :
The chances of you triggering the exact same pattern as a bot does is non-existent, even if you follow them.


My conclusion... if a simple method as this will stop them for even a short while until they randomize their waypoints we'll take it until there is a waterproof method to prevent them from ever starting the game with 3rd party bot tools.
Don't let pleb programmers outshine you SE

SE's server are already struggling, not sure adding an additional IF ELSE comparison to every pos change of every character is going to improve that issue ^^

nah you don't have to stress the server, it doesn't have to happen in real time.
just let a secundary off-server script go through logs at set intervals and ggwp =)

Wouldn't this just cause bots to run a detour route every other pass, generally curious.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

Wouldn't this just cause bots to run a detour route every other pass, generally curious.

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Exactly, this takes a day tops for all bot programs to be updated and run a random alternative route to waypoints or simply reverse the order.

Imo things should be more restrictive, it's not a good deal for new players?, yeah, but not that some hours playing would solve that for a great good, i mean for example, stuff like trade option be locked until you start 3.0 Patch in Ishgard, like a specific quest you must do in Ishgard Market Road to be able to trade anything with another player. There's no bots in Expansion maps for a reason, and that reason is why you need clear all quests, Dungeons, Primals and etc to reach there and bots don't do that.

if [ is_walking_too_predictably "${PLAYER}" -eq 0 ]; then
ban "${PLAYER}"
else
do_not_ban "${PLAYER}"
fi

EASY

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DenzelVilliers

Imo things should be more restrictive, it's not a good deal for new players?, yeah, but not that some hours playing would solve that for a great good, i mean for example, stuff like trade option be locked until you start 3.0 Patch in Ishgard, like a specific quest you must do in Ishgard Market Road to be able to trade anything with another player. There's no bots in Expansion maps for a reason, and that reason is why you need clear all quests, Dungeons, Primals and etc to reach there and bots don't do that.

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Base game is sold on its own. Let's say someone just wants to dabble their feet in ARR (they can always look at the expansions later), they shouldn't be allowed to trade at all? Plus, bots are already using hacking scripts, they'd just take a few days to update their scripts and get up to Ishgard, and away they go. Remember that this is their business, and they will do whatever it takes to make business. The way to stop it, is to deal with the people buying the gil. If there's no market, then they'll shut shop.

The actual first step they should take is removing gil drops from trash in all instances as that's their primary source of sustainable income and actual players benefit little from it.

If that's gone they'd stop spamming instances and slowing down the servers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

Base game is sold on its own. Let's say someone just wants to dabble their feet in ARR (they can always look at the expansions later), they shouldn't be allowed to trade at all? Plus, bots are already using hacking scripts, they'd just take a few days to update their scripts and get up to Ishgard, and away they go. Remember that this is their business, and they will do whatever it takes to make business. The way to stop it, is to deal with the people buying the gil. If there's no market, then they'll shut shop.

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+1 Stop with hurting actual players just to punish bots, it's honestly embarrassing. Plus bots are not actually locked to ARR as is the common perception, they've been advertising SHB stuff lately...

Bots tp to cords that no player could ever tp to (aside from eb ring tp to mate). Just hard blocking tp's to within certain distance of key NPC's and farming nodes should flag bots and even after they adjust courses will add considerably to their scripts and effort.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The actual first step they should take is removing gil drops from trash in all instances as that's their primary source of sustainable income and actual players benefit little from it.

If that's gone they'd stop spamming instances and slowing down the servers.

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While I don't really disagree with the idea (and relieving server stress may be enough of a boon to disregard minor concerns), I do kinda wonder if this would maybe end up backfiring slightly. Removing a gil source (incredibly minute as it is) for low levels could, potentially, push a few extra players to considering purchasing gil, if they're feeling they're not collecting enough on their own.

Very unlikely, I'll admit. But. Maybe. More importantly, tho, yeah, it's so small to not really even be worth mentioning. And there's such little use for gil, devs could probably stand to cut some other small sources as well without much impact.

• Add right-click "Report Bot" feature. No need to write report. Right-click > click > end of story.
• Server regularly produce an automated report for things like: zones that have consistent bot reports, accounts that are consistently being reported as bots, player who is consistently reporting others for botting, etc.
• A GM gets the report every hour and does a quick investigation, manually banning confirmed bot accounts for 24 hours, along with any other accounts that are clearly being botted by the same source.

No amount of innovation by botters can defeat tens if not hundreds of pairs of human eyes and the analytical power of the human brain in recognizing clear botting behavior.

It can be as simple as a backend process just receiving these reports and storing them in an independent database that runs the hourly reports. Low tech solution.

Then the Task Force can focus on fighting the technical fight, while the GMs do their part to present a comfortable experience for everyone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LegendaryKing

• Bots do not use RAND code to randomize their walking patterns

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They don't currently, but only because they don't currently need to. They could add it into their script without much difficulty as soon as SE gave them a reason to. So this would work once, but then wouldn't ever work again after that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zfz

• Add right-click "Report Bot" feature. No need to write report. Right-click > click > end of story.
• Server regularly produce an automated report for things like: zones that have consistent bot reports, accounts that are consistently being reported as bots, player who is consistently reporting others for botting, etc.
• A GM gets the report every hour and does a quick investigation, manually banning confirmed bot accounts for 24 hours, along with any other accounts that are clearly being botted by the same source.

No amount of innovation by botters can defeat tens if not hundreds of pairs of human eyes and the analytical power of the human brain in recognizing clear botting behavior.

It can be as simple as a backend process just receiving these reports and storing them in an independent database that runs the hourly reports. Low tech solution.

Then the Task Force can focus on fighting the technical fight, while the GMs do their part to present a comfortable experience for everyone.

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Elegant and simple. I report bots when I can but jeez the process is so dang time consuming. Half the time they have TPed away before I finish.

Plenty of MMO's have no trading between characters, no mail system. It seems this is where they could start to freeze out RMT. If there is no way for an account to transfer gil to another account, then there is no need for RMT. Also, maybe doing away with all the gil sinks in the game would decrease the need for gil at early levels (i.e. no cost for using transport and things like that); then you only really need gil to purchase from the MB, which you really only need to do if you are in late game or an avid DoH player.

If getting rid of transfers between player accounts is the price to pay for no more RMT, then I say do it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HumanNinjaToo

If getting rid of transfers between player accounts is the price to pay for no more RMT, then I say do it.

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Removing trade would also require a complete overhaul of the gathering and crafting design, as both are designed with trading in mind. That's a big price to pay. For a significant portion of the player population, it would be as bad as removing, say, all ranged DPS. Or all melee DPS. Or removing all Extreme Primals, or removing all Alliance raids.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HumanNinjaToo

Plenty of MMO's have no trading between characters, no mail system. It seems this is where they could start to freeze out RMT. If there is no way for an account to transfer gil to another account, then there is no need for RMT.

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You're actually proposing a rule that forces everyone to be self-sufficient, forbids crafters and gatherers from selling what they craft/gather, while preventing anyone else from getting crafted items?!? Eliminating the entire economy is a pretty extreme solution to something which is a problem due to the way it hurts the economy. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater and all that.

Or was your post just missing the sarcasm tag? It makes a whole lot more sense that way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zfz

Removing trade would also require a complete overhaul of the gathering and crafting design, as both are designed with trading in mind. That's a big price to pay. For a significant portion of the player population, it would be as bad as removing, say, all ranged DPS. Or all melee DPS. Or removing all Extreme Primals, or removing all Alliance raids.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

You're actually proposing a rule that forces everyone to be self-sufficient, forbids crafters and gatherers from selling what they craft/gather, while preventing anyone else from getting crafted items?!? Eliminating the entire economy is a pretty extreme solution to something which is a problem due to the way it hurts the economy. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater and all that.

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I am not saying removing the MB, I am saying remove the ability for one player to transfer goods/gil to another player via individual trade screen/mog mail.

Then it just becomes "Sell Apple for 5mil" only people who would buy it is the bot farmers to send the gil to the main account. Which I admit would in turn allow them to see which account holds it but I would like to also assume they can find the random jibberish names with millions of gil at level 1.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

Then it just becomes "Sell Apple for 5mil" only people who would buy it is the bot farmers to send the gil to the main account. Which I admit would in turn allow them to see which account holds it but I would like to also assume they can find the random jibberish names with millions of gil at level 1.

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True, but I would think it easier to keep an eye on the MB for blatantly obvious transactions like selling/buying an apple for 5mil Gil, versus having to comb through the ridiculous amounts of player to player transfers and mog mail. Not to mention, MB transactions are available for all of us to see, while the other player to player transactions must be rooted out by a GM. I would think they could add a RMT report option for MB transactions that scream RMT; then they have another option for these issues to be brought to GM attention.


EDIT: To be fair, a lot of those random gibberish names look very similar to the FF name generator names.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HumanNinjaToo

I am not saying removing the MB, I am saying remove the ability for one player to transfer goods/gil to another player via individual trade screen/mog mail.

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Then it doesn't do anything to gil sellers. The MB is already a common way for them to transfer gil. Becoming the exclusive way wouldn't matter to them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HumanNinjaToo

I would think they could add a RMT report option for MB transactions that scream RMT

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Nothing would scream RMT. It would only scream gil transfer through the MB, but that's already the most common way for players to transfer gil to their alts, and would immediately become the way people transfer gil to friends as well. So long as transferring gil through the market board is possible (i.e. so long as the market board exists) people will continue to trade gil with each other for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons, and nothing will have been accomplished except to make it a little more of a hassle. Players care about hassle. Bots don't.

Fair enough I guess.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LegendaryKing

Hi there guys,

I've been thinking about this and i've been seeing alot of people getting frustrated by this bot problem caused by RMT businesses.
So here is my suggestion to the problem which is a sure fire way to ban every single one of them.

METHOD:

• Bots do not use RAND code to randomize their walking patterns and always land on the same coordinates for example: Waypoint 1 x25-y42 => Waypoints 2 x29-y40 etc etc.

• A code as simple as a IF ELSE structure even will get this job done lol.
If the character triggers the set waypoint 2 or 3 times EXACTLY as it is in the ban script, proceed to auto ban account.

Players will NEVER behave in the same way as bots with their walking pattern, maybe once by accident but never 2 or 3 times in a row. (Hence the 2x 3x trigger)

BUT THEY WILL JUST RETURN?:
Well offcourse they will.... for a little while :o
Since their accounts will never reach even Lv20 with this ban script they won't make any Gil to sell.
Even worse for them, they bought another account so it's a net loss for them.

BUT WHAT IF I GET BANNED BY THIS, IM NOT A BOT? :
The chances of you triggering the exact same pattern as a bot does is non-existent, even if you follow them.


My conclusion... if a simple method as this will stop them for even a short while until they randomize their waypoints we'll take it until there is a waterproof method to prevent them from ever starting the game with 3rd party bot tools.
Don't let pleb programmers outshine you SE

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The issue is the bot makers will quickly figure this out and adjust them accordingly.