People who can’t tend to call the opponent troll, scream something utterly incomprehensible
and finally result to personal insults.
So, how does a player tell a bot apart from another player who is just anti-social?
Bots usually:
Have no/broken armor,
Run towards points that interest their dark masters in a pattern that is recognizable after few minutes,
Don’t revive others,
Instantly travel to WP upon dying,
Attack only mobs that A) Attack them or Are nearby,
Don’t dodge or move during combat,
Die alot,
Are unlikely to have any money on them.
Now, a player who is extremely bored and antisocial might occasionally behave like this too, so we shouldn’t just ban anyone due to acting like this. However, detecting stuff like:
Having no armor,
Instantly traveling to WP upon death,
Die alot,
Have no money,
Do not chat.
is very easy to do automatically.
Still, those shouldn’t be used to ban the player.
Instead:
If for example
a player Dies with broken armor AND has no money OR dies for the 5th time without repairing their armor,
You should:
Record the players actions.
Upon dying a few times more:
Place a image verification in front of them that prevents them from re-spawning before solved, upon X mistakes suspend the account for 60 minutes and investigate the player.
Or a slightly more fun way to go about it instead of having a image verification would be sent the player to a Grenth’s instance, where they have to navigate a short jumping puzzle and dodge a few (insta-kill) traps.
Of course, the maze should be generated dynamically.
Just send players who have a activity pattern reminiscent of what bots do a piece of mail. They then have to send a reply back confirming they’re a person (if they do not within 10 minutes the game disconnects them). When the player in question logs back on they most reply to their mail within 10 minutes or they are disconnected again and this will continue to happen until they respond.
Once the player responds they get a bonus of their choice, be it gold, karma or a boon for a hour…they just get something for verifying they’re human.
Except a mail isn’t too easy to notice, a player could end up losing connection, then wondering what happened, logging back in and losing connection after a while again. Then thinking the game is bugged and quit playing. Whereas if they are asked to verify a image and suggested to repair their armor, they would understand what is going on. Or even better, if they’re sent to Grenth’s domain, that would fit the lore too.
Then again, a bot is easy to config to notice and reply a mail (if its just a reply and it doesn’t need to understand the mail.)
The mail thing is a bad idea.
I’m not likely to answer a stranger who accuses me of being a bot. I’m just going to read it , say “wtf” and ignore it.
Also, half the time I’m playing my mail is overflowing. I’ll miss it, most likely.
Bot spotting is incredibily easy. The follow a very strict pattern and do it for hours. Humans cannot do that.
Their movements just /look/ funny.
I think the best bet is educating the public about botting and what to look for.
As well as the dangers of buying gold or matts, and how the act of doing so could lead to identity theft, trojans.. and even the hacking of your account for the purpose of botting.
“even more” post it in one of the other 100 threads…
Im just going to quote myself from something i posted 30 min ago
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And because they do litterally nothing with the reports they nerf rangers down , again and again.
how hard is it to make a consumeable item , shows a list off “active” players ingame , you select the name of the botter and they will get a message to popup , kinda like a human verification
Would be a limited consumeable per day / or just for higher leveled player (prevent abusement)
if they fail to answer the verification, kick and freeze account+send logs what they have been doing for the last…. hour
There you go Anet , i just fixed your issue with bots
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