Suggestions Against Bots

[Dracconus]

You're entirely right, Vynnx, and I too was under the presumption that most of these were in place, but the proof is in the proverbial pudding.  There's absolutely no way that these files are being treated with the care that they should if hacks are being developed and working THIS well three months-ish into the public release of the game.  It's an obvious sign of negligence that people in my former field seek to take advantage of.

Honestly the thing that I was hoping would strike the proverbial chord was the fact that I stated "I Know what hacks are being used, I know what methods they use, and I know how to stop them."
Guess in the end it's like Domriana said "There's been a disassociation, and it doesn't matter how well thought out a plan of action is, they're going to neglect it and shove it aside for later reading when they run out of "fresh ideas"."  So sad to think that this is the exact type of negligence that caused me to start hacking to begin with :/  Perhaps if companies cared more about their financial well-standing in the long haul people with advanced product knowledge such as myself wouldn't be so inclined as to create systematic approaches...
But of course...common logic isn't common anymore, so why would they consider that...

naturally these quotes are paraphrased, but I'm sure we all knew the intent upon issuance of statement.

[Fuko]

NCSoft – World's Premier Publisher of MMO Games

You are trying to make a push to expand the Korean MMO market to the West, and yet the only thing people are going to remember about "Korean MMOs" is bot takeover?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not here because I want this game to fail. I love this game, which is why I don't understand why anyone would sour the entire "Korean MMO" name. As an exclusively MMO company, how can one be so unprepared for the damages of RMT and botting?

Do you realize how many people have left because of the bots? You can't have fun in Arena. Various means to make money is no longer profitable (For players it feels like a hand picker competing in the same market as 800 ton yield combine harvesters). But important as well is the feeling of indifference and abandonment. Like a school where everybody around you is visibly cheating, how does the honest student feel? Yet everyone has the mindset "there's nothing they can do about it".

Botters are humans who will take the path of least resistance and highest profit.

By leaving BnS one of the most easily profitable and exploitable RMT games around, design and enforcement wise, you create your own locust swarm. A sheep farm in wolf country where the farmer doesn't have a gun. By not sending a tough enough message, you emboldened the wolves to the point where they laugh at you by spamming your forums.

Design Solutions:
Strict daily limits (Like FFXIV) that limit the daily return for automated farming. After 15 matches, the Zen Beans you get for winning or losing becomes 0. Have daily limits for everything, where World Bosses no longer drop loot after 10 kills, where dungeon runs no longer give the reward chests/boss drops after 10 runs (An entire market page of 100 stacks of Hogdonny rings for 1s each? That botter earned 200 tears for every stack on that page). These numbers for run limits are just examples, but reasonable daily limits should be built into anything that provides profit. This is standard now in MMO design.

Human Enforcement Solutions:

I get it, police are expensive. But without police everyone gets robbed.Which government makes more money per capita? A government with an active police force, or a government who decided to "save money" by not having law enforcement? Now that the players have left, how much did you save in the end?

Tera, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2 (Games I've personally played), in none of those games was botting at this level. Botting especially shouldn't overrun critical gameplay aspects like Arena. GW2 is even from NCSoft, and that game had far stronger GM enforcement, so what is going on?

For a "push to expand the Korean MMO market to the West", it doesn't help if you sour the name of "Korean MMO" with corporate indifference and lawlessness.

You should be implementing both Design Solutions and Human Enforcement Solutions already. This is what people expected.

Just as you could not have "automated police" in real life, how could you expect that to work against the tech savvy people doing RMT? Having no design solutions planned and no human enforcement solutions implemented, while telling people you're working on a magical robo-cop...

Just as that wouldn't work in real life, it wouldn't work here. You're going to make people run away from the name "Korean MMO" as bot-infested and minimal-investment. Please think about implementing some Design and Human Enforcement Solutions besides just automation. This minimal investment solution does not do the "Korean MMO" name any good.

[Zyckness]

i agree with you, but dont think they dont know "how much players left" they are a really big company, they dont want to lose money and they wont lose any.

[Lurkios]

38 minutes ago, Fuko said:

Strict daily limits (Like FFXIV) that limit the daily return for automated farming. After 15 matches, the Zen Beans you get for winning or losing becomes 0. Have daily limits for everything, where World Bosses no longer drop loot after 10 kills, where dungeon runs no longer give the reward chests/boss drops after 10 runs (An entire market page of 100 stacks of Hogdonny rings for 1s each? That botter earned 200 tears for every stack on that page). These numbers for run limits are just examples, but reasonable daily limits should be built into anything that provides profit. This is standard now in MMO design.

 

I disagree with this entirely. One of my favorite things about B&S is that I can do these things to my hearts desire without the game telling me I'm not allowed to progress any further. A game designed not to be played is absolutely pointless.

[rocdog]

This critique is not really more advanced than all the other critiques.  No new points, and one obvious failure of logic.*

 

*The rings come from the dynamic quest box the bots get just for standing at the spawn.  They don't get tears just for doing that.

[Devianne]

first of gw2 is published by nc. developed by anet thats a huge difference. another important aspect of this botting is that they will always be there regardless. its a never ending battle which simply cannot be won but certainly controlled. 

 

BnS is quite old compared to more modern mmos. As an example ill take BDO for now: everyone said it will be bot free. cause its not possible to trade currency in this game. They fixed the marketplace allowing only a certain price margin. this is all to prevent/controll botting and yet... look at this:

 

Bot spam in BDO

 

That being said i find imo as chief developer that ncwest is doing all they CAN do. the difference from nc to anet is that anet "usually" fixes on the fly whereas we have to wait for clearance from BnS KR etc blabla. Its a slow process.

 

Another aspect or well suggestion ppl give is banning all weird named chars. Yea this could technically be done but would also affect innocent ppl so no this wouldnt work. One more thing id like to touch is the myth of nc allowing bots because they are premium members and bring in cash for nc. this is utter trash and pure speculation. I highly doubt that nc ALLOWS bots to function cuz they bring money. Just wait. Be patient and eventually we will have it at least under control. BDO is having a hard time with bots too.

 

That being said id love if ppl would understand that bots will not just vanish from 1 day to the other. its a slow process and will NEVER get rid of all bots. 

 

PS: no im not a white knight i just dislike ppl spreading misinfo without having a clue what they are talking about

[Goji]

Making the game pay to own is the only way to really mitigate the bot situation.  As it stands right now bans are completely meaningless and only serve to annoy the legit players that get caught up in gameguards imprecise automated sweeps.  If you have to repurchase the game every time you're banned botting loses it's profitability for the casual 'cheaters' that comprise most of the bots we see, and it slows down the gold selling companies. 

 

Other than that I think creative ways to keep them out of group and arena queues are the best solution.  Maybe a simple bot test every 5-10 queues; it'll stop the casual cheaters and unsophisticated botting scripts.  Or, a more complicated solution is to make sure that nothing that translates to tradeable currency is available in groupfinder or Arena.  Make both of those avenues of advancement completely bind-on-pickup. 

[Ninfu]

1 hour ago, Fuko said:

Human Enforcement Solutions:

 

 

Tera, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2 (Games I've personally played), in none of those games was botting at this level. Botting especially shouldn't overrun critical gameplay aspects like Arena. GW2 is even from NCSoft, and that game had far stronger GM enforcement, so what is going on?

Do you seriously think that FFXIV is not infested with bots? :DDDDD Sry but i know several friends which have been botting with 5-10 accounts for over year now without getting themselves banned neither for RMT or Botting. So yeah and FFXIV still does not have any sort of anticheat running tho GG is not better its actually worse but anyway.

[rocdog]

7 minutes ago, Devianne said:

first of gw2 is published by nc. developed by anet thats a huge difference. another important aspect of this botting is that they will always be there regardless. its a never ending battle which simply cannot be won but certainly controlled. 

 

BnS is quite old compared to more modern mmos. As an example ill take BDO for now: everyone said it will be bot free. cause its not possible to trade currency in this game. They fixed the marketplace allowing only a certain price margin. this is all to prevent/controll botting and yet... look at this:

 

Bot spam in BDO

 

That being said i find imo as chief developer that ncwest is doing all they CAN do. the difference from nc to anet is that anet "usually" fixes on the fly whereas we have to wait for clearance from BnS KR etc blabla. Its a slow process.

 

Another aspect or well suggestion ppl give is banning all weird named chars. Yea this could technically be done but would also affect innocent ppl so no this wouldnt work. One more thing id like to touch is the myth of nc allowing bots because they are premium members and bring in cash for nc. this is utter trash and pure speculation. I highly doubt that nc ALLOWS bots to function cuz they bring money. Just wait. Be patient and eventually we will have it at least under control. BDO is having a hard time with bots too.

 

That being said id love if ppl would understand that bots will not just vanish from 1 day to the other. its a slow process and will NEVER get rid of all bots. 

 

PS: no im not a white knight i just dislike ppl spreading misinfo without having a clue what they are talking about

 

Pay to own, or B2P doesn't solve the problem.   BDO, to name a current example, is B2P, and they have bots.   RMT companies will use stolen CC to get around paywalls.

[Eckin]

Or they could just come out and say "yeah we can't add vote-kick without sending the idea first to korea that's why its taking 2 months to add this basic feature".

 

Instead they go "uuuuuuhhh but people will ABUSE IT!!!!!11" even tho its the only way to feel empowered to combat the CURRENT abuse.

[fifteenspades]

~Made a ticket about a suggestion to stopping Arena Bots, was told a forum post would be an ideal place to post this so here we go~

 

Hello I am writing to advise you of a temporary fix to Arena Botting. The only reason Arena Bots exist is because they can buy Soulstones and sell them for profit, however making them bound would only annoy real players so that is NOT a solution. That said to buy Soulstones you need 2k beans and 1 small Dragon Certificate. To obtain the Dragon Certificate you have to run dungeons and after beating the boss complete the quest which gets you one certificate per run. So first the bots do arena till they get the beans, then AFK in a dungeon because as long as your party kills the end boss you get credit. The Soulstones from Beans are not the issue, it's the Dragon Certificates. Instead of getting the Certificates from the box upon quest completion instead make them a Lootable drop ONLY from the end boss and make it so everyone gets one. This would stop bots from being able to obtain Certificates and in turn make botting arena pointless as such they would stop.

 

This would work because you can't AFK anymore and get the certs and bots are not sophisticated enough to actually run the dungeon and get the drops atm. It wouldn't annoy real players because nothing changes for them and the ones who complain about having to do PvE when all they want to do is PvP are already complaining so it wouldn't affect them either.

Possible problems that could come up are "Ok well the bot will just wait till the dungeon is clear and then go loot the item" so you could set the Loot chest to only appear to X range just like how Loot chest already disappears if you die and resurrect such as Blackwyrm, etc. To combat this the bots will instead be scripted to actually attempt the dungeon, but with their low gear level and lack of sophisticated scripting they can't actually survive the dungeon. The bots will need some really fancy and expensive scripting to actually survive the dungeon and at that point the cost : effort ratio probably isn't there for them.

 

Why is this easy? I've programmed and worked in game development, the only "Tricky" part if you would even call it that is implementing a way to give everyone who's in X range for lootchest a dragon certificate, but even that would only take a couple days to code and a few days of testing to make sure it works. Dragon Certificate ID already exist so all you do is add the ID to the loot table of the chest, nothing too complicated.

 

TLDR : If you take away the bots ability to obtain Small Dragon Certificates you make Arena botting profitless for them and they WILL stop until they can code a better script which is going to take awhile.

 

Hopefully someone reads this and passes it on to higher management for consideration it would please your playerbase greatly and a boost in the PR department always helps. Thanks for your time~

[Devianne]

only permitting the ppl that did x% dmg to bosses / mobs should get loot. that would theoretically work for a bit until the bots start following grp members doing autoattacks to mobs / bosses :/

[Ninfu]

7 minutes ago, Eckin said:

Or they could just come out and say "yeah we can't add vote-kick without sending the idea first to korea that's why its taking 2 months to add this basic feature".

 

Instead they go "uuuuuuhhh but people will ABUSE IT!!!!!11" even tho its the only way to feel empowered to combat the CURRENT abuse.

Well thats how it is. Pretty much everything goes by korea.

[Devianne]

Just now, Ninfu said:

Well thats how it is. Pretty much everything goes by korea.

 

hows the bot situation there actually? in korea i mean

[Ninfu]

Just now, Devianne said:

 

hows the bot situation there actually? in korea i mean

Infested like in any other region :)

[Dracconus]

3 hours ago, fifteenspades said:

~Made a ticket about a suggestion to stopping Arena Bots, was told a forum post would be an ideal place to post this so here we go~

 

Hello I am writing to advise you of a temporary fix to Arena Botting. The only reason Arena Bots exist is because they can buy Soulstones and sell them for profit, however making them bound would only annoy real players so that is NOT a solution. That said to buy Soulstones you need 2k beans and 1 small Dragon Certificate. To obtain the Dragon Certificate you have to run dungeons and after beating the boss complete the quest which gets you one certificate per run. So first the bots do arena till they get the beans, then AFK in a dungeon because as long as your party kills the end boss you get credit. The Soulstones from Beans are not the issue, it's the Dragon Certificates. Instead of getting the Certificates from the box upon quest completion instead make them a Lootable drop ONLY from the end boss and make it so everyone gets one. This would stop bots from being able to obtain Certificates and in turn make botting arena pointless as such they would stop.

 

This would work because you can't AFK anymore and get the certs and bots are not sophisticated enough to actually run the dungeon and get the drops atm. It wouldn't annoy real players because nothing changes for them and the ones who complain about having to do PvE when all they want to do is PvP are already complaining so it wouldn't affect them either.

Possible problems that could come up are "Ok well the bot will just wait till the dungeon is clear and then go loot the item" so you could set the Loot chest to only appear to X range just like how Loot chest already disappears if you die and resurrect such as Blackwyrm, etc. To combat this the bots will instead be scripted to actually attempt the dungeon, but with their low gear level and lack of sophisticated scripting they can't actually survive the dungeon. The bots will need some really fancy and expensive scripting to actually survive the dungeon and at that point the cost : effort ratio probably isn't there for them.

 

Why is this easy? I've programmed and worked in game development, the only "Tricky" part if you would even call it that is implementing a way to give everyone who's in X range for lootchest a dragon certificate, but even that would only take a couple days to code and a few days of testing to make sure it works. Dragon Certificate ID already exist so all you do is add the ID to the loot table of the chest, nothing too complicated.

 

TLDR : If you take away the bots ability to obtain Small Dragon Certificates you make Arena botting profitless for them and they WILL stop until they can code a better script which is going to take awhile.

 

Hopefully someone reads this and passes it on to higher management for consideration it would please your playerbase greatly and a boost in the PR department always helps. Thanks for your time~

I'm having a REALLY difficult time believing that you've worked in game development (That is to say, that you've worked in anything related to MMO Development particularly.)

Here's why:
1.  Any true developer wouldn't even waste their time implementing something that they know is just going to be a bandaid over a ruptured artery.
    Suggesting a "temporary fix" is not very useful, and is not only a complete waste of time, but just makes the company, and yourself and product look horrible.  That'd be like a computer technician saying "Okay, you're all fixed up!  But...I ran out of Thermal Interface Material, so I used flour instead.  It will only work for about twelve hours, but you'll be fine until then."

2.  Your "fix" isn't even logical You're saying that "It doesn't take some "really fancy and expensive scripting" to fight the boss in ANY of these dungeons, because the developer of three of the bots that are on the market are utilizing memory editing and are actually manipulating the game directly.  They're not some script kiddie half-cocked BS.  Also
3.  There is no "fancy coding" necessary to botting, or hacking for that matter.  Ninety percent of the time it's as simple as unlocking access to a special console, or script file, or LUA engine that resides within the games external engine allowing you to control mob placement, character spawn points, and much much more.
4.  If these bots begin utilizing the hacks that are about a week away from being discovered (given the rate of progression) and the aforementioned exploit that i had a player report yesterday.)  then we could easily within as little as a week (if it's possible to manipulate the exploit) see bots not only RUNNING dungeons, but SOLO'ING them, and doing so in nano time compared to player ability.
Let's be clear on one thing.  Any bot that can actually go grind mobs for you in an OPEN world environment, where things spawn randomly, and aren't just static values in the location of a dungeon - That's memory manipulation.

5.  You just said that this would require some super fancy code, yet now you're claiming it's "easy"  Stating further that the "Tricky part if you would even call if that, is implementing a way to give everyone who's in "X" range for a loot chaest a dragon certificate, but even that would take a couple of days to code."  
Uhmm....no...that would take about 25 minutes to code...if that.  Having the chest show up is as simple as what they've done with end-game world bosses.  If you don't do "X" damage you don't get loot.  Further elaborating on that, calculating distance, and damage done to a boss - damage done to a boss, which is in the game already, has already been done, as has distance factoring.
6.  "TLDR; If you take away the bots ability to obtain small dragon certificates you make arena botting profitless and they WILL stop until they can code a better script"
Cool...so we'll see them in like what?  Six hours?  Also, that would only solve the issue for ARENA, which would not be hard to work around for gold making, obviously, seeing as bots are not just in the arena, now are they?

I'm not trying to be rude, crass, or start some proverbial troll war, I'm just saying that as a developer that has already given NCSoft code, and code examples for several of the suggestions I've brought to them - I personally feel that your post, as well as a few before yours are useless, non-suggestive, and a complete waste of space.  
There are already a list of nearly 20 ways to deal with the bots, and hacks, that companies have used against myself, and other hack, and bot developers that I know, that was stated by me that your wall of text, and the one I just had to type in response to it - have now completely pushed to a different page that probably won't get read.  

[CorrupteD]

The post has been updated with a new suggestions from Dracconus

[Malh]

okay this post seems to be getting more and more suggestions by the hour some of them are good and some  are questionable. but i have a question that maybe you guys can answer

 

most of the companies have a team in charge of security against hacks, bots, and every other aspect. but ncsoft doesnt seem to have this cause until now the only way they ban bots or exploiters is if other players report them with videos or pics, basically with evidence, so my question is

 

is this because they have a third party company(gameguard) doing this for them?

 

[Alysha Hawkeye]

Actually, I think the change for Dragon Certificate to deal with bots is quite good, and seem easier to implement then trying to make soulbound soulstones.

 

If we block out the Certificate rewards from the big four-dungeon dailies (give them to harder quests like purple dungeons and Mushin Tower) and make them bound to account, we can somehow stop arena bots who need the certificate to exchange for soulstones. Maybe not every bot, but at least the new bots who have not yet earned any of the certificate, and the only way for them to earn it is doing purple dungeons, which are currently no place for bots. Meanwhile, the bots with certificates will diminish due to ban waves and bot reports.

[CorrupteD]

14 hours ago, Alysha Hawkeye said:

Actually, I think the change for Dragon Certificate to deal with bots is quite good, and seem easier to implement then trying to make soulbound soulstones.

 

If we block out the Certificate rewards from the big four-dungeon dailies (give them to harder quests like purple dungeons and Mushin Tower) and make them bound to account, we can somehow stop arena bots who need the certificate to exchange for soulstones. Maybe not every bot, but at least the new bots who have not yet earned any of the certificate, and the only way for them to earn it is doing purple dungeons, which are currently no place for bots. Meanwhile, the bots with certificates will diminish due to ban waves and bot reports.

this could help a little but it isnt good enough, bots will still be doing the 4 blue dungeons for the 20+ silver they get from bids we need changes that will help us avoid them in a more efficient way

[Karrynka]

I do have a suggestion to stop botting altogether, but it just won't happen. The solution would be drastic, just as proportional to the severity of abuse level that B&S suffers from. The main reason as to why bots work, beyond the technicalities of the game's files and code (which apparently has more in common with Swiss cheese than anything else), is because it generates Gold for the user, obviously. In return, it screws up the game's economy.

 

So what would be my solution? Remove the Marketplace, and remove ALL in-game trading, Diablo 3 style. I KNOW it will never happen, but it WOULD work, 100% guaranteed.

 

To compensate for the removal of in-game trading between players, we would have a revised drops system. Not to mention that, of course, the Bidding system would also be removed, and be either 1) Replaced by a RNG roll system, or 2) Would simply not be replaced by anything and we wouldn't have to worry about fighting for gear against players that we just cooperated with in a dungeon run.

 

º Loot drops would be individual, for each of us. For example, a boss is killed, his loot chest drops, then EVERY one needs to manually go and pick up the loot for themselves. Assuming that the Bidding system would be removed and not replaced by anything, there would be no need to "share" the drops between the party / raid members. What drops on the ground is for YOU, individually (ironically we already DO have something like that in the form of the loot box that we all receive individually at the end of a dungeon run).

º Without trading in the game, obviously many aspects of the game's resources would probably have to be revised, or even entirely redesigned to compensate for said lack of trading.

º Without trading, Crafting would probably gain even more importance on an individual basis, but would probably have to be revised as well. Such as increasing the number of different Crafting 'faction' we could join per character, and tweaking the resources needed (and costs) to craft items.

º Additionally, without trading, then it would be a perfect time (and would become essential) to have a SHARED storage for characters on the same server (and same account of course).

 

But as I said, it will never happen. However, it would work. There IS no need for in-game trading, as surprising as it may sound for many. Most MMORPGs ARE directly or indirectly favoring / encouraging individualism when it comes to character progression and personal wealth (the personal wealth part has ALWAYS been an individualistic thing, it's part of human nature and has been the case for millennia; we all want to get rich one way or another, and we don't like to share our little 'secrets' as to how we managed to). No one actually really do care about YOUR character progression instead of someone's own. No one is going to have pity because you can't bid your few Silvers on that costume drop you keep seeing but can never win because you're too poor. I know, it sounds harsh and cold, but it IS the case. Unless you happen to play with really good friends or siblings in your Guild and they don't mind sharing stuff or LETTING you win a roll on something in particular. Otherwise you're toast, because there's ALWAYS going to be someone richer than you, no matter what, and no matter how rich you THINK you are.

 

Anyone who played Diablo 3 back when trading and the Auction House was there, and then continued to play after the removal of the AH and trading in general would understand the main points I'm trying to bring here. No, it's NOT actually "fun" to see trading in a 'social game' be removed. But B&S, just like D3 (in a way), has reached a point where the goal shouldn't be to PLEASE people anymore, the "fun" apsect be damned. Now, it's a question of survival, or the game will die, it's that simple. If you guys want an "uncool / dislikable" but EFFICIENT method to get rid of bots then it's really simple; hurt the bot user's personal pocket. It's always a question of money, in the end. If you remove ALL MEANS of generating in-game incoming to bot users, if you remove ALL MEANS to destroy an economy that essentially doesn't exist anymore anyway then believe me, they will STOP using bots because there's going to be NO VIABLE REASONS to use them anymore. Fight fire with fire. You guys want to destroy the game? We'll destroy YOU before you do. It took Blizzard years and their D3 Auction House was starting to turn a gaming company into a Financial Institution for them to realize "Oh crap, guys... this is not good, let's do something about it". I applaud Blizzard for daring it. Of course, a lot of people complained, but that's normal, because they couldn't make money off of a video game for a living anymore (believe me, some did).

 

Besides, without trading and a revised drop system to compensate, you'll have to actually... oh you know.. PLAY the game to do any progression (just like D3). And if anything, if there's going to be ANY form of trading left, then just like D3 it should be limited and restricted to the items that drop during a dungeon run, and only tradeable WITHIN the dungeon BEFORE leaving it, and only between the players that are present when the items dropped.

 

There, NCSOFT, this is your ultimate solution. And believe me, I know, it will never happen.

[Dracconus]

On 3/17/2016 at 3:11 PM, Karrynka said:

 

Even as DRASTIC (and it IS) as your suggestion is.  It won't get rid of bots.
Ever played diablo 2?  No, okay, here, let me help you with this...
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=diablo+2+bots
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=diablo+2+trainer

[DuenDi]

My suggestion from my topic:

 

Make the soulstones purchased by Zen Beans untradeable.

[Smo]

All NCSoft has to do is get their own official VPN service, then region block china and block IP's from every other vpn service they can find, as well as adding the region block + IP blocks to their official VPN. That'd stop 99% of the bots from being able to connect, without having to make any changes that would negatively impact the game/players.

 

That's literally all NCSoft has to do.