Bots

[*Isabo*]

Good day, guys.

Been speaking with some people about man back lag, bots, the sense of the life and all ...

Just a couple of random toughts :

Man back lag showed up as a need due to people that sit on back row and bot. People still bot, man back lag is still there.
Wanna the mud to be a diferent scenario where man back lag could be removed? Do not support bots.
Im leading and a bot follow. I ungroup him but later (or another day) he do it again. And again. And again. What can I do? If you are sure he is boting, just push him to an agro mob and then ungroup him. Problem solved.
Will I be punished as pkiller if I do it? Of course, you have to be sure he is boting with no doubt. In the past, that kind of actions have been tolerated.
And, as a personal note (not speaking in the name of all immortals now), I will fully support you if you have problems due to this. Support to the point of being wiped if needed before acepting any punishment to you because of it.

Best regard.

[*Splork*]

The main emphasis for patrolling bots falls on the leader and the group itself. If a player is botting, he should be kicked out of the group and made an outcast. Also, don't be afraid to notify an Immortal and let them deal with the issue. Very seldom does a player actually get reported to us. We hear rumors and get told of situations which occur well after the fact but very rarely during.


We do not want the mud to police itself by pkilling players and every attempt should be made to deal with the situations before handling it in such a manner. Knowing that a player is botting 100% is very hard to prove and making such a decision to pkill them is a brace move.

Man back lag is not only there to deal with botters but to also force more general concentration by group members. If the main healers of a group are lagged slightly then others are forced to jump in and temporarily deal with the situation. We have made several adjustments regarding how much lag such as capping the total amount and also randomizing the number so that no two players are ever lagged the identical amount. Adjustments may still be in order...

Splork

[Dragoth]

leave us bots alone!

[element]

nice post about bots...sad that it's tolerated at all

it's not uncommon to see a group fighting a mob, with half the members just standing there, or a 3x40 cleric not healing even when tank is at 200hp.

but just one question...

how does man back lag deter bots? if anything it gives them even more excuses. "HEY I WAS MAN-BACK-LAGGED!" ....kinda along the lines of "WTF I was blasting"

I know sometimes we all have situations which crop up in RL that require our immediate attention, which may make us appear to be botting. I offer a few suggestions hence:

(1) If you join a group, and know that you're about to be called to do some work, inform leader at point of joining that you might suddenly be non-responsive and ask to be recalled if found in such a state

(2) If you need to afk for more than a few seconds, best to recall and lurk. It's bad form to hang around and sponge xp when you're not even at the computer for an extended period.

(3) Best advice is to simply not join a group if u know/think that you're not going to be able to partake in group activities

On a similar note, I've always felt that the convocation spell just encourages bots. People even complain about not having an "all up" when a portal is opened....are they THAT lazy that they can't even type wake/stand on their own? Portal bots....let's not mention those.

[Stab]

Very well stated Element. Especially reference to cleric or anyone else sitting on massive mana,no staff and things not looking good. It happens occasionally. The leader is counting on group mana and all being there when ascertaining viability for the next mob. I've found just telling the leader I need to step away briefly works just fine. I like the idea of just recalling bots, their mana is useless anyway. Maybe if one is recalled enough times it will become useless to even join unless one's ready to play. The same old excuses are worn out. The really creative will come up with new ones.. "Pkilling is not permitted." is in the rulebook. Change the rules first if selective pkilling is on the horizon.

[jezer]

I think the fact that an ethical player "risks" being punished for pkilling an accused "bot" is completely stupid. Backwards thinking! Why place the risk on the people trying to do the right thing? You need to empower players to deal with bots, you need to define criteria about these situations so a player can KNOW he is in NO RISK of punishment IF he follows certain guidelines.

Define what a bots are... ie, 1) player not responding to leader communication for x amount of seconds.
Define how many warnings you must give them if any.
Make exclusions for those who inform the leader they are briefly afk and return within the time they say.
List the penalties that can be inflicted when the rules are broken.

Splork has stated he doesn't want to deal with it, and neither do you other imms mostly... you want players to sort it out... but there are no guidelines, and no boundaries, so if a player does really deal with it, he has absolutely no protection against a botters lies when they go whining to an imm. I was just getting a drink, someone was at the door, i lost connection, dog was eating my homework.

You must be able to query the logs if necessary so a leader has a back stop for his actions. Sorry... they show you didn't inform your leader you were going afk, the leader questioned if you were there, you didn't respond. End of story. Botters aren't stupid, they do as much or as little as they can to ride things to the limit, knowing what they can and can't possibly get away with. This is why it's important to cut out the "grey areas" they hide in to try and get themselves off.

If you setup up a system, at least people know the boundaries... you can check the logs to see who was in right and wrong. We need rules and guidelines to protect the good players... don't tell em they risk punishment, brush your hands clean, and tell players to deal with it.

Once you've dealt with that, you need to think of ideas to encourage players to deal responsibly with bots. I've lost count of how many groups I've been in when we all know a player is script botting and we even joke about it over group tells, but it's in our interests not to recall them because there automatic scripts auto assist and help the group.

[*Splork*]

I don't recall ever having said that I do not want to deal with botters but what I strongly feel is that it should be managed by fellow players first.

Why do leaders, on a consistent basis, let these players join their groups? If groups would start policing themselves and making these players outcasts, they will either change their behavior or they will be playing by themselves.

As we all know, its really impossible for a good bot to be proven to be botting. This is the main reason the Immortals try to stay out of the situations and put the burden of situation on the leaders and groups. Prove to us a player is botting and we will do something. Its easier to prevent the botters from grouping then it is to prove they are botting...

Splork

[jezer]

Why do leaders, on a consistent basis, let these players join their groups? If groups would start policing themselves and making these players outcasts, they will either change their behavior or they will be playing by themselves.

Bah! Splork! You can't figure this out? Botters help groups with their auto scripts! If faced with these options what would you do?

1) Leave botter in group restoring and firewinding or auto assisting
2) Recall them and watch group run time and power drop so people leave

What if the botter is the only tank in the group? You going to recall the tank and fight on?

The truth is we LOVE powerful botters, we just wish they would pay attention. (This is the real problem)

[element]

This is one of the reasons I stopped leading/grouping almost entirely.

I make it a point to sift out the bots/afkers by constantly seeing who's not fighting mobs, and who's not casting anything. I've been kicked out of groups for pointing them out, because leaders just want to run run run without paying much attention themselves.

Once i pointed out some "worshipped" leader/tank who was tagging his own healbot around, and some people actually tried to pkill me when said player was busted by an imm.

Here's the problem, Splork. There aren't any real "botters" anymore. Just people who join a group, and pay attention maybe 1% of the time. Their excuse is always the same..."I'm lagging" "sorry dog needed attention" "wife kicked me off the computer" alwyas the same players over and over and over, but people still seem to welcome them into groups because it's "better to have them 1% of the time then never"

I have pointed out bots to several imms many times as it happens, and only once have i ever seen action taken. Most of time they just say they don't wanna get into a conversation with said player.

[Teron]

Splork, you've just said:

The main emphasis for patrolling bots falls on the leader and the group itself. If a player is botting, he should be kicked out of the group and made an outcast.

As we all know, its really impossible for a good bot to be proven to be botting. This is the main reason the Immortals try to stay out of the situations and put the burden of situation on the leaders and groups. Prove to us a player is botting and we will do something. Its easier to prevent the botters from grouping then it is to prove they are botting...

It means that the group's going to be doing all the work of detecting bots, not the imms - especially, as it's hard to do, as you said.

Would you suggest any ways to detect bots in groups?

Also, IMHO, we shouldn't make these players outcast, unless they bot 100% of the time. But as Jezer said, this rarely happens: players pay attention, let's say, 20-70% of the time, but bot the rest of it. My solution would be to recall/push them out somewhere out of the group until they return from afk. Again, as Jezer hinted, if we make everyone that bots 80-90% or those, who really went to get the door, outcasts, who would we group with?

Also, how do we define bots? Are people, who are 70-95% present at the keyboard, present or botting? It only falls into "something urgent crept up, had to afk 1-3". Of course, this is one rule to enforce, but sometimes these things happen, so the person can't write anything (ISP down or power outage, for example).

My strategy would be not to prevent grouping ([with bots] - your words), but to prevent botting itself. If a player knows he's gonna lose his pop or exp if he bots, then it's a viable variant to me. That's why I'm not ruling out pushing 100% confirmed bots to aggro mobs completely (in my time zone, it's highly likely that the always online Splork/Chobbs are AFK).

Would you suggest a way to punish botters without any imm presence besides ungrouping them? My inclination is that once you deal with them when they are at the keyboard, it'll be harder for you to see that they were botting.

Jezer, I am in the process of creating a list of ways to detect bots in groups and punishing them and running the rules against imms to see how punishable (for me) they are, unless imms actually suggest legal ways to do that here before i do publish them here.

Element, can you PM me a list of repeat bots? Thanks.

[jezer]

Jezer, I am in the process of creating a list of ways to detect bots in groups and punishing them and running the rules against imms to see how punishable (for me) they are, unless imms actually suggest legal ways to do that here before i do publish them here.

As long as bot scripting is allowed... if you are at the keyboard and paying attention, I don't see how bot detection is possible. I am reminded of an old story about the American and Russian space programs. Apparently the Americans spent a large amount of resource inventing a pen that would write in zero gravity... the Russians just used a pencil. What I'm saying is, maybe just the old grouptell 'enter portal go north and sit' is all the detection you really need, rather than a 1000 lines of automatic scripting detecting repetitions of bot scripts - which are permitted anyways if you are at the keyboard and paying attention.

I don't think it's possible to ever totally fix botting. You would need to take the selfishness out of people to do that. If you do a quick check in your mind, botters are often also the greedy ones. Botting and Greed are just different faces of selfishness. These things are heart motivations, not a lot you can do about it, other than set rules and enforce punishments.

[Thraxas]

My name is Thraxas and I bot ...

I bot pretty much all the time in groups, my bot scripts are so well developed that I have joined groups and not touched the keyboard at all in a several hour long xp run.

As I said I bot and bot a lot and bot very well, and pretty much undetectably most of the time.
My scripts can heal not only the tank but myself other members of the group that need healing, blast mobs and understand resistances, switch between healing and blasting if needed, understand my position in a healo and still float heals while keeping track of who else in the group is healing. I can track a tanks hp fairly accurately without them reporting and without looking at them or using the group command. I can move between portals and follow a group without bunny hopping after a leader or needing to respond to a gt ORTAL. My scripts will switch me in into regen gear and back out again, and always be all up'd when needed. I will recall when needed. and much much more ...

I've put a lot of work into my scripts, I've enjoyed over the last 10 years of play writing these scripts as much as I've enjoyed playing the game... having put the work into being a good groupee in this way I see no reason why I should not benefit from it.

Yes I bot, but what I dont ever do while I bot is afk, and I do pay attention to whats going on. I would highly doubt I'm on anyones list of bad groupees / common bots. There are occasions where I need to reset a script / change a script mode or respond to a gt / tell and I'm always there to do so, well not always ... sometimes in a mammoth 3hour with no breaks/regen run I do need to grab coffee or other comfort break but I always "gt afk 3 - coffee" before doing so ... perhaps I might script that as a gt if I dont touch the keyboard in 275s ...

I think the problem is not botting as such ... we all bot (hands up who dosent have an all up trigger) perhaps I do to a greater extent than most but then I've not seen your scripts so maybe I dont.

I dont consider myself to be the problem this thread relates to and yet I bot. I would suggest that the problem (if indeed there is a problem) isnt botting its afking.

The rules say no botting, if this is a serious rule it must be be detectable and enforced by the imms, if it isnt it shouldnt be a rule.
It is no good telling the players they must enforce it when there is no specific benefit to the players in fact as has been said its often detrimental to groups in most instances (thats just a cop out of a bad rule).

Perhaps as a first step to a serious solution to this there could be an afk flag that we could set / unset ourselves or by an imm.
This could prevent a player from gaining any xp / coins but allow regenning.
If this flag was then set automatically for groupees if they couldnt respond meaningfully to something random and impossible for a script to predict (erm this could be a problem) then a group afker would cease to benefit from their afking.

My name is Thraxas and I bot ... but then so do you.

T

[*Splork*]

This is not a new situation to S4 or unique in anyway to this game in general. There have always been players known to be bots and we have always attempted to deal with them the best we can, both players and Immortals.

I really do not want to see people pkilling one another and using this as an excuse. Its not worth the risk. The simple solution is to kick someone out of the group if you feel they are botting and you do not want them to, or attempt to report them to an Immortal and see if further action can be taken.

There are tons of ways to grab a players attention though. In s3, Annie and I would kick people out of the group and not let them back in for weeks, even if it was only suspected. If one of the players was below Flight with full mana, I would "accidentally" remove my protect and they would either die or be forced to heal them-self, either way they used their mana and were normally brought back to the screen. If they were not below Flight, Annie would place the bot there. If an Immortal ever wanted to say something to me, I could of easily justified the removal of the protect as an accidental key bump( pushing someone to an aggressive mob is a little harder to justify ). Instead of announcing "enter archway" in grouptells or other key things in grouptells, use say or yell. Those left behind are obviously not paying attention, kick them of the group or do this when you are about to enter a freezing room and then they are "accidently" left in a room they can die or be seriously hurt in. There are hundreds of clever ways to deter botting by the leaders in groups, if they have such an issue with it.

As I have said, the Immortals would rather see most of the burden placed on the players to deal with the situation or at least notify us when it occurs and we can do our best to deal with it. The problem is any good botter most likely has a million beeps go off on their screen if one of us ( Immortals ) does anything to try to grab their attention such as transing to jail, transing to an office, spoken to, etc.

Players continue to claim that the Immortals should check logs however once a bot is transed to my office, they can simply say they were ignoring the leader and not answering their or anyone else grouptells, tells, etc. There is nothing to prove otherwise which is exactly why its easier for an unofficial channel to kick them out of the group then it is an Immortal to remove levels or wipe someone.

I strongly realize that this is not what some people want to hear but it is the truth.

Either way, feel free to notify one of us online if something is occurring and we will investigate.

Splork

[Dragoth]

Jezer's and Thraxas's posts are very consutrctive and well argumented and i am practically in the same boat as Thraxas. In many situations i enjoy scripting more than i enjoy the game and i do not see why people who spend alot of time on their scripts and can do their job a 100% without touching a keyboard should be punished if they are never "completely" away.
Although even if they are are completely away, how are they different from someone who just types follow leader and sits there doing nothing because what he does is not important, and why should one be punished because he has a script that does something important for the group and the other should not be punished because he doesnt have any scripts but is just sponging ?

This situation is just ridiculous - Making scripts to find out bots, pushing them to aggro mobs ? You wouldnt push a player to an aggro mob if he joined your group to sponge and went afk, you just recall him or ungroup him, if you realise that he's not doing anything that is - which unless a player is important you never actually notice. But if he has a script that helps a group at the right time by doing his job you are justified to pkill him ?

Yes players that are botting 90% of their time are a problem and if you dont like what their script is doing and you have found out that they are not there you can take sensible action ( recall him, ungroup him, report him, do let him join yours groups). But it is not for you to decide that punishment, it is for the immortal staff of the game. This is not a PK mud and if you intentionally kill a player, bot or no bot - you should be punished.

[Dragoth]

And no, i dont care if the player is physically present at the keyboard. If a bot joins my group and does his job a 100%, but is not responding to tells or grouptells I will not ungroup him and i will not report him. Why ? Because i would rather have a good bot instead of a bad player in my group.

As Thraxas said, a good bot always does his job a 100% and in a mud where people join groups and think that they can do what they wish just because they are "here" i.e just sit and watch the screen - i would gladly ungroup and ignore people like that and will always welcome a fully working professionally scripted bot because it works out best for the group. But if i do find a poorly executed script that seldomly works and disrupts the progress of the group rather than help it, i will recall him and ungroup him and if i see him doing that again, i will report him