They’ve responded to multiple threads you linked. Including:
Out of all these posts, I believe there was only one where no video or pictures were provided and AGS responded. Therefore, if you want them to respond post a video of the incident(s) you are mentioning and be clear and concise. It’s also very clear that their report system works on the number of reports a player receives. This is why a lot of bots you see now are on the corners of the map where only a few farmers will have noticed and reported them.
A lot of these posts are pretty old too, sometimes as far back as November of last year. AGS clearly has been getting better at removing bots. It seems like you aren’t familiar with MMOs as most will have some bots. It’s impossible to prevent someone from logging in and turning on a script. It’s a matter of how long they’re active and the effect that they have on the game. I think AGS has at least tried to minimize their effect and continue to improve on their response to bots.
I made this post back in November and have never seen a bot in Outpost Rush again. Probably because they don’t receive rewards for simply running around and also the number of reports that they got would have gotten them banned quickly.
It is very easy to track patterns (automated algorithm, no humans needed) and flag the accounts. And then for example force them to complete a captcha or anything similar that breaks the pattern of the script/bot.
I watched a YT video yesterday and the content creator came up with the conclusion “Bots are not a huge problem” Maybe not on their server but they most certainly are on mine.
So far, i have over 100 on my block list and i know there are more i havent seen.
I know there is no easy solution to this problem, bots are in every MMO out there, so they find a way around any measures taken it would seem.
Bots have been around since day 1. At first they just stood by 1 tree and chopped it when it spawned. There were a few doing this and mining rocks but never really moved around the map or fought mobs.
Today, the bots are way more sophisticated and are a far bigger menace than they used to be.
They harvest and mine absolutely everything, even tanglewisps and herbs. They use the trade post, they refine hide, fiber and ore and fight anything that comes close, including taking a swing at players.
They are sometimes hard to spot but they can be spotted if you follow them for a minute or two. This is where a GM on call would be helpful in catching them before they get past being able to cut green wood and harvest hemp.
Having said that, the one thing the bot problem has shown us, is there are not enough resources for so many people to be farming at once.
I have seen waves of bots removed either by the devs or they were transferred to another server.
I think you’re missing the argument, even posted in the threads you quoted. The canned response seems to be “report them, action will be taken” yet you can see the same bots in game for weeks after the report. We have several bots that are level 60…how is that even possible if they are reviewing each case with human eyes?
This position is really about educating players to how software developers fight such forms of cheating. Understand that it may take time, months. We like to study such forms of cheating so we can create defenses to that and prevent it large scale in the future.
Players who are complaining about bots are actually not really even arguing they are the problem, but they often don’t notice it. The problem is that they cannot access a node to farm resources.
Players should suggest game mechanics to deal with this situation, like changes on how mining is done, or interrupting mechanics for one who is in the mining process.
I Talked about this in town on voice last night. The problem with mining is that we as designers are doing the same thing over and over. Mining and resources are antiquated, ancient systems of the past. Professions are right in there and i have mentioned many times that “ags-nw does not innovate in the right places”. This is one of those places they should be innovating.
@Developer
I mentioned last night that the logic “tap node, gather resource, delete node” Is largely responsible for the inability to access resources. A solution to this maybe to violate and change this logic to something like “hit a hot key at a node, get a mini game, get a personal cd to that node”. Such things would resolve the problem at hand, namely, i can’t farm resources because of bots.
Troll: I’d still like to go with my original suggestion of being able to “punt-interrupt” people who are mining a node as a way to distrupt it, but i know after a while it will become toxic. The question is, was it worth the laughs in the mean time".
