[UI] To help reduce botting

I will be brutally honest - the sheer expense of things in this game fuels cheating in the form of botting on aliens and bonus boxes.

This cheating combined with the pricing out of the game of the core regular small spending players has hit population numbers across all servers.

BP, you only have yourself to blame for this with your ridiculous over-pricing on everything.

Now you are looking to merge servers which is not going to solve your population problems for the long term when players will still cheat and you let them and while new players will come and go after a few weeks because they see they cannot get anywhere without spending an excessive amount of money OR time every day to get things and they are not willing to do either so they quit to never return.

There are players on GB1 and GB2 who have botted their way to UFE and they are still allowed to use those accounts and benefit from their stolen UFE status and keep stealing gates and upgrades while BP wants to talk about fairness. Maybe BP should pick up a dictionary and look up the word fairness.

Is it fair that players have been allowed to bot their way to ufe status and permanently benefit from that status by keeping everything their botting has helped them obtained because you wil not strip them of all those stolen items?

Is it fair that players still frequently bot but not enough to be detected by the script for which their punishment is still nothing more than a slap on the wrist with a short ban and a loss of a small amount of meaningless points if they ever do get caught?

Is it fair that you collectively punish innocent players with an increase in spins for building gates while cheaters benefit from stolen spins and uridium to keep stealing more gates?

So let us talk fairness BP because this is not fair on any level to us honest players whether we spend or play for free they such players seem to be allowed to cheat and permanently benefit from it.

You sit around the board room table scratching your heads wondering why people do not want to play your game when the answers are staring you in the face – blatant over-pricing, poor value for money, poor value for uridium and persistent cheating that is treated and punished so leniently because you are desperate for active players now that you have made the rookie mistake for the last 7 years of pricing your core regular small spending players out of the game.

Below is something to help reduce the botting to some degree.

Caught botting just once:

You lose 100% of everything from your account;

All points reduced to zero - rank reduced back down to basic pilot or whatever the starting rank is for new players.

All ship/alien kills reduced to zero.

All ammo, ships/designs, drones/designs, bio/player points taken away, everything gone.

Such players are then permanently denied access to galaxy gates and upgrades on that account forever so no more building gates and no more upgrading anything on that account.

I have seen players bot on palla too and they still do which is why it is essential to take away access to galaxy gates and upgrades because they are stealing gates for the rewards including the uridium for upgrades and other things.

No doubt some players will still bot for uridium to get booty keys etc. but in fairness to all the honest players these cheating players will never be allowed to keep stealing gates and upgrades despite still being able to steal equipment, log disks and other things from booty chests.

So if a player persists in botting on this account after being caught that first time then the second time sees the deletion of that account.

No more being lenient with short-term bans and a small loss of points while they keep 100% of everything else their cheating has helped them obtain. It is time to get tough and punish cheating.

Yes BP you can still allow such cheating players to stay on the server with a new account but the same applies if they bot on any account - they lose access to galaxy gates and upgrades which is their primary reason for botting while keeping things fair for us honest players.

I know the upper management have already received this recommendation due to my status in the real world but I think all the honest players should see that there are more aggressive options available for dealing with and hopefully deterring some botting.

I ALREADY KNOW ALL THE CHEATERS WILL OPPOSE THIS NEW MORE AGGRESSIVE METHOD OF DEALING WITH THEIR CHEATING.

 

Agree 100%

 

Okay so I have commented on this in other Bot and Cheat Threads. @Baracas said in the December 11th Twitch Stream that there is a Merry X'mas gift set aside for these particular players. WE THE HONEST Players will see a decrease in these CHEATERS soon. They know we are fed up with them and that we do not want them in the game. They are aware of who they are and they have every intention of removing them, just currently do not want to allow them to know they are on the list and create NEW (unknown accounts) before the stop gap (merger) has been implemented.

I personally feel any person who has had one account played as a BOT should have the IP address banned from ever opening another B P account, but this is just my feelings about cheaters, once a cheater always a cheater and I do not like to be cheated out of my stress relief or pleasure.

 

i got banned years ago on zeta gate glitch 30 days i got and i am so glad i got banned because i grew up and i now play the game fair and square there is no place in this game for bots scripts or any kind of unfair advantage

 

Exploiting a glitch is not the same as buying a third party program to gain an advantage from the game not actually in the game. There should be punishments for those who find and use these glitches just because they are there but again this is an error created by the TEAM not someone making money to cheat B P from collecting theirs. So YES temp ban for exploiting the errors, IP ban for BOUGHT third party software.

 

i agree so y did they ban me for bad programing they should have thanked us for glitch and rewarded us that got done not the other way it cost in the day way loads of money and pp to get nearly fe .we had to wait sat or sunday for mhh now its on every other day

 

You did choose to use the glitch to gain a benefit. You could have chosen to NOT continue to use it after you found it. Besides it was only 30 days. The question I have to ask is, how much did you gain from exploiting the glitch that they did not take away from you?

 

Maybe if they add more ways to farm uridium, maybe if they introduced new npc's that give out more uridium since the game is not the same as when it was first created and things cost a lot more uridium now , maybe if you reduced the prices of your currency since you get 100% profits from it, and maybe, just maybe then when people would have a more playing field people would chose not to use a bot.

 

gained nothing really lost pp honour

 

Was that from the PUNISHMENT? I was not able to play (work and wifi stunk) when they first launched the new gates (Zeta) and assume the glitch was just like the Kuiper Gate issue where you got something extra every time you completed the gate (200 K Uridium rings a bell for Kuiper and nothing was done about this exploited issue). I know I enjoyed the game much more as an FE pilot who just had to work on PP's to be one of the ELITE players and was able to withstand most battles except the well known few who spread fear into anyone who saw them (12 v 1 battles might finally kill them) but you knew you had a good chance of dieing when you heard they were in the maps.

 

yeh will never ever use a glitch again regards andy

 

While i too don't like the cheaters, i must say what you wrote sounds hilariously naive. You can compare it to walking down the street and someone accidentally drops money on the floor and walks off, do you or don't you pick up the money and keep it? I know i would.
Back when the LoW gate bugg was possible, i will admit that i thought about doing that because it would be easy uridium, but i just wasn't strong enough to do it, i was just a starting pilot in a BigBoy ship, so no way in **** that i could do that.


The point is (and i realize i'm playing the advocate of the devil here) if you can, and thee seems to be no repercussions , then why the **** not do it?, it's not like you will get a reward or a pad on the shoulders because you didn't 'break the law', good behavior is ignored, bad behavior is punished

 

oh i just got a rush of nostalgia when reading this, i remember that feeling when a 'strong player' invaded the map, we would always run and hide if we could, there weren't many who could instill that much fear, but it was fun to remember their names, now any pilot could be overpowered, you can't tell anymore from the rank

 

Yes I would do it once, but I would not go back every chance to do the same thing multiple times, like most glitch exploiters. I also was not strong enough to be able to run the Kuiper gate even though I knew it was giving everyone 200K Uridium for a ship reward they were not being given as we saw it on the TEST SERVER and nothing was changed when they launched it, this is the reason no one was punished for it as the TEAM knew it was there and did nothing to correct it.

It all comes down to conscience, IF you have a good morale compass you follow the RIGHT path, if not then you follow the path of a cheater taking the easy path.

Yes names like "General Cave" ChurchofBob" MatchBox" (US West/US2) always made people run for the portals and DMZ's so they could try to collect the easy kill when they came to exit the map as they were probably low on health by then, since the AJP was not around, yet, of course you were KOS after getting the cheap shot kill. But the game was much more enjoyable back then.

 

The cost of the game has increased significantly but the rewards from aliens has not increased with it. Streuners in x1 and x2 maps for example could pay out 5u and increase other aliens respectively. The game does not really need more new aliens, just better pay outs in uri from the existing ones and better pay outs in uri from alien quests.

I have always thought BP could have put some boss cubes in x7 maps or put normal cubes in x7 maps also and introduce a thing where in x6 and x7 maps if all the cubes get popped before one re-spawns it summons a boss cube.

At the same time anyone caught botting can have their account hit with a permanent "levy" that sees them earn 1u or 0.5u per alien kill no matter what the alien as ultimately players are botting in maps that can earn them a lot of uri and I have seen players botting in 4-5.

It is kind of ironic that BP introduce all this pointless and over-priced stuff to drive revenue yet all they do is price players out of their game as they fail to understand that their core players earn under £25K per year and cannot afford to spend today on the game what they might have spent in 2008/09 or even 2010 before upgrades came out.

The palla exchange rate should be dropped to 10 palla per spin, or 7/8 palla per spin to be a bit more generous, as it is a lot of work for very little spins at the current exchange rate. Anyone who bots pally should not be allowed to exchange it for spins.

One thing that made me laugh is BP asking what was £20 for 1,500 galaxy spins from the shop. Sorry BP, not having it. Make it 50,000 spins for £5 then I'll buy them.

And all this £8.99 for 10 booty keys and the ridiculous over-pricing beyond that. Not worth it. Make it 200 keys for £9.99 and you have yourself a better value for money deal.

Cost of buying uri is ridiculous too. If anything you would encourage more spending on the game if it cost £40.00 for 350,000.

A lot can be done to improve things but the ridiculous over-pricing and cheating needs to be dealt with.

If BP wants to save the game and encourage spending then they need to adjust their price structuring with reductions across the board providing better value for money and better value for uri too while increasing uri pay outs from aliens.

All BP has done since 2010 is drive countless thousands of players out of the game leaving the game in the terrible position it is now with low population numbers for which cheating has also played a major role in making players quit because they are not going to graft for long hours to get things for free or spend small amounts regularly while players are being allowed to cheat and steal with lenient punihsments.

 

And then we see when again the wallet warriors rule the DarkOrbit and has no competition at all, you're basically getting these things "free" after that and you don't need to see any effort to make yourself UFE. Just no. I don't know how many times I need to repeat this, but this game is made for grinding and not for stuff like that. 50,000 extra energies = 5 000 000 Uridium..., you're going to absolute madness with these things. You're making these items losing their value, regarding that again, you can't get with Palladium same amount unless the EE / Palla exchange ratio is 1:1.

The same goes for booty keys. I agree they are overpriced, but yet you're making these items again losing their value. What's the fun when everyone can just invest few bucks and tada you have UFE?

And then we have an infinite loop hole doing absolutely nothing. They create a new account and start botting from 0 like nothing has happened.

 

Agree and Disagree with you

Agree on the Wallet warriors and botters are winning this game.
But few bucks to become UFE. I disagree
It is a lot of bucks or a lot of time and some bucks.

DO is expensive in time or money

 

I mean, after those updates it is just that one time 50k ee and basically you're UFE. So it wouldn't make any sense lol.

 

The 50,000 is a typo, I meant 5,000 spins and in all fairness you will still only be able to get this offer once per month which at the same time would encourage some non-spending players to buy some and encourage players like myself to buy some too. It could be a good revenue driver for BP once per month.

1,500 spins for £20 is a joke when that will barely get you one and a half alpha's built if you're lucky on parts/spins. I've gone through 1,000 spins just to get one part to complete a gate and I feel ripped off for it because I am being unfairly punished on spins/parts for what botters do.

Obviously though some players are happy to be ripped off for excessively over priced items while players like me never bother with such nonsense because we refuse to pay it anyway because we know the paid for booty offers extremely poor value.

I may come on for two hours or an hour and collect boxes while grinding aliens, or collect palla while adding more pirates to my on-going quests and I spend a little here and there to help me along while other players are botting their way to millions in uri by stealing gates.

The wallets will always dominate regardless of anything however it is about making the game more affordable for other players with lesser incomes who are the core players and whom also do not have the time to spend grinding away because they have lives unlike some people who are happy to have no life and sit in front of a computer all day if not working/no school or come in from work and then spend the next 6 hours playing the game then going to bed every day.

Thousands of players like myself are not going to spend all our spare time playing this game to grind away collecting boxes, palla or popping cubes or other poor paying aliens - we have lives that we prefer living.

Then you have players who may be like me and may buy uri once per month on the 400% helix but we're only buying the £22.49 or £45 option and players like me used to buy the £35 option one per week or once per fortnight before upgrades came out and back when there was only 3 and then 4 gates!

Botters will always dominate too hence why botters need more harsh punishments in denying them access to galaxy gates, upgrades, exchanging palla for spins while also hitting them with a levy on their accounts to reduce the uri they can steal from alien kills so they only earn 1u or 0.5u per kill while also reducing the ep/honour they can steal by reducing this to 1hon/1ep per kill too.

Botters can also have a similar levy applied to their bonus box collecting if BP are not prepared to prevent them from collecting boxes altogether so a levy system where they can only ever collect 1u from a box or 1 laser round etc. would be ideal no matter if they use pet protocols or have doublers the levy cancels it out to reduce their stealing.

People do expect to work in games to achieve things but in DO it is ridiculously hard work for very little gains bit by bit unless you have no life and can grind away at the game like some folk do.

With the cost of building gates now and the sheer cost of upgrades it puts people off because they won't spend money and they won't spend the time grinding because they prefer having a life yet if things were cheaper and offered better value they might be more inclined to spend and new players might be more inclined to stick around and a spend a little too.

The value of items is meaningless if you are pricing your core regular small spending players out of the game who are on lesser incomes and can no longer afford to spend what they were back before upgrades etc. were added to the game.

BP needs to accept that their core audience is not people earing £60,000+ per year. Their core market, for GB servers in particular and most likely a lot of other servers, is players earning on average under £20k per year with the next core above that being players earning £21k-£27k per year for which they would still struggle to pay what is now £45 per week or fortnight for uri that was £35 and was still over-priced back then.

This is the core market BP have now priced out of their game while other players cheat their way to everything and get to keep it all until the account gets deleted because they persist in cheating or they still manage to hold on to the account and everything that they have stolen with the account never being deleted.

My suggestions are all about making the game more affordable to the more common lower wage brackets that are BP's core audience that they have now priced out of their game while cheating persists leaving the game in the terrible position it is in now due to low population numbers because of over-pricing and cheating.

Players are sitting their whining about population numbers on servers now when ultimately the only way you will ever fix that is by doing the following:

1: Address the ridiculous over-pricing of everything which will bring back some old players who have quit and encourage new players to stay and spend also while encouraging more spending from players like myself.

2: Start punishing cheaters instead of letting them cheat and keep everything without fear of proper repercussions while the above fuels the cheating anyway.

If BP and its owners are not going to address the over-pricing then the game will die anyway and then all those players that do play for free because they have the time to sit their grinding for hours on end every day will have no game to play at all because players like me will continue to get fed up of the over-pricing and the going unpunished cheating and quit.

New players will continue to come and go quitting within the first week or two like they currently do and revenues will drop even further until it is not financially viable to keep the "new merged" servers going.

BP will then get desperate introducing more over-priced rubbish making more paying players quit and merge servers again in the future as populations keep dropping until the game is eventually put out of its misery and shut down.

 

Honestly, this is more complaining than a suggestion. The way you make your paragraphs makes it really difficult to read too, at least for me.

There's nothing you, me or any other DarkOrbit player can do about this. All we can do is wait for Bigpoint to get rid of these game destroying cheaters. They do not allow them, but they do not want to risk banning innocent players which is understandable.

Account botting is really not even all that beneficial. Yeah, they bot to UFE status. But that takes a really long time and they aren't even playing the game during that time, on top of that it just means there are more people to fight within the game. I'm not being funny but, I hate botters as much as the next dude; but acting as if they are what makes this game unbalanced just simply isn't true. CBS, Formations and other PvP tweaks would satisfy me way more than "guys, we've made the game EVEN more dead by banning players who just bot".

Instead of banning the bots, they should just create it so using a bot is impossible.