[SC] Advice from Admin about bot users

It's great to see Rick post about how DO is dealing with the removal of "bot" users. However, no one has answered my question about me sending a PM to admin so that they can look into the account of a certain player on my server.

Also, it would be nice to see the admins use their "police" ships - the old UFO's would be nicer - to roam around the servers looking for suspicious behaviour. I know that this may be time consuming, but the fact you are doing it twinned with the unknown element of when you are doing it would really give the DO community a boost in seeing you actively looking for botters. Equally, it will act as a deterrent to those that do cheat.

Any further comments and suggestions would be welcomed.

Thanks

 

Admins can't look at accounts and decide on their own if the user is a botter, neither can they fly around in ships and look at people and decide they are botters. So there is no point you asking an admin to look into another player.

They used to actually do this, when bots first started becoming somewhat popular in early 2010. However, they had to stop because regular box collecters were being watched for a few minutes and being added to the "bot list". Same goes for support teams taking in videos of botters, a player would watch another player collect boxes for a few minutes, send it in to support then the player would be banned. Faking videos of a player botting would also be very easy.

If they started that way of dealing with the situation again then the result would be the same, some actual botters would be taken care of, then as the obvious bots began to fall in numbers legit players would begin to be caught up because they somewhat resemble what a individual admin might consider to be a bot. People would be scared of boxing in fear of a mod deciding they weren't legit.

Anyone who is half decent at PvP will have been accused of cheating many many times, then there are some players who will accuse everyone, imagine if those players made their way up into the admin status. Also something that isn't considered too much, not all admin teams are as open or as honest as the EN one. All it takes is 1 admin to decide he doesn't personally like a player who is boxing / killing NPC for a while then they would have a good chance of getting that players account deleted.



So that's a few reasons why those ways of dealing with bots won't come back and why they went away in the first place. The reason the anti-bot script is used over a person is because it can collect a mountain of data to determine an account is botting, whereas a person can't spend weeks on end watching another players every move, far less thousands of them.

 

Hi Okapi,

Not sure how the first point is valid as we can all see the difference between a regular box collector and the swift movement of that of a cheater. The difference is extremely noticeable to all of those of use who have played for years.

I remember having some fights with you on GB1 many years ago when you were IsR, so don't know how you would ever be accused coz you always popped^^ Although, I would agree with you that there are admins that would use this to their advantage as you and I both know that this has happened in the past and it is therefore likely to happen in the future. However, finding the right kind admin would help.

I still find it a shame that even after this new post from Rick, the same guy on my server is still popping NPCs, he has switched from 3.7 to 3.3 on my sever at exactly the same time as I write this post. Not sure how he is getting away with it, but as I keep saying I can give admin his stats and he could simply be looked at. Can't see the difficulty in that.

Thanks

 

No, not every bot is obvious. Some of the people who make them go to great deal of effort to make it so that the bot would not be obvious unless the user was going to use it 24/7. They are in a competitive market after all.

Some are, however what happens when you get rid of the seemingly obvious ones? Your left with legit people who collect and bots that are designed to imitate them - how do you tell the difference?

As I said this has all happened before and it was removed for a reason. Funny you mention IsR actually because we had 2 player who had their accounts permanently banned for "botting" by another players video sent to support of them boxing. Only to have them given back weeks later when they were actually investigated to find out they had been boxing by hand the whole time.

Banning a few 'obvious' bots by hand then leaving it open for legit players to be confused with the rist is not worth the risk now and it wasn't 5 years ago.

The anti-bot script is not perfect, it doesn't catch everyone in one go, however in fairness it has caught something like 7000 accounts this month, which isn't exactly bad.

I can understand your frustration, however you would be far more annoyed if 6 months down the line, if this system was implemented, an admin saw you boxing or grinding out NPC kills and decided to perm ban you account because you seemed too good at it.


P.S: I did play GB1 5 years ago when I couldn't even buy premium, I have gotten better since then, had a nice 90% win rate in TA out of 400 matches before the scores got removed

 

I may agree in principle with your last point, but personally, since my game play is nominal compared to what it used to be and equally the hours and hours people spend online today I will not be worried about the last point.

Oh, and well done on improving your skills Perhaps we will meet one day in TA, but I don't like that event as in my opinion there is little skill. I much prefer the unknown element of flying in bmps who knows what or who you will find Although I wish they would bring back the 10 vs 10 TDM but that will never happen as game has changed too much.

Thanks - former vnp member

 

I would be more interested in actions being taken on the AUTO LOCKERS and GOD HACK as they are wasting our ammo trying to kill them. Yes a box botter is a pain but I fly cloaked and cover an entire map when I am collecting boxes, so does this make me a botter because I do not want to lose my cloak. The fact I do not want to be destroyed so I run to portal to jump and rep does this again make me a botter? My in-game name has 4 different players using variations of it and one of the 4 has been called out as a BOTTER in chat so that makes all four of us BOTTERS RIGHT. I do not think so and wish people would cut and paste the names instead of free typing them so you can see the difference in the names instead of just the easiest way to type it.

This being said I have stopped collecting boxes and let my PET do it instead.

 

Bigpoint is doing nothing about bot users and the guys running around making millions of uri and messing up the ranks, you state the facts and they simply delete the post!
the problem is that no one wants to step up to the plate and deal with the problem, this game is all smoke and mirrors at the moment, thy try and pull the wool over our eyes by stating insignificant figure of insignificant meaningless accounts!


[removed - If you have an issue with the mod team and wish to make a complaint, contact support]

 

I haven't experienced auto lock in 2 years , and god hack? xD wth , there's no such thing as that ,just tanky configs ,I suspect you haven;t been playing for long or you're not an experienced fighter , and no that doesn't make you a botter ,since I explain that before , I said people that are flying in the same patters , same place , 24/7 , you missing the point entirely or you just don't understand , you can collect and run ,but since I said that bot users never shoot back , or run away ,they just keep collecting , that's a bot , they keep repairing and dying again .and no , it makes people think you're a botter , you can simply change the name . or tell them to check your profile or add u as a friend to see if you are online if you want to prove to them that you're not a bot and that somebody is using your name ,think things through a bit

 

I'd say you're very very lucky then. But keep in mind that this game is not limited to few servers and the hours that one might play. Just because you don't see a problem doesn't mean it don't exist any more.
At least in my server, I face it more often and I've seen many players becoming inactive cos its useless to fight them.

And no matter what you think a bot looks like. If you make real time human screening/monitoring. This will create many problems, catching genuine players is just one of them.
You may eliminate some botters but then you'll start eliminating genuine players more. Remember, not every player needs to shoot an enemy when they're attacked, especially when cloaked and when they pop, they can rep and continue boxing (totally logical).
Ofcourse, you may eliminate 24/7 boxers but then again, not many does that any more (pretty sure most who did got ban in last few waves).

Their scripts are not perfect, and they need to keep improving it with time. But real time human monitoring is not at all a good method. Don't think it will ever happen, and it must not.

 

Well please explain how while you are running you cloak and fire a EMP Burst to break lock and the enemy continues to fire on you without interruption, wouldn't that be an AUTO LOCKER, or the player using a normal drone formation and not losing any shield or HP while being hit by 30/30 rockets, x-4 ammo (or RB or JOB) and Hellstorm Rockets and the entire time you are shooting them they are taking your shields and HP to a point where you POP, if this is not the GOD hack I would like to know what you call it (I understand the drone FORMATIONS can help with the presentation of this but not the regular formation). Both of these are still being seen and video'd in the game yet nothing is being done about them.

 

There might some one in dark orbit profiting from this, how can game get hacked so many time in such a constant way i call it as it is some one is giving out information from the inside and its affecting the game.

Been long time since they had police ships they should be running around maps banning players all they have to do is go 4-2 or 4-1 maps they find tons of players flying around in auto botting mode. have played since 2011, i dislike these bots because they are destroying the game and will continue to do so for a long time.i do not see this game ever recovering from this at all. dam shame =/

i have to agree there some auto locking going on ruins the point of buying emps that are suppose to give you an advantage

 

yeah ,which is why I didn't say ban them instantly , I said just watch them ,put them on a list , and in case something happens , you have a reference

again ,the only time something like that happened was when there was a glitch with the solance ability and you could repair somebody all the time , but even then it wasn't like you mentioned it , guys like the one you mentioned are usually caught right away , also there was one more instance ( the player got punished ) but the player got access to an ACP , the emp part ,are u sure it's not their pet shooting u after u cloack ? and what server do u play on ?

 

No it is not their PET he is not even in the picture shooting me. IT is the ship attacking me and the lock is regained almost as quickly as I EMP Burst (not dropping a mine) them. And if you can not see the signature line I play USA East 2 and WEST but mainly WEST. The GOD hack is regular GOLIATH or VENGEANCE ships where there is NO DAMAGE seen to anything on their meters (when you have lock) I do not know of anything that can be activated that prevents these meters from changing when attacked except this hack.

 

with a little reserch you can find these cheaters forums (yes i did forward it to support who already knew about it ) the bans are effecting their comunity they know they are not safe it may take time but DO wil weed out the bad ones of corse some will slip through the cracks its a shame yes but at least the hundreds are getting banned too. also once they cheat the urge is always there mabye good boxes and mabye just mabye those that got thru will be greedy

 

I meant as in where is the player playing , I saw ur sign but how am I suppose to know on which server that happens ,and their shield doesn't go down ,their hp doesn't go down ,and they have the normal drone formation ? and anyway ,these types of players will usually be the first to get caught

 

Not sure if any admin has read this thread and answered my question. There is a guy botting on my server and he has been for months and months. Your ban waves have not caught him, could I please PM you his details and just look into and monitor his account. This would really be a positive sign on your behalf.

Also, I have another question. How often do you run that script in order to catch the cheaters. I do hope it's on 24/7 and not every second Thursday of the month.

Thanks in advance

 

By the way how much often does security team check forums with cheats etc. ?? Once when I was bored at work I saw two forum one was selling accounts other one was with cheats. Maybe darkorbit should stop defending and start attacking those unfair forums and websites.

 

We have to let the detection system do it's job. I understand that can be frustrating, especially if you're watching someone keep at it, but we as the mod team cannot monitor who is or isn't botting.

The detection system is always running, it just needs to be continually updated to catch these people, as well as have the chance to obtain evidence that shows someone has botted without a shadow of a doubt.

Regards,

 

and the story continues .... i believe in fairytales XD darkorbit team too

 

Hi Solid Eye.

Thanks for your reply. It is great to know that you have stated that the detection system is always running. However, it is frightening to know that players have for months and months avoided detection - as the case of the guy on my server points too. If this guy has avoided detection it is highly probable that other players on other servers have also not been caught.

You say that the detection system seems to be continually updated. Is there a dedicated team in Hamburg that is always working on this problem? Equally, when was the last update? Posting this information to the community would be a great way of showing that DO is always working on this problem.

On your last point you make it clear that "as a mod team we cannot monitor who is or isn't botting". Unless things have changed, I am aware that there are certain admins that do have access to players accounts. I would quite happily send the information about the cheater on my server to these admin so that they can look over the account.

Thanks