By popular demand, this is the official place to discuss bot behavior and detection methods. The purpose of this thread is to better disseminate information about illegal third-party programs to help players in finding, killing, and/or avoiding them, and to alert NCsoft as necessary to new behavior. To keep the thread effective, please keep remarks concise, clear, detailed and please do try not to repeat existing information. This is NOT the format for accusing other players of botting.
Clarifications or corrections are welcome – debates are not. Unproductive posts will be removed. New threads may periodically be created to aid in readability and in keeping the information current.
Cool, I'll bite. I have a problem on Sieg at Forsaken Plains. I've already repoted the bot trains and two weeks later they are still there. Same toon leading the train (one person monitoring them all). Location is where you port in there is a cannal and the bot trains fill it up. The bad part is, if you are a royal collector those mobs drop the coins you need for A grade weapon recipes.
My solution to get around the train that cannot be banned that is killing all the mobs: I KSed the train 3 or 4 mobs straingt. The lead toon give me the universal ? and sits down. The healer in the train sits down too, then stands up, then sits down over and over. I tell him I'm going to hunt here, and that his train is full of bots.
I get no comment, the lead toon and the rest stand and start killing mobs again. I'm about to Lightning Strike him when I decided to type; gogogo leave here
That doesn't work, he kills another and I type /gm++ (after yesterdays thread on stopping bot talk I wasn't going to petition anotehr bot)
I don't see him for the rest of the night.
There's several trains there like that, you can stand on the rim and watch them below - traditional bot partys that have a person monitoring them. Don't know how NCSoft is gonna bust them if they have a person at the key board but anyone can see there is something other than a person controlling the others.
Gonna log back in just to petition them again if they are in the same spot doing the same thing as they have been for the past 2 weeks that I've noticed them. (after tonights thread, I'm going to petition all bots, again)
Well, the one's that I /GMed are not there tonight. So, I checked 2 other places - one train of 5 (it's funny when the drof runs to a mob standing on a rock and he cannot reach it) He rubs himself on the rock for 5-10 seconds, the other 4 toons stand there, then when the dorf runs to the next traget two toons in his train get hung up on the rock for 5-10 seconds.
Then there were some that I've seen before that I listed as well - I especially like the jjj at the end of one of their name or the iqi and the uji parts of others - I was hoping for a challenge like iillivwwu or something.
Your turn, heh, the 5 bots in the train ought to be easy.
Well I can also confirm the existence of servereal Bot Groups on Teon ! We have fightet in Branded Catacombs most of the time now, and now as we reached the end of this dungeon, where the Raid Boss resides, its really hard to get a spot... Its very easy to determine that those are bots... its always the same people mostly with one leader (a real player). You see that the other 4-5 people do everything automatically, they run to the leader, they sit down, stand up all the time... you can even attack them, they do nothing. If you train them then they force log (I wonder how they can do this during fights...)...
The most annoying problem is that they are mostly protected by 1 or 2 high level players who stay close them and kill people to try to attack the bot groups... its kinda like a mafia... ! I even talked to one of the bot leader and he invited me into his group, telling me I can sit down and watch and see the XP going up... well its really nice, but surely not the way it is meant to be played. I reported those groups ingame, but till now I still see them, hopefully they get catched one time...
Also at peek time its already hard to login to Teon (Full) -> I remember some time ago, when they changed something with gameguard... there were at least a few days free of bots, and Teon Status suddenly was Normal and so empty... its sad but there must be really many of those illegal players :(
You can find bots anytime at Enchanted Valley (there are always a group of coreans bots always there for months), Ol Mahums Witch Doctors Area of Oren(a party of 7 bots have been seen for two weeks), every catacomb(the event of every day..:() or necropolis, need more? It's a plague, if you look behind a rock you can see a group of bots. XDD
You only need to enter with a player and choose a place across Aden, you will find bots everywhere.
1. The train of 4,5 or 9 players with gibberish names that are all in a perfect straight line behind the leader fighting in perfect unison.
2. The avatar that spends 10 minutes standing up and sitting down repeatedly for no reason.
3. Killing a 8th or 9th person in the bot train and the party continues without even a blink (maybe they'll blink in C4).
4. Taking a room in a catacomb from a bot group and the leader says, "this is MY room." My implies there is only one person in the group of 9 players. How can that be if they aren't bots.
5. If you take said room, almost without fail the bot group ungroups and the "leader" who is almost 99% of the time a dwarf toon retrieves 10-20 mobs from another few rooms, comes in and fakes death while you are fighting. (One way around that is having another dwarf Hammer Crush them before they can do that).
6. About 3-6 minutes before the Manor System resets an 5-15 toons with gibberish names show up in the exact same spot to sell their seeds. Then they stand their for sometimes a few minutes or hours as if they weren't logged off.
7. Single characters in lowbie lands who automatically attack mobs almost before they appear to real players. These players are already running before most people even see them appear.
8. Target a mob before a bot train's (that is on automatic, not leader-run) mob before they hit it and they train finds another target. You can do this repeatedly and watch the train run from mob to mob and not hit anything. However, one person can't do it all.
9. Sell shops with automatic messages that go all day and all night in giran. A current example was someone trying to sell their nectars which were a good price earlier in the day until the market got inundated and then were 2k higher than going right. Told the player of this and even hours later, same spam message.
10. When talking to a suspected bot train either you get no response or the most common "?" "wth" "no no" "my room" or other short phrases that most real players wouldn't use.
11. Perfect 20 minute buff cycles. Even the most experienced buffer cannot be this perfect ALL DAY. The bots have their buffers programmed to buff at a specific time frame no matter what the situation. I've witnessed buffers do their rounds while their DD's were being pounded with 5-8 mobs at a time.
12. The delevelling cycle. You can always tell when bots have levelled too much. They head to a trusty town with trigger-happy guards and meet their fate hundreds of times and hour. Or, if they are broken bots, try Oren. Sometimes bots will do the "I can't die triangle dance" where they try to hit the guard but something is wrong with the program so they don't. They run around in a triangle shape, then try again. Once every 5 times they will be successful on this.
Where to find Bots?
1. Just about ANY Necro or Catacomb. These guys are the ones usually in groups of nine.
2. Killing outside of Aden for the Hatar Hanashee and the other mobs there. Especially the eyes since they spoil the super quantities of varnish and other mats.
3. Really, just about anywhere where they cannot be massed stunned, rooted, paralyzed and the like. Bot trains usually stay out of these areas unless they are Uber bots.
9. Sell shops with automatic messages that go all day and all night in giran. A current example was someone trying to sell their nectars which were a good price earlier in the day until the market got inundated and then were 2k higher than going right.
Similarly, after the Labor event, bot stores that hadn't been updated were still trying to sell medals after the completion of the event, despite the fact that all the medals had vanished the previous day(s). A few of them went on like this for a week, trying to sell items that no longer existed.
When Bot group are in town. They all move at the same time in unison. They even teleport ALL AT THE SAME TIME!
Check gludio too, thats a bots Deleveling heaven. All you see is the bots auto-smacking the guards for hours on end.
Good First detection method for the AFK Auto-follow bot groups is by making them mob bounce.
When you see the train heading to a Mob, Double Click on it and it should stop the train, as the program tells it that its targeted by a player, and it will switch to next target. Do the same thing to the next mob they head for.
If you can do this 10 or 15 times, and keep them bouncing back and forth, its a pretty safe bet that its an AFK Bot train, and you can do with them what you wish. I like to train them and then report, but training them usually gets there attention. Oh well
7. Single characters in lowbie lands who automatically attack mobs almost before they appear to real players. These players are already running before most people even see them appear.
I just wanted to point out that this characteristic is by no means exclusive to single characters or lowbie lands.
Any character(s) that run directly at a location BEFORE a mob spawns is a bot. I do not know how they determine it, but they know that a mob is spawning there before it actually spawns in. I'm not talking about running in the general direction, I'm talking about running directly in a straight line towards the location the monster spawns in. They will also change directions halfway towards a mob spawn location sometimes when one is about to spawn in closer. Once or twice is not a sure way to tell because it could be a normal player(s) running around and getting luck but when it happens EVERY time, you know its a bot.
We should not only ban the bots themselves, but also ban their 'helpers.' I once trained an obvious, tested bot group in Necropolis of Sacrifice. They all died and didn't drop anything spectacular. I watched them sit there for awhile, then went to another room nearby so I could keep an eye on them. An hour later, a TH in A-Grade comes up and PKs me (my character was only level 26), then runs to the room and rezzes all the dead bots. When I'm finally rezzed and head back to the room, I notice he's still in it, hiding in a corner and 'protecting' the bots. He moves as if he is going to PK me again, but doesn't, and I leave.
This TH was from a major clan on my server, in one of the major alliances there. I have no doubt that not only does his clan know, it fully supports the bots. Hell, I know of another fairly major alliance that used to exist on my server that had an 8-person bot clan in it!
A bot train arrives into catacomb. Lead dwarf teleports with the Ziggurat gatekeeper, rest get stuck on the port, and keep running towards the dwarf, then close to gatekeeper and back to the dwarf, never teleporting (broken bot).
A bot train with specific area they hunt in sees a mob standing at the very edge of their space, they break, and start running back and forth in a straight line, until a mob aggroes them. (saw this last night)
A bot train automatically forcelogs when a member of our clan whose habit is to train them comes within a certain distance (not view, she was behind a hill where no one could see her and the bots still log). This never fails. Some of them also forcelog if you flag on one of them, or stand near them red.
Curious behavior in Forsaken plains: There are two kinds of orc shamans there, ones that change and ones that don't. Those that change don't give royal coins. A bot party can apparently differentiate between the two, as I've never seen the parties that hunt the shamans hit one that would transform. (used that, and the fact that they switched target once someone picked theirs to collect quite a few coins, fun fun)
When the lead dwarf (mostly, sometimes a human tank) sits, almost all of the party sits with it. Only the healers seem to have independent sitting scripts.
All of the bot parties we've observed are more or less controlled. They don't always wake up immediately, but they do always wake up after getting trained a few times. I can only assume the people who would ban the bots are happy with that controller replying for every character in a couple of trains. "I'm only 27-boxing".
And not all bots/botters are Asian (say half for Teon, whichever country uses that irritating 'jajajaja' is responsible for quite a few), so that's not a way to solve the issue. And instead of banning just the accounts, NC needs to ban the credit cards or equivalents which are used to purchase game time. That way the adena businesses would run out of people to pay for their accounts eventually. (in theory, anyway. This is in ideal world, after all)
When listing specific problematic locations, please also be sure to list what server you are on. This is helpful to us.
Specific problematic location on Bartz:
Next to the Giant Marpanak Raid Boss on Forsaken Plains. There are groups of 3-4 bots. They are usually:
BH (leader, targetter)
Dagger
Prophet
Sometimes with a BD and SE, sometimes without.
There are usually at least 2, sometimes as many as 4 bot groups in this area with that makeup on Bartz. They all exhibit the behavior I described above with running to the location a mob will spawn in before it does actually spawn in addition to other bot symptomatic behavior.
recently I noticed ALOT of bot activity in DEV (on Lionna) on an alt I recently created. I do not know if it was there my first time through and I was just to new to notice it, but it is there now, especially a large bot train that loves to run around near SoDA, and in it. When confronted about botting I got the "???" from the train leader(dwarf), I questioned further to no response. They usually show up in town on the hour and talk to the newbie guide, but NEVER get buffs from him
I have been doing some bothunting on Teon lately and made some observations.
1) Forcelogging. They use this a lot. They do it when too many mobs enter their radars, but not neccessarily if the mobs are already inside their radar area. They do it when their HP gets too low, but that doesn't always save them :p Some also forcelog on certain players or red charcters.
2) Weird naked characters near Altar of Initiation. Lots of bots around there, most of them were "I'll be back" autoreplying kind :D I suspect the naked ones who stood far away from mobs (in 2 groups of 3) were holderaccounts or something like that.
3) Autoreply. Even if they speak to you, it doesn't mean they are there. I remember this one bot who said "ty" every time a player did something to it. Heal it -> "ty", Hit it -> "ty", Ice Bolt it -> "ty" and so on. Some have set their programs to say hi when you say hi and some say ??? if you hit them. What is important is that the response will be the same no matter how many times you do the thing that triggers it. Flagging on them will usually make somebody real to take a look, see 7)
4) They always hit the closest target on their kill-list if you haven't targetted it first. This doesn't mean closest mob, some groups kill exclusively certain mobs and leave everything else in peace in their hunting area.
5) Loot on ground. Go to Ruins to the south of Gludio (I can never remember the names :o) and observe. Hundreds of leather gloves recipes on ground. Recipes dont stack, so they would clog bots inventory pretty soon. Their solution is not to pick the recipes up. Not every bot does this, but the ones hunting mobs who drop/spoil lots of recipes do really leave lots of litter on ground.
6) Picking up adena. This udes to work better earlier, but I have seen some bots still fall for this. Drop piles of 1a around, try to make a trail from 1 mob to another and another etc. If it works, the bot will hit the first mob, pick up adena, pick up adena, hit mob, pick up adena etc. It is possible to get them to train themselves by doing this.
7) Alerts. Most of the bots have set up some alerts on their programs. If you hit them, it wont usually take long untill somebody comes to see what is happening. If they die, somebody comes to reset them. PMs seem to trigger alert on some bots and some bots come to see what is happening if their HP gets too low or they have to use potions.
Ways for GMs to find out who uses a bot program:
1) Spawn invicible mobs near them but far enough so real players couldn't use next target. Spawn 50 of them ^^. If the group logs off, they are using bot program. Name the mobs according to what the bots are hunting.
2) Make a red and invicible character to appear near them. Real players cant see him, but if the bots have autolog on red...
3) Make yourselves visible to normal players when you handle botpetitions. It would really to boost morale if player could report a botgroup and a GM would really come there to take a look. This would let you also see if they have autolog on GM set up too :p
When listing specific problematic locations, please also be sure to list what server you are on. This is helpful to us.
Sieghardt -- Blazing Swamps port spot, just to the north by the Marsh Predators and Glow Wisps. Usually 2 - 3 seperate bot groups farming infernium ore.
Anthras Lair -- Money Room (atleast thats what its called on Sieg) the large room between the karik donut room and ramp.
Saints Necropolis -- Farmers intermittent throughtout the entire back.
I spent time in a noob area last night traing two different bot instances around Gulido on Sieg server all located as you leave town headed towards the neutral zone, cross the bridge and go into the ratmen and bugbears across the road aound the circle of stones - the same area where I reported a bot train of 5 the night before.
One was a group of 5. A dwarf spoiling, 2 naked healers/buffers and DD and some other support toon. I watched them for about 5-10 mins to verify they are bots. Then I train them, the dwarf had someone controlling it so he would run away from my train with the other toons autofollowing him. Then they would get out in the open away from anymobs and try to sit and let the mobs in my tain attack me - then I used Confuse (I'ma SK) and one mob changes from attacking me to attack one of his toons, that bot responds to being attacked and it's a total party wipe; special note: when the DD died the healer kept healing the dead toon until the dead toon took the free trip back to town.
They soon returned, this time I belive that more than one person was controlling them for a little while, I ran around with them pulling mobs and jacking with them for about 30 mins, I then left (see the next instance later in this post) and upon my return the owners were afk again, once the train was on them the owners must have returned to the key board and the bots not actually being hit were made to run away - some of them right through agro mobs - that was nice; at the end, the dwarf and a healer were left. The dorf had gained agro from a mob I had Confused and the healer was healing the dwarf - the dwarf was not hitting the mob back because I was standnig beside him with a few mobs attacking me while I waited to see if he wanted their agro. The dwarf starts to soe so I figure it's not long before teh naked healer does too, I move to the healer and Confuse another mob, the dwarf was the only toon to survive. These toons were being botted, but when the need arose they were being controlled by people . . .
I even tried to communicate to the train of 5 and tell them give me all of your nectars lol - no reply - a player would have ateast said something.
During that time, there was another toon being botted (was using the manor seeds) in the area, I killed it twice with mobs. It was designed that once I had a mobs agro that it would not attack that mob but would run to the next nearest mob - I don't really think a person was controlling it. It was easy to have the mobs kill it and it returned aftert it was killed the first time. I had seen this toon about a month ago at the same spot but did not see it the night before - last night it was fighting without a breast plate - and I didn't cause that.
So, next time I'll report these bots and if they are there after that I'll get more stuff.
Had to help a noob out at the end, he was trying to 'help' the naked healer that had gained agro and after the healer died the noob gained agro so I had to kill 'my' mobs; I told him it was a farmer's toon and I was exterminating a pest and left it at that. Gave him a few potions and a little adena, was nice to see a toon on the server with a noob helping cubic above his head. I hope I had made the area bot free for him but I'm sure they will be back.
This is also a function of lag. I've seen mobs appear on one account before they appear on my other account.
Correct...I believe that what is acctually happening is that the Mob is being Rendered on your computer. That is why a mob will appear a bit after you look to see where the bot is going...The bot doesn't have to render it so it just goes when it is told "Mob xx is at X,Y,Z"
This is also a function of lag. I've seen mobs appear on one account before they appear on my other account.
Correct...I believe that what is acctually happening is that the Mob is being Rendered on your computer. That is why a mob will appear a bit after you look to see where the bot is going...The bot doesn't have to render it so it just goes when it is told "Mob xx is at X,Y,Z"
The point being that you cannot say someone is a bot if they see a mob before you do.
No one specific thing can be used to describe a bot, some connections are better than others - observation is the best bet - I observe and if there is a question I dont jack with them, I'm sure that I have passed by some bots when I'm out looking, but I'm sure the one's that I've jacked with are using 3rd party programs.
I used a stop watch last night while in town selling off of my dorf and timed one toon to shouting WTS an item every 90 seconds to the second, then after about 20 minutes of that he stoped shouting anything.
Another toon was dead in giran in a sell shop - or maybe faking death - they looked dead for several hours while trying to sell their stuff. Wonder how that happends? Lotsa ppl stoped to observe it.
Never tried it but doesn't the shop stay open if you die? May have to try that myself sometime.
Yeah I've seen dead stores stay open - I've also seen dead stores not stay open, but how are you gonna die? I know of instances of when events happened mob entered towns and killed afk stores but that's not happening now.
Could be, get ready to set up the store, fake death, set up store? I donno, let the GMs figure it out. I just state what I see ^^
Never tried it but doesn't the shop stay open if you die? May have to try that myself sometime.
Yeah I've seen dead stores stay open - I've also seen dead stores not stay open, but how are you gonna die? I know of instances of when events happened mob entered towns and killed afk stores but that's not happening now.
That's probably exactly what happened. Since, as you say, the store stays up, I would imagine that if you dropped what you were selling upon death, the store would close.
This is also a function of lag. I've seen mobs appear on one account before they appear on my other account.
Correct...I believe that what is acctually happening is that the Mob is being Rendered on your computer. That is why a mob will appear a bit after you look to see where the bot is going...The bot doesn't have to render it so it just goes when it is told "Mob xx is at X,Y,Z"
The point being that you cannot say someone is a bot if they see a mob before you do.
I'm not talking about seeing a mob before someone else does. I'm talking about running towards the location a mob WILL spawn in before it does. If you stand at that place and spam next target, you get nothing until it actually spawns in, which is when they start attacking it. If it was simply loading lag on my computer, they'd be able to attack it before it appeared on my sceen and I'd be able to target it before it gets rendered.
The only way i have found to be sure that someone is botting, is by observing if he have pathfinding troubles. Chars blocked by a ridiculous obstacle that prevent them to reach their target, and not realizing it. When i witness someone stuck by a single tree between him and its target, and then, later switching target rather than going around the tree, i know this is a bot, or a very dumb player. Then i report them and let the GMs sort this out.
A bot train automatically forcelogs when a member of our clan whose habit is to train them comes within a certain distance (not view, she was behind a hill where no one could see her and the bots still log). This never fails. Some of them also forcelog if you flag on one of them, or stand near them red.
I have seen one bot party in Catacomb of the Witch on Kain where they said:
"Player xxxxx is training us"
"We wont fight til xxxxx is gone"
And they stood in the corner of a hallway for quite a bit of time while we fought in the room next to it.
It was very funny b/c after every certain amount of time it would repeat even though the Trainer was not in sight (Could have been in the area I 'm not sure).
Another Characteristic that Sticks out like a sore thumb with bot parties is the way they run. Slowest person in front normally and the rest follow the exact same path. Not the path of shortest distance like the AutoFollow command uses but exact same spot. One thing that also doesn't happen that does with the AF command is that they never studder step like when real characters AF and they get too close they will stop for a second, fall a bit of the ways back and then run again. It ends up looking like a Yo-Yo effect but the bots don't do this.
Never tried it but doesn't the shop stay open if you die? May have to try that myself sometime.
Yeah I've seen dead stores stay open - I've also seen dead stores not stay open, but how are you gonna die? I know of instances of when events happened mob entered towns and killed afk stores but that's not happening now.
That's probably exactly what happened. Since, as you say, the store stays up, I would imagine that if you dropped what you were selling upon death, the store would close.
ahhh, I found some information on another web site, seems mobs were trained into giran . . . several shops were killed, the trainer said that he got punished for that action. He wants to try and get his account back somehow. So . . . answers that question.
And instead of banning just the accounts, NC needs to ban the credit cards or equivalents which are used to purchase game time. That way the adena businesses would run out of people to pay for their accounts eventually. (in theory, anyway. This is in ideal world, after all)
Ineffective. Adena Inc. doesn't use credit cards. They buy up all of the gametime cards. Seriously, there are stories, even in my little city of 200k people, of Chinese showing up at the gamestores around town and buying ALL of the gametime cards that they can get their hands on. My city is a college town with a large Asian population, so I'm sure it's happened. They buy all the cards and then mail them to their friends/family back in China so that they may be used for farming purposes.
Yeah, to better understand 'bots' I do go to unmentionable places on the web and read what's going on. On the topic of billing, I understand that it is common knowlege/pratcie to bill month to month with a game card but someone else swears in his practice of buying multiple accounts and botting like he is a big time botter in the hopes that NCSoft will see his accounts as a bigger source of money for the company and therefor not ban any of his accounts - I suspose he uses a credit card.
I think it's just luck - either way you look at it - a bot getting banned or not is by what the GM is able to observe and respond to. The bots are going to keep at it, and so am I - just have to not be petition happy.
"the perfect buff cycle" - this behavour nags me to no end.
The botted buffer these days almost always do one buff every minute or so - and over time keeps the party fully buffed by seemingly randomly throwing a single buff every now and then on someone (of course it's not random). It's a perfect way to buff a party, and, having played a prophet to almost 60, I'd say it's totally impossible for a human to do without going insane within an hour, if at all possible even for a small amount of time ^^
One of the worst botters I have found is a guy who runs about 20 dark elf bots near Dark elf village on sieghardt. He has a very elaborate bot which does the following:
1) The character starts in DE village
2) sells any drops he got off monsters
3) buys more cure, heal, and soe at the trader
4) then gets buffs from the newbie guide
5) then ports to southern end of dark forest, right by ascetics necropolis
6) bot kills spiders there, when 20 minutes pass and buffs are about to run out, the bot SoEs and restarts at step 1
On a side note: every time you kill one of them or they die from a mob, they say "I will be back", return to town, and starts again at 1)
Some of the characters names are: dionsgs, flybdc, darkvbb. however, theres at least a dozen of them, if you wait at the dark forest port spot, you will see a constant stream of them porting there.
Also, they delevel back to 20 at gludio off the guards. That seems to be the location of choice for botters to delevel. They set their bot to attack the guards over and over again.
I'm sure my clan is on the forcelog list of a few bots. :P
One behaviour that is a dead giveaway is that everytime you train a bot train, they run to a safe sleep point and forcelog. I've done this on DC and FP.
The healer sit/stand bug is because the bot is set to rest when idle but also to stand up when mp is full.
And there is a away to know if someone is bot-crafting. If their log shows 5 hours of "you lack X to build Y" every 1 sec...
One of the worst botters I have found is a guy who runs about 20 dark elf bots near Dark elf village on sieghardt. He has a very elaborate bot which does the following:
1) The character starts in DE village
2) sells any drops he got off monsters
3) buys more cure, heal, and soe at the trader
4) then gets buffs from the newbie guide
5) then ports to southern end of dark forest, right by ascetics necropolis
6) bot kills spiders there, when 20 minutes pass and buffs are about to run out, the bot SoEs and restarts at step 1
On a side note: every time you kill one of them or they die from a mob, they say "I will be back", return to town, and starts again at 1)
Some of the characters names are: dionsgs, flybdc, darkvbb. however, theres at least a dozen of them, if you wait at the dark forest port spot, you will see a constant stream of them porting there.
Also, they delevel back to 20 at gludio off the guards. That seems to be the location of choice for botters to delevel. They set their bot to attack the guards over and over again.
Exactly the same thing on Teon. The place is crawling with them, I petitioned but hold no hopes.
This place is remote, not many newbies around most of the time, just a few alts. The spiders give quest items, and it's rather profitable (so it's only fair that adena.inc gets the profit, not the legit players) to **** at them 24/7. And it only takes a few hours to bot a character back there if one does get banned..
They have top D equipment, but no jewelry, btw. One m.crit wind strike from my level 15 mystic almost killed one of them.
The Tisrin who posted this must not have been the Tisrin who posted this (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=general&Number=442966&Foru m=,All_Forums,&Words=&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=4 42966&Search=true&where=&Name=12&daterange=&newerv al=&newertype=&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post 442966). :p
Seriously, if yall are watching animated in-game behavior to detect bots, it's no wonder there's so many that go undisciplined. Anyone who's had 2 computers logged in at the same time knows that much of what's listed in this thread as bot-like can be a figment of your imagination and the sloppiness of Lin2. (an aside: you know why your specials miss so much, even when you're behind the mob? You're not actualy behind it :p)
UT-Austin isn't exactly known for statistics (I'd avoid the math dept there, maybe try their MIS/Risk/OM dept), but even a masters-level should be able to set you up with some easy detection schemes. Discerning human/nonhuman is super easy.
Private stores and creation that sit down with the store sett-up as soon as they login. Though letely I've seen a few that sit-stand-sit-stand-sit.... for about 15 seconds before they stay sitting. If GM's can cause a client to disconnect this would be very easy to test for.
Lost bots in town, every once in a while you will see a character running into a corner, then follow the wall a short distance in one direction or the other before returning to the corner.
Buff bots, don't stop buffing when in town. Even when they been standing in the same spot for several hours.
Bots on seige fields would respawn dead if they went to the flag or castle.
Getting on the Auto-log list the a sure-fire way to find all of the bots run by one person or group.
The anti-KS option some of the AFK bots use lets you bounce them from mob to mob by targeting the mob they are heading towards.
I think the whole problem could be easyily stopped by simply denying asian ips. I dont find this that harsh, as people in asia can play on chinese server anyway (so they have their own)! Koreans do the same, so why not NCSoft America?
By this time I already talked to some bot leaders, and all who talked to me where "chinese money farm industrie", they say they are poor and thats their work for them. Well, then they shall ruin their own servers but not ours. I know that bannin all those chinese people would hurt the income, but I am sure soon the server would be filled again, but with much more lagal users... As it is now most of the servers are full anyway, so why permit legit players to play, just because those 5-8 multi account bots are taking the space?
I really dont understand why not this easy solution is taken, as it would remedy the problem at least by 50% if not much more... but I understand that NCSoft dont want to miss the money of those many accounts even if I am 100% sure much more real player would come back... L2 is already in fashion and many new faces are appearing, its just bad to let some of them go away because of those problems...
Hi, on Teon.
I see 2 type. They do it in orc land.. you cannot attack them because you get killed from guards around the place.
They delevel when got too high.. with guards.
Type1: down to Iced waterfall... they kill bears.. they use top D equipment. All day and night.. same monsters.. same place.. same bot.
Type2: black elf.. (drows)... and some dwarf. At south of east of the orc land. Where there are kasha bugbears, demons, kasha imp... etc. Single bots. They go confused from trees and rocks. They cannot target and stay stopped near a tree or cannot pickup near trees or rock.
After sometime there can be found adena and drops near.
Doing adena in those place have the vantage from bot that those mobs are white-green for a D grade level, they cannot be killed from players because guards all around (and player with starting levels and equipement), they delevel for what they need killing themself on guards in city.
On the 6th floor of TOI on Sieghardt. The bots work in perfect unity. They all appear to have noob (apprentice) gear on. Is it possible they changed their armor skins to look like lowbies? Tank runs up to mob. Group all follows in close order. Healer heals tank once. SWS sings one song, BD dances one dance. Tank attacks mob. All party DD's attack in unison. Repeat. After a while, group sits in very tight formation, all looking outward. Every 30 seconds either a song from SwS or dance from BD. Once ever 45 seconds the prophet throws out a single buff.
On Erica, there's a large concentration of farmers at places like the Silenos/Delu Lizardman areas by the race track (gibberishnames, no clan tags, fighting endlessly without ever stopping). North of Forbidden Gateway is also a popular spot for bots, I say down with a character and frapped the place for more than a whole day (character just sitting there), massive file, but it shows the same group fighting for more than a day without *ever* stopping.
Hindemith. Blazing Swamp (mostly the southern half, south of the burning tree, and the far eastern areas near to the Blazing Swamp GK destination point).
Dear God...so...many...bots...all...the...time.
A clannie of mine trains them every now and again using his Big Boom and the Meanas Anor mini bosss. Pretty funny when it works :) However I think the bot trains are learning his name now as half of them force log soon as he comes within radar range of them.
6) Picking up adena. This udes to work better earlier, but I have seen some bots still fall for this. Drop piles of 1a around, try to make a trail from 1 mob to another and another etc. If it works, the bot will hit the first mob, pick up adena, pick up adena, hit mob, pick up adena etc. It is possible to get them to train themselves by doing this.
I have actually had a 1a money trail lead to the edge of a cliff and into the water. Once the bot picked up the first 1a they went to the next one, next one until it fell off of the cliff and into the water. Came back an hour later and they were still in the water trying to get out. Unfortunately - they did not drown because they were able to get far enough out of the water to get some air.
I remember during the pumpkin event you could summon a pumpkin and give it freezing skin and all bots would attack it and die since pumpkins have no defense whatsoever, that was also great to see :)
Since the last round of bannings, the catacombs are totally infested with bot parties. I rerolled 2 newb chars over the period of 4 weeks and had trouble finding good rooms to XP in at necro of sacrifice, pilgrims, heretics, or branded.
They run full parties in large rooms at the necros. Typicaly the bot party leader is a dwarf but sometimes it is a different kind of tank. They try to make the names sound "american" but its pretty obvious they're not. Additionally, they attack the same way every time:
1) Tank attacks mob,
2) Then DDs follow the attack after about a second.
The bot parties are not totally unattended. They likely have one guy watching over several bot parties and when an alarm goes off on [censored], they move over to that computer to look at what is going on. You can also tell they're bots because:
1) If you pull a train on them, they will run out of the room before they can even see you or your train. That's because Walker has a top down view so they can see pretty much the whole dungeon.
2) If you walk up to them and start hitting them, they usually won't stop fighting. The healers will keep healing until they're out of MP. This is how I usually kill them, I keep hitting their healers till they're out of MP and eventually a mob kills one or mor of them.
3) If you are red and next to them, they will immediately come back to the keyboard and try to attack you. Again, you can tell its walker because only one guy will attack you and he will run into walls and corners as he tries to catch you.
Ways I would suggest "catching" them:
1) Observe the party for about 4 minutes. If it appears as though there is a good chance they're using bots, move the "tank" of the party (i.e. the guy who attacks first) up the Z axis to the ground above the necropolis right above his bot party. The other bots in the party will go completely haywire and start running into walls. Additionally, they won't attack any monsters that the "tank" doesn't attack first which means they will just sit there idle until they die.
2) Move the healer a few squares out of the room, say a 5 or 6 second run down the hall, around a corner. The healer will run into walls and generally exhibit very bot-like behavior as it tries to run back to the group to heal, buff.
3) Temporarily paralyze the tank of the party. Again, they will no longer attack new mobs as the tank is not able to initiate combat.
4) With a real character, pull a train onto the party, attack them so they are still combat flagged as you pull the train. They will run out of the room in unison and log in about 10 seconds even though they are still combat flagged. That's because while the L2 client won't allow you to log out when combat flagged, [censored] will let you disconnect immediately and you log out a few seconds later.
5) Have GMs initiate simulatneous petition windows with all of the chars in the party. You will notice that none of them speak at the same time (because the guy can only type in one window). YOu will probably also notice that he will rapidly get confused between all the windows and "slip up" on something.
6) Jeez, just look at how many hours they have played in the last week. I'm a hardcore gamer and even I can only pull off 12 hours a day MAX before my eyes start to bleed.
I can't imagine that you actually need us to tell you where the bots are on each server. Dear God, have you played this game yourself? They're in almost every hunting grounds you can think of.
BUT, to make myself useful.
Server: Erica
1. Oel Mahum With Doctors SE of Bandit Stronghold
2. Harit Lizardmen Matriarchs NW of Anghel Waterfall
3. Forrest of Mirrors Ghosts between Forrest of Mirrors and the Colliseum
4. Oel Mahums & Elder Tarlk Basilisks S of Bandit Stronghold
Yesterday I tried to report every bot party I came across. Well, I submitted 1 petition, and since it was NEVER ANSWERED FOR THE ENTIRE DAY I couldn't open another one. Nice. /gmlist was empty every time I checked, too.
So, I played with the bots for a bit. Got one group to chase a Harit Matriarch over a cliff (yay Fear). They came back 2 hours later and did the same thing again. These 4 bots were in the EricaPirates clan, btw. I have screenshots and names if you want 'em.
I also had a group hunting Oel Mahum Witch Doctors chase a feared Witch Doctor into a horde of other mobs. A few of them died, but they auto rezzed and just kept going. /sigh
I also really liked the full 9-man bot train that was stuck on a hillside. They just stood there for 3+ hours, auto-buffing every 20 minutes.
I am not a cynic, so I do take the time to report bots every chance I get (when I can, at least).
Well there a couple things that I would like to say. #1 there are programs that both mask your location, and can also make you look like your from other countries with respect to the IP address banning.
I am 100% sure that bots can simply found with logs. I have talked to private server GMs im teamspeak, and have been told that just about anything can be logged. So if these logs have time stamps, there isn't any need for a GM to talk to a player. There is AI software that credit card companies use to find fraud, a much simpler version could VERY EASILY catch bots.
#1 logs: buffs, dances would be simple to log and find bots simply by time between events.
#2 Account login time. I am sorry, but there isn't any way for an account to be on for 24-48 hours if 1 person is playing / hunting. And if you look at these accounts, I would say you will find 99.9% are bots. Login patterns. I have worried about this myself. I took a vacation and was worried that I would be reviewed for login times/days that didn't match my "profile" If you did account profiles, like account 123 logs in mon.-fri. 6:00PM till 11:00PM sat.-sun 12:00noon to 2:00AM once this happens for a few weeks months, it sets a pattern. If the account starts logging in everyday at 10:00AM, it should send up a red flag. Then you figure out if they are botting, or if something else is going on.
I am sorry to say that it would be done without adding any staff, and very little effort. Why not email the account holder that they are under review. The ones that don't login any longer are surely bots (and those that login feel they have nothing to hide). I am realy surprised that the great minds that created this wonderful game are having SO much trouble finding a bots?
Oh almost forgot 1 other thing. There is either a major exploit on the game that allows the renaming of toons or there is someone at NCSoft that is doing it. If you want to cut down on toons being sold on ebay, then prevent the toons from being renamed. And if you don't prevent it, track it. Then you can find the parties that are helping the account sellers on ebay. I have been told that it is possible to purchase with existing name for 1 price, and for an additional fee, it's name can be changed before delivery.
I hope someone is reading this, and paying attention!
:)
i dont really understand what this post is about
is nc saying "please help us we dont know how to detect bots" if so thats sad but definately welcomed
if its a post to help us detect bots i doubt anyone needs it
me and almost anyone that pays lineage can detect a bot in minuets if not seconds
seriously if you guys want to find bots create a real account walk around and watch ppl hunt. not exactly brain science or rocket surgery but seriously its that easy
unfortunately its the farmers that are beyond bannings the ppl that actually play their toons 24/7 without botting such as SS farmers raid boss farmers and plvl farmers
the only thing they do wrong is sell their adena to sites like ige and since ive never heard of anyone getting banned for this ill just stick to reporting bots
i've been doing the "petition to report bots" sport for quite some time, and prolly will keep doing it, just because i am a good sport. but...
i wont try to write a long post about theese issues. what i would like to get some comment from NCSoft about is:
hunting down bots is useless. reasons:
i have my doubts (as i am sure many others) that ncsoft dosent actualy want bots to go away. they pay the fee, dont they? they run this to get money and i can understand that.
IF ncsoft would like to get the bot issue cleared (and this prolly goes for any mmporg that is infested with bots), the "guerilla" war against bots will just take forever and will lead to no results. it's obvious that the main reason and purpose is to sell ingame currency and items for real life money. it's also obvious that people that do so break rules and the contract they agree on when starting to play. so in theory you do have some legal grounds to do something where you should actualy fight the "problem", wich is in real life. stop IGE, stop ebay, with legal tools. do we know any case in wich someone was prosecuted for doing this? you can find bots easy. and even IF you do ban them, they just start other accounts. it takes them few hours to get into the desired lvl to bot.
as i said, i would realy like to get a response from ncsoft on this.
Some of the more priceless experiance i have had with bots are.
1. a bottrain of 6 in EG that ran around killing 5 or 6 mobs, then to sit down and rest. 3 of them drowned while sitting in the water while healer tried to heal them. Reported all of them. They also later upon returning, where really friendly to the wall as they all hugged it, except buffer and healer who kept on buffing and sitting and standing up at a given interval.
2. today i was in wasteland to lvl my sin eater from killing 2 bots, the buffer from a bot train came over and buffed me, just to be friendly and to leave them alone i guess :)
I'm getting crazy over all these bots everywhere. I try to report as many as i can, but there are just to many of them. :(
I wish i was GM, then there would be some serious bot hunting. :)
It's a way of getting the topic out of the mainstream - or else it would still be there; if you read you'll also see where this topic was completely ruled out of bounds for a few days; then this thread in an out of the place was made.
i've been doing the "petition to report bots" sport for quite some time, and prolly will keep doing it, just because i am a good sport. but...
i wont try to write a long post about theese issues
I've been doing the "petition to report bots" sport for quite some time as well, but will not keep doing it - because it is a waste of my time. I'm sure that NCSoft will continue to do what they must and I'm sure that bots will continue to be investigated and banned bt I'm not sure if the primary bots can be delt with.
The solo or dual player that bots afk is an easy taraget. The famer that monitors 9 bots in a train and had several of those trains around the map and on different servers - those are the problems and since they monitor the bots they can react to GMs. I know this because I have asked several how they run so many . . . I see that if I /GM and petition the bots and a month later they are still there, that the bot owner thinks he has it figured out - and he may have. Petition for an afk bot works well - petition for an attended bot does not work well. I've seen it, I've fraped it, and I've documented it for myself.
i dont really understand what this post is about
is nc saying "please help us we dont know how to detect bots" if so thats sad but definately welcomed
if its a post to help us detect bots i doubt anyone needs it
me and almost anyone that pays lineage can detect a bot in minuets if not seconds
seriously if you guys want to find bots create a real account walk around and watch ppl hunt. not exactly brain science or rocket surgery but seriously its that easy
unfortunately its the farmers that are beyond bannings the ppl that actually play their toons 24/7 without botting such as SS farmers raid boss farmers and plvl farmers
the only thing they do wrong is sell their adena to sites like ige and since ive never heard of anyone getting banned for this ill just stick to reporting bots
ur right.. Best way for a GM to detect Bots is to go out with a normal Account. Not to mention that THE Bot programm *u-know-the-name* got a GM detection with a name list, so they will just log off from the Game andcome back when the GM is gone.
U guys will never catch the Bot if u dont change the detection method completely.
I would welcome a HGM/GM to tag along with me as a PC. I would take them to all the bots and locations that bots hang out on a regular basis.
Other than that unless GM's take our petitions seriously and take actions the problem will not go away.
Also, action towards those that protect bots is an issue. In most cases its a higher level character that is assigned to protect the bots in case someone harrasses them to the point that they can no longer operate. These "players" should also be considered in violation of the rules... simply because they are profitting from the Bots in some manner or they wouldn't be protecting them.
1) When they are in a party and killing mobs, they do not use "assist" like a player does, nor do they use auto-follow. One can observe this by having /assist on a hot key and seeing what they target as they target it. Funny how a healer/buffer can follow in perfect unison with the tank, but they never target the tank, or the mobs...
2) I've heard this is a trademark of "Wind" where the healers sit every time the party stops. Sometimes the botters forget to turn this feature off in town... D'oh!
3) On Kain, check the catas north of Gludio (Ascetics and Patriots). These places are the hotbeds for the powerlevel types that typically have one or two clanned PC's sitting down in the corner, with the rest being unclanned doing the killing. Any attempts to talk to them results in a "hi ^^" or something else very similar. Ask them a question, and there typically isn't a reply that fits the question. PM'ing them will get the attendee to answer you as it appears to have an alarm built into the program. I'd get replies an hour after I've pm'ed the bots and already /gm'ed them.
4) Ancient Battlefield is #1 for the botting parties that sell their services. Sometimes these can be trained since they're doing AOE, but usually they have enough firepower to kill whatever you throw their way. Naked healers and buffers are a dead giveaway. (Not always bots, but most likely adena farmer/RL currency traders)
I think a huge problem with the reporting of bots is that alot of people don't know how to properly report bots. I spoke with a kind GM one night, and he told me that it helps to not only give their exact name, location, but also time you encountered them.
I have seen the process in action - usually the lead is ported off while the rest sit there malfunctioning. Then they are usually dismantled one by one, and tested. I can't claim to know what they are doing when they test them, but I do know that a % of the ones I report do receive GM attention, and I don't see them again, or for awhile.
While the results aren't always instant, and the replies from the GM's can be a template (the same reply - I report at least one bot a night), the process does work, and I'll continue to report them. :) (As well as pk, train, and seed their mobs ;) )
Even if it seems quite strange to me that the people from NC ask us where do we see bots/adena farmers, I'll answer them.
I play in Hinde, I'm for sure one of the less playing charas in the whole server, gotta lot of things to do IRL. But even, in this short playing time, I experience and suffer the existence of Bots . Now I'm lvl 37 and playing around giran (Breka's stronghold). Two weeks ago I reported the existence of bots. For the last week, it looked like they wasn't there. But today they've come back. A train of 4 people, perfectly synced. They did not reply even when saying hello in Korean or chinese.
Tank attacks, then the rest assist while healer sits, get the drop, move to next mob. I didn't make any kind of actions till they stole literally 3 drops from the mobs I was killing. Then I started to follow them and get the drops they're getting. A normal party'ld have killed me. But this one just ignored me. I also launched a pair of nukes (without pking) to the tank of the party, but nobody did nothing. Just a dwarf appeared and standed by, I spoke to him, but his english was quite poor (worst than mine ;)
So, to detect a bot group: just look at the behaviour -> is human, they talk, they are able to mantain a conversation, then they are human. It is not human, they are bots.
The #1 tactic and characters you should be suspicious of is u1o0101szx kind of characters, they are hellish hard to report and thats why they have the names.
Clearly something is going wrong with NCsofts policing now because I am seeing alot more bot groups where they don't even *try* to conceal they're bots, they just powergrind in such an obvious bot ways that even I am 100% sure they are (and you guys know how much I am against falsely labelling people as bots), and there are so many of them, loads of groups up by the Oel Mahums (5x9 man parties last time I was there, literally). alligator island, Garden of Eva, etc.
You really want to catch bots? No you don't. You do? Really? Then this is what you, as NCSoft need to do. Create some high level characters, (TH's work well due to silent movement) and just roam around the hunting grounds. If you see a group grinding it out that act in a particularly precise manor, stop and observe them. If you determin that they are of high interest, (most likely using 3rd party program) then run your high level tests (drop a couple thousand adena on the ground) on them. Don't just tell us to report them via the petition system and then dismiss our petitions as insignificant.
Here's another suggestion. Work with your playerbase. There are dozens of bot hunters on Teon, for example, who can both show where the bots are, and can even usually prove it at the same time. There are a few hundred bots that forcelog the instant our prophet comes in sight alone, and our usual "word of fear -> heal mob -> watch bots die and not say anything" is a very simple method of finding them.
Whatever the official party line says, detecting bots is not hard. Observing a bot party for a day without doing anything will make it clear whether or not they're bots or not. NCSoft's official methods quite clearly do not do their job.
Proof: a bot party that has been around since the beginning of Teon (ks'd me on my very first class transfer quest), which we have trained some thousand times (don't keep count) and which we have reported the same few thousand times is STILL there. Always, without fail, the same spot, every hour of every day, they don't even bother to pretend not to be bots anymore, since they apparently know fully well they will never get banned. On Teon, Luckar (dwarf), goodzhianshi (might have the spelling wrong, TH), lovefsb (SE).
And that's just with farmerbots. There are several known cases of botters, ebayers, powerlevel buyers and such among the community, but NCSoft seems to be blissfully oblivious to such things. They don't know/see all this because either they a) don't care, b) are unbelievably incomptetent or c) have some ultimate plan behind all this (good or bad, conspiracy theory). I don't think I like any of those options, because by the looks of it "Listen to your playerbase, keep them happy" is not included. Players know these things. There are many objective players who don't report bots just to harass their "enemies" in-game, but this has obviously escaped the notice of a certain GM team. And while the bot banners continue their futile efforts (because they just don't seem to have what it takes), the rest of us get to suffer from them, and the fact that our server is constantly overflowing with bots making it impossible to log in.
The last few weeks i was bored of grinding and started to train and trap bots outside gludio and Dion on Teon.
So far they have dropped around 1M of Eq (nice income), but now most of them had put me on auto-log, as soon as their program sense me they log out, and its really funny to sit on that spot after they have logged out and see how they flash in a few seconds and then log out directly as they sense me, even before the char is fully visible (they must have black-screen when logging out)
or when i gathered some mobs (after beating some times they loose aggro on me) and had them kill a bot, the same bot runs out attacking the same group dieing over and over again...no player controlled char had run out to attack the same group that killed them 2min ago .. seeing me heal the mobs
i know when a bot is gone a new one comes to take its place, but still banning some of them makes the community happier
Well it's also ridiculous when I report bots to GM's i have to write the exact name. How can I report names like |II||iiii||||iii, for exmple? It could be nice if I can use %target in petitions...
Btw in kain there are many bots at devasted castle, martyrs necropolis, dvc, forsaken plains and forbidden gateway, outside aden, blazing swamps... just go there and take a look :cool:
well i am so sad about all this thing. it now takes ages to be able to log (yes, that has to be good for bussiness) but i cant realy think a couple hours after new year started (CET) server would be so full. seeing i petition bots over and over agan and then each evening i see them sell the crops from manor before i get the chance to do because they do it automaticaly.
even more, the bot behaviour enlarges: i see now 2 full bot parties, all clanned, with evaluation all up (blue names) and weird titles/names doing AOE parties in Giants Cave, using live tank/runner. and when you start to mess with them all your party will receive the same private message in game like "you want me vanish yes?"
and what's worse, for instance Teon has clans and even allies full of bought and rebough accounts, powerleveled accounts through bot parties and such, all 7X chars, that just pretend to "play the game as it's ment" and not haveing any problem recovering any xp loss and all. they even brag it on l2blah forums (http://www.l2blah.com/showthread.php?t=16764&page=5 and check Convict's post, #112, he's Leader of the most pvp oriented Alliance on Teon).
But no. NCSoft does not even bother to give us hope. just blank "ending petition messages". they might as well put some "approved" bot programs listings on the page because its obvious there are some that are not detected/punished.
Ok, I am on Kain Server and I will start out saying where I see bots.
I see multiple large groups in every catacomb and necropolis. Lately there has been a few bot groups up by Windy Hill north of the Dawn Oracle. I have spoken with the bot leader up there, and he admits he bots those parties. There are always a few bots around cruma swamp area. There are bots that travel around Death Pass, and Dragon Valley. There are many bot groups in Enchanted Valley. There are bots everywhere in Elmore regions. Many bots at certain times delevel in Gludio. Well, to make a long story short, there are bot groups everywhere, on kain server. Everywhere I hunt I see at LEAST one bot group. On average there is about 2 or 3. At most, usually inside catacombs, I can find about as many as 6 different parties...almost where every room has one. Kain seems to be getting really bad, because I see more bots hunting than players, so it is hard to pinpoint actual locations.
Like others have stated, and I will restate for emphasis, the names are a sure give away. Even more of a give away is how the bots follow each other so close, that they overlap each other many a times. Bot parties ANYONE can pick out, because of how they act, and their movements. When you heal their mobs they don't do anything most of the time, and when you keep hitting their healer to make them stand up, and nothing happens or anything is said. Sometimes though, bot parties are run by one leader, and when you mess with his bots he usually logs them and then attacks you by eaither pvp or training mobs.
Harder to spot are single players using a bot program. You say hi, and they don't respond...but they could just be ignoring you. The best thing to do is buff them, if you can. Even if they don't know your language, they will usually do somehting like ^^ : ) : D. Sometimes I don't even trust this though. What is more risky, is to heal their mobs. Usually they will say stop, or something, and if not, they are AFK.
My suggestion to GMs is to go to the locations and watch the bots. Bots seem to be able to detect when a GM is watching them, so maybe it would be good to just have an account that isn't a GM account. But just a normal player account. This way, you can see what we see. Players are 100% sure when they see bots, so maybe if you saw it like the players..you could get a better understanding. Don't Pm them first or petition to them, just watch them. Then maybe try to talk to them undercover. You don't know how many countless times, bots have admitted to me that they were botting...esspecially if I go ahead and accuse them of it.
The best thing though, would be to find a way to only make it possible that a 'full' L2 client can connect to the lineage servers. This means that Bot programs would just simply not be able to connect. Sure there is always bot developers to stay on top of that, but if you took the main bot program, and got some guys to take it apart and look at what actually makes it tick, it's core...something that can't just be updated...and block that...you may have something.
Apparently the only way the botters are gonna dissapear to to find a way to mess with the datastream in such a way the [censored] and the other bot programs can't communicate with the servers. It's quite obvious that all the neccessary info to make a bot program work is actually on every pc that runs L2. From what I have been told, [censored] doesn't even use the game client but has some weird radar interface which goes to show they workaround gg and everything(also enables 9 chars on 1 machine easily). Datastream encryption can't be that hard or cpu intensive could it? I remember in C1 someone was telling other people he wasn't partied with what their health was, how much weight they had on, simple stuff like that. This shoulda been a sign that encryption of some sort shoulda been needed. Well see.
Two groups of bots, leaded by someone are perma hunting in DVC on Lionna. There is a little dead end room on the left from the first big room, past a slope, they're just there.
First time I saw them I just "/said" /GM plz get us rid of those bots. The leader was obviously angry. All the group poped out in the same msec, and we were badly trained a few minutes later.
Second time, I silently petitionned (with no reply btw), and a few mn later, the whole group poped out. I heard (rumor ?) that their botting client that begins with L2 and ends with walker was able to detect the arrival of an invisible GM. Was it a sign ? They poped back later, to continue their blind hunt. Then another group, leaded by someone else came too.
This ability to pop out instantly, even during a fight, is something you just cant do if you use the official client. I even noticed, quite some time ago, bots poping out while being pked. With no death count for me, I didnt even became "red"...
For sure, seeing your server "full", having to wait to go in when you know hordes of bots are perma farming areas, and ruining your gaming enjoyment when you're in at last, is really really .. annoying to say the least.
Btw, is it still useful to report botting ? What we get as an answer, when we get one, is usually "we'll investigate", but days later, the very same bot group is usually still there... I've got numerous examples in my mind.
well pretty much its useless to report. they wont get banned or anything.
i was just thinking, this game is supposed to act like a real environment, with cycles.
it starts up, players show up and start to lvl. players want more, so bots/farmers/adena&item selling starts as well. things go well, with the care and shelter the world's creator is providing, bots, IGE and such start to multiply, slowly pushing legit players out (i am now trying to connect back into the game for over 30 mins). so theoreticaly after some time the bots overcome (or already did) players and here should start their downfall since less and less customers theyd have for their wares. so bots start to dissapear and more players to come. and cycle goes over and over.
theoreticaly. thing is we need to add addictiveness that most legit players have. and they will struggle to get in the game anyway.
so as a "not so off-topic for the moment" issue, what other mmporgs we know that do not have this "lets allow more bots in" problems?
I found another detection method. Train some Mobs to one Spot where the Farmers hunt and FakeDeath, then u wait.. drink some Tea. That is was happens ^^
Harder to spot are single players using a bot program. You say hi, and they don't respond...but they could just be ignoring you. The best thing to do is buff them, if you can. Even if they don't know your language, they will usually do somehting like ^^ : ) : D. Sometimes I don't even trust this though. What is more risky, is to heal their mobs. Usually they will say stop, or something, and if not, they are AFK.
Easy way to get PKed is to heal the mob I'm attacking. If someone just walks up and starts healing a mob (I may be in clan chat and cannot see your general chat "hello") I'll PK them in a heart beat - may want to find another way to see if someone is a bot.
As far as NCSoft banning accounts for botting - I'm sure it is happening ever day and maybe every hour of each day. I guess NCSoft cannot regulate what type of programs that log into their servers. What do you think the odds of that are? Heh, sure they can and they do - you don't see any worms or trogans getting past them. So why would these 3rd party programs be allowed to connect and interact and work with the game?
Why would you focus on bots? You need to catch the ones who actually sell the adenas.
Buy 1M adena on the illegal sites. Check the player name who gave you the cash in game and ban the account as well as all the customers. Ignore the bots you waste too much time focusing on it and players have fun training them anyway.
Once they will notice they can't sell anything they will stop farming adena.
Actually I don't think you even need to buy adenas to catch them you just need to check who is giving away 1M, 5M, 10M regularly.
It's funny that people post about bots and then the thread gets shut down (http://boards.lineage2.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=472520&page=&view=&sb=5&o =&fpart=1&vc=1) do you think they cannot find the place to search if they were not around when this lonely thread was made and stuck in an out of the way place. Technical Discussion lol, it's a game play issue -
Official Bot Behavior and Detection Method is the thread title but if you mention bots or are concerned about bots <--- well, here's your thread.
I like the game and all, but I don't like this issue - having to threaten farmers and their bots with death/pk to get them to leave - and yeah, at times it does come down to someone's charater/s dieing.
Bot detection method - open your eyes and look around --- they cannot be seriously looking, can they?
Ok you guys do know that reporting them is a waist of time? I just started this game and quit lol to. Well I was in the Dwarf newbi place and saw this char's in a line going to kill the guards over and over and over and over. Had names like asfksksk.. So I asked a very high lvl player and he told me they are bots and if the GM find out they will get banned. Well I reported it more than once. I took a screen shot of the answer the GM gave me. He said.. and his words "They are "de-leveling". A player has the right to play Lineage II any way they want." LOL not like WOW where you get to really TALK to the person and they ack like they really care, lol not here. So I quit.. anytime they start to let people cheat out right is just wrong. I know it happens in all games like this but omg to just let it happen. And I see these things more then I see real players.
I had recently leveled an alt and was doing my class change quest. As part of it you have to go to each of the starter towns and get a certificate of trust. At the Orc starter town was a dwarf deleveling at the guard.
His program must of been automatic and somehow didn't put his stuff in the bank. In a twenty minute period he ended up dropping all his gear and full inventory which was a full +3 brig set, a +5 bonebreaker and a +3 CMG, elven jewelry, and all the stuff he was farming 2k iron, 4k charcoal, etc....
I sat there and kept saying to him, thanks the drop, you sure you don't want this? But hey, NCSoft is right, they can play anyway they like and there is nothing better than a bad program gone haywire.......
It was just about as much fun as training them for drops.....
I had recently leveled an alt and was doing my class change quest. As part of it you have to go to each of the starter towns and get a certificate of trust. At the Orc starter town was a dwarf deleveling at the guard.
His program must of been automatic and somehow didn't put his stuff in the bank. In a twenty minute period he ended up dropping all his gear and full inventory which was a full +3 brig set, a +5 bonebreaker and a +3 CMG, elven jewelry, and all the stuff he was farming 2k iron, 4k charcoal, etc....
I sat there and kept saying to him, thanks the drop, you sure you don't want this? But hey, NCSoft is right, they can play anyway they like and there is nothing better than a bad program gone haywire.......
It was just about as much fun as training them for drops.....
nice drops :) I'll soon have my lvl 40 scavy class change quset completed and hope to have all of this questing pay off with the use of fake death in dwarf land ^^ My main needs mats for A grade crafting :p
1) Catacombs and Necropolis - No surprise here. They're packed with bot parties. I find it hard to believe that you can't just look at who plays 24/7 and then ban them. No one plays that much unless they're either a farmer, or a botter.
2) Enchanted valley - Everywhere. I mean everywhere are bots. The most are on the upper levels by the Valley Treants. The bot parties usually have 4 to 9 people in them, almost always a dwarf.
3) Fields of Whispers and Fields of Silence - Constant bots here. Mostly because of the rapid spawn rate and the fact that they do all the manor system seeds there using their bot program.
4) Manot System - I have 2800 chilly cobols I did over a period of time. I haven't been able to turn a single chilly in for the last 5 days on sieghardt. The farmers run a script that instantly buys all the seeds and sells all the fruits for golden and chilly cobols when the manor system respawns. They do it in all the towns with those seeds (Giran, Oren, Dion, Innadril, Aden). I haven't been able to make money for my Bg weapon in a long time because of this.
5) Forgotten Temple - On the water side, by where the Roxides spawn. At least 3 parties going there 24/7. Particularly on the bridge.
6) Hardin's private academy - Always at least 1 party going on the mobs there.
NCSoft - The situation is really getting bad on Sieghardt and I can only assume that the same goes for the rest of the NA servers. I already quit this game once because of all the farmers and botters. I came back when I heard you guys banned a few thousand accounts. Now I'm starting to get that sinking feeling again. I'm not one for draconian measures but I think it's time to start banning asian ISPs. They have their own L2 servers and should be playing on them anyways. I know its a harsh solution but I can't see any other way. All the farmers you banned came right back to the game. :(
I'm not one to whine usually but I had the most frustrating experience today. I got a clan party together and went to branded catacombs. We were in a room for not even 15 minutes when a bot party logged in and started KSing all of us.
Please GMs, I am begging you, do something... now. I know you have had mass bannings for botters but mass bannings dont solve the problem. In the 6 months between bannings, the botters and farmers have plenty of time to come back, create new chars, and ruin the game all over again.
Ban every day, not every 6 months.
Ban a lot.
Ban everyone who seems to be a bot and leave it up to them to prove otherwise.
You've got to have some crafty programmers, use them to devise bot-proof systems. Its not that hard, even I can come up with a few ideas like:
1) Include random numbers in the links for NPC dialogs, that way botters can't script actions with then because the name of the link will change each time.
2) Prevent more than 2 or 3 connections from the same IP address. This allows people who 2 box on NAT firewalls to still play but prevents a botter from loggin in 9 bots on the same connection and going to town.
3) Create some kind of challenge/response system, like blogs and other online forums use. Create an obfuscated image and ask the user to type in what the image says at login time. If they can't do it, they can't login.
4) Integrate gameguard more tightly with the game servers. Cross reference a log of connections to gameguard servers with the in-game servers. Those accounts which chronically show game server connections but no GG server connections are bots.
Please. I am on my knees begging. Do something. I train them every day and they just keep going. The only way to stop them is to wield a ban-stick.
Sometimes it seems that the bots are more protectet then the player. Many of players make petitions, many. But nothing happends. The bots which one where tould to the gm´s play and play and play.
Maybe the money is all for NC Soft not we, the players. I know that if they kick 2000 Bots from the servers that they lose much money and that is the reason they only do it all 6 month.
But some day the game will be died because of the bots. And then the botters are rich and we lose a good game.
Well its all nice that we cant login and everything.Cant you at least fix a code that will put us into a waiting list so that we wont have to enter our password every and every time.What i am thinking is this.You see teon is full now but you have been put to the waiting list no 58.At least this if you cant do anything about the bots.
Bots are my main source of income lol. I've probably made 30-40M training the suckers. I made a plainswalker just to do this and make cash for my mage. Bots are SO easy to spot if you're looking for them. Most of trains are attended though.
Usually what I do in the catacombs is grab a room and fake death next to their room, grab another room and fake death in the same spot until I have a nice clump of 20-30 mobs. At this point they've probably force logged, but when they log back in and start fighting I pull out my bow and pop one of the mobs in the middle and drag them over to them and fake death. They don't have enough time to force log before everyone bites the dust. The trick is to learn how long their relogin delay is that way you can time it right to get a good clump of mobs together before they start wandering away. Always stun the healer as soon as you stand up from the FD. Usually I throw a deadly blow/mortal blow on the main tank after that to get their hp dropping faster.
Another thing, which I don't like to do because it impairs the hunting of other players, is to drag ALL of the mobs in the catacombs in to a single room. They'll eventually port back, but this gives the bots nothing to hunt, and if they do move into the room with all the mobs, there is virtually no chance of survival.
Before I had my PW I used to bring a large group of mobs into a room and sleep cloud them, then relog. Prophets can train with return but you need another toon who can pick up the drops. Hell I saw an EE training using serenade of eva. Just about any class can do it, and it's a great way to make money for your main. So far this week I've got a Full Plate helm, +2 brig tunic, Divine gloves, tons of regular brig/mithril pieces, and a countless number of materials. Well good luck training everyone! And please, stick to training bots, not legit players. You also might want to have a high level main logged out in the area in case their enforcers show up to kill you xD
The other night I tried to report a bot train leader with a name composed mostly of i's and l's. I targeted the toon as it was running up the TOI steps. Even with the character targeted, I still had problems reading it, and I got it wrong in my report to the GM. Of course the petition was denied and closed with no way for me to respond.
The bot was long gone by that time. There should be a mechanism to target a character, and transfer that name to a GM report.
The truth is that bots wont be effectively banned until NCSoft changes the way they approach the problem. There is no reason for players to report bots. There are so many easy to detect bots, almost everywhere, that you could keep GMs busy banning for weeks.
Here is a simple plan:
Start with a single server (Erica please), and have a GM go thru TOI (or another high level dungeon). As we all know, bots groups are obvious from their method of movement. Target the bot group and collect all the names in the party. Quickly move thru collecting names from all bot parties in the dungeon. A place like TOI should yield 100+ names. After all names are collected, ban them all, preferable all at once. You should have software to support the quick collection of names in a party, and the ability to ban 100's of bots with 1 click. I guess it would take an hour to clear TOI. The next day pick another high level dungeon to clear.
How this works:
1) You focus on 1 server, for a more concentrated effort. If this method works, you can go to the next server.
2) You concentrate on the larger bot parties, they are so much easier to detect, and you dont worry about banning innocent 2 boxers.
3) By banning all the bots in a dungeon at the same time, you are asured that other botters are not warned, and log to evade detection.
4) You start with high level bots, which are the hardest to replace. Once high level areas are cleared, it will be a while before they get infested again.
5) As you go down to lower level hunting spots there will be fewer places that the bots can hunt, since more botters have to get new accounts.
6) Eventually most of the bots will be in newb areas, or more remote hunting spots. Hopefully player reports will keep them down at that point.
7) You will have collateral damage, where leachers, and bot supporters get banned. This is a good thing. We dont want these type of people in game anyway. If they get serious about playing fair, they can buy another L2 package.
From Webster's Dictionary:
game - any form of play, amusement, activity, or sport involving competition under rules.
It is clear by this definition that L2 is not a game as long as bots and adena sales exist.
Tsili's plan is what I've been recommending all along.
Unfortunately, I suspect there is a LOT of red tape that prevents GMs from banning bots quickly. I'm picturing the equivalent of exhausting all appeals before a prisoner is executed... it takes forever.
We don't need that -- We'll settle for TEXAS JUSTICE!
I had this idea with the "let the GM run arround at a lvl place with many Bots" too, the weak link is: The Bot-Programm got a option to Force Log when a GM is near. I already Send a Link with a whole configuration guide of "insert-Bot-Program-name-here" to the Support and a GM at the Forums to look at it, but i didnt even got a response.
I work in a support too, and for me its like: If i dont respond to a customer i get pked in RL. U guys should do that too :P
I had this idea with the "let the GM run arround at a lvl place with many Bots" too, the weak link is: The Bot-Programm got a option to Force Log when a GM is near. I already Send a Link with a whole configuration guide of "insert-Bot-Program-name-here" to the Support and a GM at the Forums to look at it, but i didnt even got a response.
I work in a support too, and for me its like: If i dont respond to a customer i get pked in RL. U guys should do that too :P
The L2 client can only detect information that is sent to it by the server. If the L2 server is letting the client know that a GM is around, then the devs are very stupid. The development of any game like L2 should start with the question of how to stop the bots.
The problem of bots has been around alot longer than L2. I left Asheron's Call because I got fed up with bots everywhere. The devs finally got smart and started sweeping the known botting areas. But it was too late. Botted toons already dominated the servers. They had the most money, so they always won the equipment auctions. There was no way for a legitimate player to compete. The few of us who earned our high levels were accused of botting. There was no way to gain any real recognition for achievement. The main competition seemed to be who could bot the most. I heard one guy claim he had botted in the same spot for 8 straight days, most of that time AFK.
The L2 client can only detect information that is sent to it by the server. If the L2 server is letting the client know that a GM is around, then the devs are very stupid. The development of any game like L2 should start with the question of how to stop the bots.
I can post a Screenshot if u want.. but i dont think the GMs would like that ^^
The L2 client can only detect information that is sent to it by the server. If the L2 server is letting the client know that a GM is around, then the devs are very stupid. The development of any game like L2 should start with the question of how to stop the bots.
I can post a Screenshot if u want.. but i dont think the GMs would like that ^^
I can understand that a GM might want to appear as a readily detectable avatar, but good design would require a stealth mode be available for GMs.
I've been using my BH a little to train bots and it is fun, I would like to train the ones by the manor manager at the manor recylce time. I see the charaters run by bots run into (their charater's body and the manor manager's body are inside each other - kinky). I once reported this - the GM messaged me saying that it would be taken care of. I checked back an hour later and the charater that I petitioned on was no longer inside the manor manager's body - they were a few inches away; and last night in Heine there were 3 inside the manager's body.
NCSoft is making it so that there is only one way to compete with the bots selling/buying at the manor manager . . . and I don't want to run a third party program to sell/buy at the manor manager - I guess I'm to blame that I cannot sell/buy; if I used that program I would be able to compete with them - until I got banned. And that was another reason I had to level up a bounty hunter, I need the spoils and materials - I've quit seeding so many times in C3 it's not even funny, though I am back at it. I have about 500+ chilly cobals sitting in my warehouse now - but some of the other seeds are moving.
Oh yeah, Something that I came across by accident. What I was doing was sitting in town selling some stuff. Someone would come up and stand near me and there were times where I'd want to stand up and go check out a store but didn't want to miss a sell.
This is how you see what another charater is looking at. /assist InsertNameHere
I have it my hot bar now.
How does this help??
ON some programs the bots following or healling do not target the charater that they are healing.
I saw a healer MP recharging a Dwarf in town. I targeted the MP recharging charater and they did not have the Dwarf that they are recharging selected as their target (actually they had no target other than themselves). I badgered the Dwarf that was getting MP recharged and he pretty much admitted that his 'box' wasn't exactly a box.
So, /assist InsertNameHere and see who the target is.
On other instances I have seen where trains actually target what they are attacking. But the healing assisting seems to not target the charater that is being healed, and the same about following.
The problem of bots has been around alot longer than L2. I left Asheron's Call because I got fed up with bots everywhere. The devs finally got smart and started sweeping the known botting areas. But it was too late. Botted toons already dominated the servers. They had the most money, so they always won the equipment auctions. There was no way for a legitimate player to compete. The few of us who earned our high levels were accused of botting. There was no way to gain any real recognition for achievement. The main competition seemed to be who could bot the most. I heard one guy claim he had botted in the same spot for 8 straight days, most of that time AFK.
i tried to go inside devil's island yesterday. ffs i saw at least 100 bots in the rooms a bit deeper in.
can we just get ncsoft and it's GM off IGE and farmer companies payroll? probably not. i still say we all should leave the game and let ncsoft only get payed by the bots and farmers. see if they enjoy that.
oh wait, theres too many cheaters that need items adena and lvl. and ncsoft needs money constantly. oh great. cruel world.
:mad:
Really I dont know what is the meaning of reporting the bots. I play on TEON server and for months I report tons of bots to the gms and nothing happens. The last 1 month we have huge lag (they say that is caused by the bots), server is always full and bots dont let us play, also those bots are killing every single monster at the place where we try to raise level, I mean imagine a group with 20 bots killing a monster.
I reported so many times the same bots and I always had the same answere : "Thank you for your ticket.....we will procced with the investigation" . I think that for a gm its really easy to ban those accounts its so obviusly that they are bots and I dont think that for ncsoft it takes more than 1 month to investigate if an account is bot or not!
I graduate in Marketing and I can see that ncsoft's marketing is not to have satisfied castomers. We all players give each month money and the server without warring crashes every day. If ncsoft want to keep players they must do something really quick...
PS: Sorry for my anger but I dont know what else to do to be heard by the gms!
LOL ! use your head guys !
4 server are full 10h / days... what do you want that NCSoft change !? They don't care about what happen on the servers as long as server are full !
Server full with no services, no GM (i mean GM doing their work), unhappy customers... things can't be better for them !
I can't believe that a GM could write this thread.
I guess you get A LOT of petitions/screenshots/whatever every hour about BOTS.
Bot Behavior and Detection is OVER
Now CUSTOMERS need that GM do part of their work supporting us.
I was leveling a new charater in my usual spot and again had the same bot that I have seen over and over for the past few months in the same general area come buy. It is usually monitored and on occasion it has spoken to which ever charater I have near it - one of those that I think the GMs cannot ban since it is monitored.
Anyways, it's a low level area and the mobs are all passive but the orc and orc archers are social. I'm watching it and it kills an orc but gains the agro of the orc archer, so it attacks the orc archer but cannot hit it - the orc archer is standing on the top of a large rock. So the bot keeps running around the side of the rock and the archer keeps shooting it. I'm, hoping that soon the archer kills the bot but then the bot starts to use healing pots; I waited for about 3 minutes or so and watched this and I decide that maybe, just maybe the bot will live long enough for me to petition and the GMs to see what's going on before they petition the bot (I still think that the bot is/was monitored).
The response time from the GMs was pretty fast, I left the area so that I wouldn't kill some mob that would spawn near the bot that might ruin this funny set up.
I hope that the bot was captured and disposed of.
Another bot I ran into had a hard name to report, but because of the difficulty I made a special effort to report it. llllllll (multiple lower case lllllls) 16 of them - I had to target the bot, then put my glasses on and use a piece of paper to slide across the screen so that I could be sure of the number of lllls and had to recount it a few times to be sure of it. What do you think that charater was created for? The bad part, it was in an area that had level 58+ mobs in it; implying that the bot has passed through all of the other levels to get to where it was then.
I dont know of the feasibility of this but I still think you should try a little on this front.
Since [removed] and simmilar programs use hooks that bind to your softwares code, cant U make some failsafe that cheks for code being hooked. Make some resident program (without which yu cant play), that sits in the background an monitors for any 3rd party program that tries to mess with the L2.exe, its DLLs and or gameguard itself? Surely this is possible.
If you dont have the programming knowhow, recruit some avid Unreal 2 engine SW programmers and/or contact the authors.
I really dont know what is stopping you from doing this. Are there some legal issues you dont want to mess with, maybe costs involved, or are you telling us to just PUT UP with it?
Please don't post the name of illegal programs. - M
you think that lot is good check this one out...logge don one of my lowbie (no high lvl) alt and was hunting around the rod area found a nice little spot to smash a load of skellies and there was a bot there..and after about 20 mins of fighting for mobs and ksing i decided to pk him...he didnt fight back and just carried on hunting..everything about him/her/it was a bot..i was smacking away at him and the bot was so much higher lvl than me would have owned me in like 1-2 hits..but n e ways i ended up making him sit for hp..then pot..then waste mp oin a heal...sit and then the bot died..few mins past and the bot then goes to town and come back to the same spot..by this time i have worked of my karma and im about 20%tnl when the bot started to flag on me in noob gear the same bot changed armor to pk me lol.. so i click to a far point and log out running with the bot chasing me...think to hell with the bot log my main (lvl 75 sr) and teach the bot a lesson hahahha...get my main to the spot and the bot said ok pk me..i said ok disarm weapon and pimp slap the bot hahha..then the bot shocked me...told me my exact hp..%..pk counts..and how much adena i was holding...i was stumped what dam bot program was he using to show him everything i had...took a screen shot of the convo.. bot then hit me so i armed my soul bow and owned him in 1 shot lol did in excess for 8k dmg to him lol...but still...if that program gave the bot/end user that info...what else can it do??
From what I heard, they can tell far more, an angry bot party which I screwed up, wait till a shaman slowed me and with blinking life and red><, then used his entire grp to whack me while wearing top equipment...
I believe recording action logs of every character for review would easily solve everything, reading action logs can tell ya clear cut who botting and who's not
People have suggested adding in support for certain 3rd party programs to be blocked, the problem is they can run l2 independantly without L2 even running so no matter what features gamegaurd might have it will never do anything to stop a program emulation Lineage2.
I think adding in a 3rd check (other than login/password) upon Login that can only be obtained by running l2.exe (a random number or another field where you type in a scrambled word like those on email registration sites like yahoo everytime you login) might make it much more difficult to actualy login to game with anything other L2, once you solve that problem then you can make gamegaurd useful.
Like my unatackable guard idea, this would in no means stop farmers OR botting, but its pretty simple to add (both of them) and it certainly would hinder them, with NO penalty or harm to real players. So of course these IMPORTANT things are being pushed further down the list of things to do, thereby raising Bunny Ears. Becuase we all know this game is only barely worth the subscription fee without Bunny Ears.
I had the most frustrating experience with a GM regarding a botter EVER:
I train the bot parties at the fields of whispers near heine all the time because all the mobs are social. As I have mentioned in previous posts, these parties are not unattended but are trains. Anyways, I manage to nail this party and they all force log. I petition a GM and explain the names of the charsand that they're clearly bots as they are forcelogging.
While waiting for the GM to reply, leader of the bot party logs on to his dwarf and starts cursing (I assume) at me in chinese. So I start puling more mobs to him to try to aggro him. A few minutes later, the GM replies to my petition with the standard "we will investigate" B.S. But dig this: How long do you "investigate"? Well it has to be less than 5 minutes because within the next 5 minutes, I managed to train that same chinese guy 3 times and each time I got a Nos to attack him, he forcelogged. So assuming the GM wasn't just giving me lip service and actually WAS watching, then he clearly is incompotent because no one "accidentally" loses their internet connection 3 times in 5 minutes and then immediately logs back in. It takes at least 1 - 2 minutes to start up and log back into the L2 client.
hey GM Spam, you really want to score some brownie points? Private message me with a reply about what the heck this GM actually did in this investigation. It's been about a week since the incident and the botter is still running his parties there by heine. My character's name was Disgustipated on Sieghardt. I don't remember the name of the GM who responded.
When listing specific problematic locations, please also be sure to list what server you are on. This is helpful to us.
Bartz
Antharas Lair rooms with death waves, cave beasts, bloody lady. 6-8 toons groups of bots (there 5-6 bots groups). Fully unnantendent bots groups that running to other mob if you target mob, siting/standing permanently, not disrupted even by PK (i've pk healer with magic crit, healer was immideatly rezzed by prophet, no attack on my red char, i was even able to wear off karma by killing mobs in same room with char that i've killed).
Saints Necropolis, Catacombs of Dark Omens
Full groups of bots usually lead by real person. They taking all rooms with tomb guard/Lesser Ancient Shaman/Lilim great mystic/Nephilim Cardinal
I know that on Kain it is not an uncommon sight to see bot parties running through Giran, HV, or Aden at any given time, apparently without fear. But if you really want to see who's botting, hang out at the entrance of each cata/necro when the validation period is over and everyone is booted from them. You'll see a stack of bots like you've never seen before. What's really funny is when you see half of them are dead. :p
During the Christmas Tree event I happened to be in DE Village for awhile on an alt. I noticed a stream of characters, names all ending in djk or somthing like that, taking the same path like a conveyor belt, come up to and leave the Newbie Guide. I stood there for some minutes fascinated with what I was seeing. Sorry, but no human at the controls could ever accomplish that. :p
Other than the above I have nothing new to add. It's really very easy to tell a botted character from a real player. Their behavior is, well, mechanical. Not only that, they get stuck for apparently no reason whatsoever in places where a player would normally correct their mistake. And before you say anything, I'm not talking about for a few minutes. I'm talking about hours on end. I can hunt for quite some time when I'm grinding, but eventually nature calls. :p
So yeah, it would be nice if NC could do something a little more lasting about the use of third-party software. That would be really nice. :)
I'm starting to wonder what the point of this thread even is. It's pretty obvious at this point that NCSoft completely condones all botting in Lineage2. There just aren't enough NA players to support the game so the extra sub fees from the farmers must be the key to it all.
I just went and tried to XP on Oel Mahums by Oren(sieghardt) on my TH. I didn't see one bot party. Not two. Not 5. I counted 13 bot parties, 9 players each, scouring the area making it impossible to hunt. As soon as I would get halfway through a witch doctor, one of the parties would walk up and kill it.
I've pretty much given up on expecting anything to be done with botters. The ONLY time I have EVER seen any type of action is when I report the stairs being blocked in Giran by sell shops. It's funny that usually within an hour, a GM will respond and clean the stairs up, but can't do the same for botters.
I play on Sieghardt, and used to spend weeks on end hunting bots and reporting them. I used to love it, because I could train on the botters, get them killed, and get their gear. The best part would be that their buddy would come and rez them, and they would then continue to fight without some of the gear and get owned, then die again and drop. Now they all forcelog, and it's almost impossible to get them to do that nowadays. If NCSoft could just eliminate the forcelog, I would be happy. I loved hunting bots.
I remember in the Mithril Mines on Sieghardt, there was 3 bot parties with 4 toons each. One of them was called Telepath and I can't remember the rest. I'm not exaggerating, that these guys played pretty much non-stop for 4 months 24x7. I reported them, I killed them, I trained them. I reported these guys AT LEAST 100x, at least. This was my test to see how responsive NCSoft really was/is to botting reports. The answer was of course, not at all. After I first reported them, they were still there after 3 months. Even with someone watching them, the forcelogs, and the 24x7 grinding is so blatantly botting, it's just silly. Not to mention the normal bot dance, stand up, sit down, cast buffs exactly in 20 mins, target mobs before they show, switch targets if I select one, running from mob to mob like they're on crack, etc.... As players, we can spot botters within 5 secs of watching their gameplay.
After this experience, I came to the conclusion that NCSoft really doesn't pay attention to the bot petitions. They either haven't come up with solid company policy as to what merits immediate banning, don't have the man power, corporate reasons, or just don't really care. I get the sense that they will only ban low lvl botters such as the guy who downloads the botter programs and runs them from his house. The professional botters I believe have an unwritten agreement, and are left alone, as long as they are not too blatant (if there is such a thing.)
In reality, I don't want to see botting totally abolished, as the best fun I have had in this game is from bot hunting. There is nothing like sticking it to those guys, and gettting their gear to drop. I wish NCSoft would just make it so they couldn't forcelog. I guarantee if you could fix that, the online community would be able to solve the botting problem on our own.
The ONLY time I have EVER seen any type of action is when I report the stairs being blocked in Giran by sell shops. It's funny that usually within an hour, a GM will respond and clean the stairs up, but can't do the same for botters.
Moving a toon is a far cry from banning an account...
Moving a toon is a far cry from banning an account...
You missed the point. The point being is at least you can see something being done, at some point. I have yet to see any large percentage of bots that I have reported ever banned. How do I know this? Because I take screen shots of every botter I report and I have at some point in time seen those same toons many moons later. Do I expect botters to be banned within hours of reporting, no. Do I expect botters to be banned within days of banning, no. Do I expect botters to be banned at some point. Uh, yes.
I think most of the frustration everyone feels is that the process is done completely behind the scenes. The community has no idea if something or if anything is being done at all. Unfortunately, I don't think making this process public would be good either. What we are left with, is the system we have now. Every few months, NCSoft will post that they have banned X amount of accounts. Which is about as effective as the old Iraqi Information Minister telling the world that the American forces were not in Baghdad.
No, I didn't miss the point. It is simple for a GM to see the stairs blocked and move a few toons. It is far more complex to prove a person is using 3rd party software and ban their account. "Just looking" isn't enough.
It is far more complex to prove a person is using 3rd party software and ban their account. "Just looking" isn't enough.
It's actually very easy to prove someone is using a 3rd party program. Even by simply checking the logs for any autolog is proof of a 3rd party program, since it is not a native function in the game. Now, that does require some time to do, that's why I don't expect bannings to happen right away, and that's exactly the reason it takes so long for them to ban accounts now.
If NCsoft wants to find bots its very simple. Go anywhere in this game and LOOK!! Thats the key element you have to go out and look for them. I can promise that if you go out and look you will find some they are everywhere. As long as you go somewhere with mobs don't be an idiot and just in the ocean looking. Every Cata and Necro! Toi, AL most open fields all dungeons. trust me you will never come up empty handed!
to look to find bot is stupid...
it would take about 10 minutes to make a soft on the server who can detect 100% of bots with no error.
Just understand that NCSoft need bots !
Does NCSoft really want to find out who the bots are? Here is an idea that would take a whole 3 minutes to execute.
Step 1: GM's recieve a bot report.
Step 2: GM's port their toon to the reported bot area.
Step 3: GM watches for 20-30 seconds and "should" recognize suspicios behavior.
Step 4: GM reduces suspected bot's (only one) MAX HP to 0.
Step 5: Bot healer begins /auto rez sequence.
Step 6: Dead bot is rez'd... has 0 HP, dies.
Step 7: Secondary bot healer begins /auto rez sequence.
Step 8: Step 6 is repeated.
Step 9: Party continues to kill mobs and dead bot does not submit petition to find out why he is having problems getting rezzed.
Step 10: GM slaps the party with the ban hammer.
Step 11: Rinse
Step 12: Repeat
Now, if the person is legit, ie.. not a bot, the GM will get a petition very very fast, or at least should. At that time, the GM could explain that there must be a "client side" problem, and reverse the action taken and reimburse the xp lost.
Does NCSoft really want to find out who the bots are? Here is an idea that would take a whole 3 minutes to execute.
Step 1: GM's recieve a bot report.
Step 2: GM's port their toon to the reported bot area.
Step 3: GM watches for 20-30 seconds and "should" recognize suspicios behavior.
Step 4: GM reduces suspected bot's (only one) MAX HP to 0.
Step 5: Bot healer begins /auto rez sequence.
Step 6: Dead bot is rez'd... has 0 HP, dies.
Step 7: Secondary bot healer begins /auto rez sequence.
Step 8: Step 6 is repeated.
Step 9: Party continues to kill mobs and dead bot does not submit petition to find out why he is having problems getting rezzed.
Step 10: GM slaps the party with the ban hammer.
Step 11: Rinse
Step 12: Repeat
Now, if the person is legit, ie.. not a bot, the GM will get a petition very very fast, or at least should. At that time, the GM could explain that there must be a "client side" problem, and reverse the action taken and reimburse the xp lost.
I can think of a dumber (but just barely) idea. Why not kill everyone on the server. If they petition, they are innocent. :rollseyes:
But see, then your messing with everyones AFK shop as well, my idea only affects those who are actively engaged in combat while not at the computer. The person who is using the bot program will have to log out, then log into the legit client to post a petition.
ROFL, can you imagine the wait on petitions then? There are currently 48339 petitions ahead of yours. Have a nice year.
The botters in DE village are back. To Recap: the script starts in town, hits newbie guide for buffs, then buys heals in trader, sells drops, and ports back to southern end of dark forest, hunts for 10 minutes or so, then SoE's back to town and restarts the process.
Here's another suggestion for bot discovery by GMs:
Remove the party from the area they're hunting to a safe area. If they are real players they will either:
1) Petition a GM to find out what the heck is going on
2) Move back to where they were hunting
3) Probably have a lot of "[Censored] " chatter in their party, general, or clan channel.
If they are bots they will:
1) Immediately log off due to the "GM Teleport" options
2) Stand in one place for a long time without moving. Their buffers will keep rebuffing everyone but no one else will move or do anything.
3) Run into a wall or other obstruction trying to get back to where they were hunting
4) When the "handler" for the bot party finds out what happened, he will either log off the party OR move the players back to their hunt area one at a time because he can't control all of them at the same time.
Here's a few other things you could try that would mess up a bot but not do much to a "live" player:
1) disarm all their weapons. If they're real players, they would quickly notice what happened and rearm their gear.
2) Cancel all or some of the buffs on people in the party and then watch the buffers auto-rebuff almost instantly. No live player would be able to react that quickly.
Have invisible mobs, that only sends signature. Bots will attack them, but human players can't see them. :)
Alot of the bot parties have ppl that monitor them (learned from training a few of them). But even they cannot see the invisible mobs that are in the area, so they would have a really hard time explaining that.
Ban the bots, and even ban them from being able to start over.
As players, we can spot botters within 5 secs of watching their gameplay.
Please, 5 seconds. Personally I am glad they inspect each report. I have seen far too many reports just out of spite. I have seen a lot of dual boxing, that are not bots. I get tired of everyone thinking they are subject matter expert on bot spotting. I love it when they flag or think its funny to pick up my adena. I have surprised more than few people who thought they were griefing a bot. Generally I ignore them until they become a nuisance.
Thank you NCSoft for not automaticly banning everyone that gets reported!
I agree that the bot like behavior can be witness daily.
Have invisible mobs, that only sends signature. Bots will attack them, but human players can't see them. :)
Alot of the bot parties have ppl that monitor them (learned from training a few of them). But even they cannot see the invisible mobs that are in the area, so they would have a really hard time explaining that.
Ban the bots, and even ban them from being able to start over.
I like this idea. But technically, wouldn't some of these programs be able to work around this? Or does it automatically hit/kill everything around the bots?
I think the whole problem could be easyily stopped by simply denying asian ips. I dont find this that harsh, as people in asia can play on chinese server anyway (so they have their own)! Koreans do the same, so why not NCSoft America?
By this time I already talked to some bot leaders, and all who talked to me where "chinese money farm industrie", they say they are poor and thats their work for them. Well, then they shall ruin their own servers but not ours. I know that bannin all those chinese people would hurt the income, but I am sure soon the server would be filled again, but with much more lagal users... As it is now most of the servers are full anyway, so why permit legit players to play, just because those 5-8 multi account bots are taking the space?
I really dont understand why not this easy solution is taken, as it would remedy the problem at least by 50% if not much more... but I understand that NCSoft dont want to miss the money of those many accounts even if I am 100% sure much more real player would come back... L2 is already in fashion and many new faces are appearing, its just bad to let some of them go away because of those problems...
Kind regards,
Rin
The problem with this, is that not all botters are chinese, and not all farmers are botters...We have plenty, and I mean PLENTY of people right here in Canada and the US of A who bot, and make money off of it. People who openly admit to it.
People sell their accounts all the time unfortunately, and the people that buy them off of ebay are generally farmers, from all parts of the world, not just China. The very friend that got me into Lineage II sold his account. I didn't like that he did, but he did. :confused:
You can ban the asian IP addresses, which will help the problem somewhat, however, it isn't that hard to bounce your internet signal through several packets, thereby cloaking it, bounce it through an american IP address...and you are officially back at square 1. If hackers can cloak their IPs, why can't the botters?
NCSoft's response to reports of botting/adena selling is not good -- they won't even investigate without hard evidence or admissions by the culprits. What's the point in that??? Investigate my allegations and SEE FOR YOURSELF if they are selling the adena. If you don't find proof, dismiss the claim. But you're not gonna find the proof id you don't investigate. I thought HGMSpam said the policy is to investigate even without admissions, but if so, customer support doesn't seem to know!
I reported a group of professional raid farmers on devianne server. You know, the ones with all the messed up names that camp the spawns 24 hours a day to sell the items, obtain adena, and sell the adena.
Here's the response - judge for yourselves:
Lineage II Petition #: 2006-01-25-000341
Discussion Thread
Response (GM Meridian) 01/26/2006 08:35 AM
Hello Matthew,
Thank you for contacting us! Please submit concrete evidence backing your claims of adena selling. This can include chat logs or actual transactions, however we need this information to further investigate the reported players. If you have any other evidence of the reported players violating the Lineage 2 User Agreement, please let us know at the soonest possible convenience.
Thanks for playing Lineage 2
GM Meridian
Very poor response in my opinion. I'm pointing out the offenders, the least you can do is investigate them and see for yourselves if there's a problem (which all players on my server already know there is, and we can SEE who is responsible).
NCSoft's response to reports of botting/adena selling is not good -- they won't even investigate without hard evidence or admissions by the culprits. What's the point in that??? Investigate my allegations and SEE FOR YOURSELF if they are selling the adena. If you don't find proof, dismiss the claim. But you're not gonna find the proof id you don't investigate. I thought HGMSpam said the policy is to investigate even without admissions, but if so, customer support doesn't seem to know!
I reported a group of professional raid farmers on devianne server. You know, the ones with all the messed up names that camp the spawns 24 hours a day to sell the items, obtain adena, and sell the adena.
Here's the response - judge for yourselves:
Lineage II Petition #: 2006-01-25-000341
Discussion Thread
Response (GM Meridian) 01/26/2006 08:35 AM
Hello Matthew,
Thank you for contacting us! Please submit concrete evidence backing your claims of adena selling. This can include chat logs or actual transactions, however we need this information to further investigate the reported players. If you have any other evidence of the reported players violating the Lineage 2 User Agreement, please let us know at the soonest possible convenience.
Thanks for playing Lineage 2
GM Meridian
Very poor response in my opinion. I'm pointing out the offenders, the least you can do is investigate them and see for yourselves if there's a problem (which all players on my server already know there is, and we can SEE who is responsible).
I submit they should investigate you. I have no proof and don't even play on your server. However, you *could* be guilty...
If any of the GMs would know the Economy and some allys from the Server where the GMs do "Customer Service" then they would know what Gor****reedstein is talking about.
First we had "Dragon" then "HappyDisney" and now we have the "Core" ally... all of them are Professional Farmers that use Bots. And u can see that if u watch em. "Dragon" and "HappyDisney" are gone. We reported Disney every Day till someone made some investigation and now we have the "Core" ally, camping every Raidboss day and night.
We tried to do Lilith and like 5 minutes after she spawned the Farmers were already at Disciples Entrance.
Thank you for contacting us! Please submit concrete evidence backing your claims of adena selling. This can include chat logs or actual transactions, however we need this information to further investigate the reported players. If you have any other evidence of the reported players violating the Lineage 2 User Agreement, please let us know at the soonest possible convenience.
wow too bad about my dreams of ss farmers being banned
i know raid farmers get banned but they usually bot
guess we give up on ever removing farmers and just hope bots get banned, just wish it was abit quicker than 6 months for a 24/7 9 man party
In the last times there is a growing of bots parties around the whole server, their software seems more able to avoid our "training" attempts, i tell this because i trained over 1500 bots on kain and i developed various techniques (some of them with c4 will be no longer available)
The real problem of botters is that they forcelog during train attempts, and i found a very easy way to work it around: mini bosses, they count as a single mob aggroed, i let them aggro on me, go next to the bots and use confusion, the boss changes target, the bots fight back, you have an healer to heal the boss while bringing other aggro mobs on the bots just to keep their healers busy (i did it many times using deadman ereve), there was a major problem: when used too far from the mob spawn point confusion doesnt work, on the statuis messages it looks as if it worked , but in facts the mob doesnt change target.
In c4 these bosses have become raid bosses and will no longer be aggro. it looks like NC removed the most powerful weapon against bots.
I can see that they represents the majority of account payers on the servers , but when all the real players will get fed up and leave the game there will be no longer (illegal) market and the farmers too will no longer renew their accounts. If NC cannot ban them or do anithing else to stop the phenomena, should give the players the possibility to kill them easily and get their drops, and i can ensure that players themselves will be a deterrent against botting.
There are hundreds of them, please give us weapons to fight them
If they're dumb enough to be boting with a polearm in their party, and you're a dagger, use lure on a nearby raidboss and drop it right next to a mob. I scored some nice gear the first time I tried it. Second time, I got killed but I was smart enough to use a lucky charm.
Group of 8 always in Enchanted Valley on Sieghardt.
Group force logs if it is trained but leader will remain and talk in broken english to any players in locality until the person who trained the bots leaves, then he goes off to a quiet spot and comes back with his group again.
Monitored bot groups very annoying cos leader will attack your mobs but his bots dont.
Sort it out please sick of kill stealing while trying to level
Names of group written down for future reference if you need it PM on here or in game.
Cloghopper.
As players, we can spot botters within 5 secs of watching their gameplay.
Please, 5 seconds. Personally I am glad they inspect each report. I have seen far too many reports just out of spite. I have seen a lot of dual boxing, that are not bots. I get tired of everyone thinking they are subject matter expert on bot spotting. I love it when they flag or think its funny to pick up my adena. I have surprised more than few people who thought they were griefing a bot. Generally I ignore them until they become a nuisance.
Thank you NCSoft for not automaticly banning everyone that gets reported!
I agree that the bot like behavior can be witness daily.
I personally do dualboxing and I have configured some macros so my SE can buff me. When I see that my buffs are dessapearing, I just run the macros. Because of this, I do not think that the way to detect a BOT looking at the 20 minutes gap for the buffs is valid. As I do, more members of my clan do dualboxing using macros, and I can see in the chat window on the server that my clan is a bot clan. Now by use macros im a cheater?
Once, I followed around a red-named character who went around killing bots in DE lands. Every single one who died said "I will be back" and within a minute or two, would be back again. I called a couple of bothunter friends and we tried to use our tried and tested method of training. This particular group of bots was so huge and fast that we could NOT find mobs to train them with.
Another bothunting session I had was up in Elmore (I forget where exactly) where we would train mobs onto a bunch of bots. They all force logged and we dropped the mobs on that same spot, so that they would be instantly aggroed on log in. We watched the bots flicker in and out, lasting only about two seconds in the game, but being attacked every time they faded in briefly. After about ten minutes of this, they'd log in dead.
Shortly afterward, we got bot-bossed: high level DE with prophet runs up and kills my little SO, and then turns to my companion, who kills him repeatedly. (Prophet rezzes botboss, my friend kills him; rinse, repeat) We must have seriously ****** off this guy because he started talking in broken English, saying that he had billions of adena, and was rich and we, stupid legit players, had to go to sleep SOMETIME, that this was a Chinese game, America loses. Weird stuff like that.
Unfortunately, he was right about the 'we need to sleep at some point" so we had to leave. The next time we saw this guy's bots, they all would log out as soon as we got anywhere near them, regardless of whether or not they were engaged in mobkilling at the time.
As for the afk shop thing; I have a warsmith I put up on afk craft shop while I sleep. It's one of the few ways I can earn money to support my main. Not everyone who afk shops is a bot, nor is someone who is often afk craftshopped for great huge tracts of time a bot. I've been logged in for as long as 3 days once, on this chara, but I always make it a point to talk in whole sentences, especially if PMed. If I don't reply at all, it means I'm asleep or afk.
For people like me who don't ebay or bot, a warsmith on a separate account is one of the few ways to earn adena for our mains. Or else, what was the craftshop option for?
...killing bots in DE lands. Every single one who died said "I will be back" ...
The Dark Elve territory bots that are south of SoDA can be permanantly defeated. I know because i wiped them out for good on Gustin. Make a DE mage, level it to 20, class change to wizard. Log in a couple times a day and wipe the area clean (you can 3 shot them with a dark wiz lvl 20, using your best 3 skills). They cant even log out fast enough. Then move to the port in spot, at the camp, and kill them as they port back in. It took a few weeks, eventually they just stopped coming back. Half a million karma later, I win.
BTW make a lvl 1 clan called "BotGriefers" or the like, so legit players dont attack you. For gear, use the top NG mage book, it looks like the low level mage book so people dont think they'll get a mage staff off ya' if they drop you. Use devotion set, you'll need the cast speed to beat thier force log. Fill your inventory with junk so if you die, you drop that instead of your gear.
Once, I followed around a red-named character who went around killing bots in DE lands. Every single one who died said "I will be back" and within a minute or two, would be back again. I called a couple of bothunter friends and we tried to use our tried and tested method of training. This particular group of bots was so huge and fast that we could NOT find mobs to train them with.
B I N G O --- that's how they are doing it in starter areas when there are ago mobs. There's not enough mobs around to form up a train.
Spawn a monster 5 or 10 "Z" units below ground. If the client, the *real* client, sees that the monster is under ground level, it doesn't draw. Real client knows the layout of the terrain so it can tell when a "fake" monster is below the ground (and should not be drawn).
Bot software can't detect terrain. Thats why they get stuck on rocks.
So on a real client, nothing is changed. On a bot, they detect monsters by radar and /loc coordinates. Fake one looks like the real monster in terms of position so they try to attack it. But real client can't see or target the "fake" monsters.
If you target a "fake" monster, instant and automatic ban. Real players will never see a fake monster, only bots will.
Well, after the C4 patch, the same 7-9 bot trains are back on Kain. Groups in Forest of Outlaws targetting the Taik Basilisks, others in newbie lands, they are back in full force everywhere. Same thing as the above posts.
1. Cuckoo Names or names randomly constructed from Simple English mixed together.
2. Perfect line fighting. Follow the leader that no live player using Auto-follow could mimic under normal circumstances.
3. Usually one leader and the rest followers. This one leader gets the "alarm" when someone attacks or a GM appears.
4. Same autolog, even when fighting, when a red appears. Some bots don't even log anymore with the reds.
5. They mainly work on specific coordinates in the game. For example, the Pet Manager in Heine has a quest which rewards 6k more or less at a time. The object is to kill one Lienk, get an egg (100% quest item), port out, talk to him, get reward, port out to Lienks again, rinse & repeat. These bots hit the EXACT same coordinate everytime they repeated the cycle. You could stand on the same part of the map and they would run there. There were 4+ bots doing this in about a 90 second cycle.
5. When Dusk won the festival last week, all the roaches, er bots, came up to the surface and botted just about ALL parts of the map. No matter where I went in Kain, literally EVERYWHERE, there were bot parties. I think bots outnumber the players 5-7 to 1 or so.
With the release of C4, NCSoft has give us a new tool to help get the information about bots to NCSoft, if there's one minor modification to it.... Replay. With the replay function you can record the things going on around you, but there's one minor flaw that is keeping this from being a perfect bot-action spotter.... There are no name tags on anything in the replay. If names are added, you can watch and see the stream of names that come and go in a predictable pattern, such as I watched in DE village recently.
Just swim a short distance from them, and drop one adena.
Then swim out a bit farther while they go to pick up that one, and do the same.
Do this until they're about 50 feet or so from their spot on the shore. When they get too far, they won't auto-walk back to their spot. Quite fun to watch them drown.
Really nice idea :)
But what do u do with Fishing Bots inside Town like Aden. On Devianne there is a Fishing Bot (myguard) fishing all day.. U cant train him, u cant PK him.. only watch >.<
That ****** me off :P
Maybe i can get him with an Adena line to the Lake at the Colloseum :) have to try that later today ^^
as long as they pick up the first piece, you can move them wherever you want. A good idea is this: If they pick up the first piece, you know they'll do the rest. Wind (the only bot with fishing atm) will stop moving the bot back to the fishing spot after about 25-30 steps. Start a line from about that distance, and drop things from that point, towards the bot, that way the last one you drop will cause hi to pick all the others and move out of position. Then just have your way with them
I've given up on reporting bots because its pointless, i've sent in well over 50 reports and probably only 1 train got banned... who were back 3 days later.
Its so [censored] obvious when people are botting, how many people keep fighting when your buffing and healing mobs? how many people stand there whilst you attack them? how many people allow all this to happen and still go along fighting mobs without saying a thing.
I'm not even gonna get into the bot trains running through town that in its self is just a big F.U. in the face of NCSoft from the botters.
Whats it take to realize a groups botting? Having NCSoft officals bust down the botters door and arrest him? it seems to me thats the case.
Bot Party = all running together with the same distance between them, running directly to the nearest mob after killing the last, perfect buffing patterns, ignoring certain mobs. The same party killing in the same spot for months. NO REAL PARTY IS IN THE EXACT SAME PLACE THE EXACT SAME TIMES FOR AN ENTIRE MONTH OR LONGER, SORRY NOT HAPPENING.
Real Party = Non of the above, we have to be mindful of aggro, social, locations of mobs to other party members etc. We have to stop and turn our camera's to see the next mobs in case any are behind the camera. Buffs are not given every 19minutes exactly everytime.
Whats the point of this Thread? It accomplishes nothing, we dont know what it takes to get bots banned, we dont know the names of the botters being banned, you tell us nothing. All this thread is for is for the players to think NCSoft is doing its best. Well sorry for being so blunt but your best is nothing.
You ban bots, congratz. 2 days later another group is started and a different group replaces the old one.
Where dont you see bot groups? Varka Silenos Stronghold.. no one could even possibly bot there. I have a hard time there myself.
Make all mobs aggro and social, place them next to each other. This will allow players a better chance to train the botters (as ncsoft cant do anything to stop them) the botters will have to be very careful not to overpull etc.
The new hunting area's require parties that are on the ball with everyone paying attention. Make other area's like that.
When the GM's find a group thats botting have each member pm'd or petitioned at the same time all with different questions and see how long the answers take.
Player 1: Answers
Player 2: Answers
Player 3: Answers
etc..
If its a real party of people the answers will near enough be instant, if its a party of botters watched by 1 person the answer will be delayed.
I see the bots killing the guards. Well I decided to help them out a little, so I killed the guard for them. LOL there were about 15 to 20 bots running back and forth trying to target the guard that was not there. They all started runing triangles and stoping at the same spot. I called in a GM and got a messege saying I need to tell him more details other than come watch guard "X" in gludio. So I was a little sad. But keep up the killing of the guard.
After about 20mins of this I saw something. While I was killing the guard I saw that my bots had gotten fewer. And I thought that they were just logging. But then as they got thinned out I saw this was not a computer logging all the accounts out, but "a figure of god smiting the bots" This who ever was doing this was not chosing account to log but toons.
And I saw with my own eyes the Ban Hammer being layed down on some cheaters.
How do I know because after the last of the bots were gone a late commer showed up and started running the same path, on the same guard. And hours later still only a few toons killing the guards.
The starter village bots use the newbie guide buffs to hunt solo. F.x the DE village is swarming with dorfs in bronze, wielding a tarbar. They port to Souther DE forrest and spoil Spiders, then SoE to town, drop their stuff in the WH, and go kill themselves on the guards to get just below 20 and requip and start hunting with full buffs including heal cubic.
Solution: As your Skill Point count grows abnormally high - stop giving starter buffs.
My experience is that every Bot Train that I report stays in the Game. I have already my "Favourite Customers" (thats what i call em ^^).
I Petition em almost every Time but after like 4 Months or more reporting the same Trains over and over... well... I dont want anymore.
It's not hard to suss out really. They all head to mobs before they've even spawned and there's nothing left for the decent customers who just want to level and they all have nonesence names. Later on they will go and suicide repeatedly on guards. Is it so hard to have a GM pop into these spots now and then and get rid of them? That would be a good deterrant if they were continually disrupted and they weren't making enough adena. At least have some sort of alert going on when people are mass suiciding on guards. The lag it causes in places like gludio and gludin is unbearable.
How are they getting all these accounts anyway?
I thought the dark elf area was bad but the dwarf area is 10x worse.
Is it so hard to have a GM pop into these spots now and then and get rid of them?
If you were running a business, would you:
A: Stop 80% of your customers at the door and tell them they can't subscribe to your service.
B: Keep taking the money, cash the checks, buy a beach house, and tell complainers "Thanks for playing L2".
Which would you choose? ...Most people prefer beach houses over moral purity.
I think it is easier to get a player banned than it is to get a farmer banned. I petition farmers over and over and over and over for clearly botting with large trains only to see that farmer there day after day. There was a time where I would no longer see the farmer's train but then I started PMing the farmer charater that I had petitioned after not seeing it. On one paticular farmer that I had grown to like his personality I found that every so often he would move from one spot to another. I thought that he had been banned (but had only moved to another part of the map). I had petitioned about him and his train of seven several times.
I hear of players that get petitioned and even when the player laters says they were running a program and that they never got a petition and were at their computer that they got banned.
This is what I see. Real players are more likely to be banned than real farmers with their trains. One player actually states that he was in a farmer train leaching when he was banned - the farmers are still there botting. (other L2 web site referenced) !blah.
So, I determine that the farmers are under a different clasification than the players that use bots - from my experience. The results: I'm turning the same blind eye as NCSoft is to the botting problem as far as officially reporting them. I do think that what ever money is going towards farmer reduction needs to be refunded to the customers b/c that work is not being doing to the satisfaction of this customer - give me back my nickle :D
NCSoft is wrong if they think my primary concern is banning players that bot - I can handle the player botters better than I can the farmer botters. Player botters cannot afford to loose the gear that I can cause them to loose; with farmers they don't care and in the case of a seven charater train it's very difficult to train/pk them all without massive karma.
Get rid of the bot trains - but now you need to do it by yourself b/c I've spent enough of my game time reporting them - now you do your part NCSoft.
P.S. My parting tip: Check out the top of the water falls in hunters village. Two large bot trains running around up there killing the lizardmen - all of the time for the past 6 months there have been multiple trains there that I have reported in the past. BTW, the lead charater is monitored/played by a person but the other 6 or 7 charaters are botted.
Is it so hard to have a GM pop into these spots now and then and get rid of them?
If you were running a business, would you:
A: Stop 80% of your customers at the door and tell them they can't subscribe to your service.
B: Keep taking the money, cash the checks, buy a beach house, and tell complainers "Thanks for playing L2".
Which would you choose? ...Most people prefer beach houses over moral purity.
Well I'd see it this way instead. Laggy, unstable servers with no decent customers left because they've all gotten fed up = broke adena farmers who go elsewhere to exploit other games = no customers at all! :)
Wanna capture some bots? Wanna be able to ban at least 80% of the botting population (in my opinion)? Then listen up...its freaking simple.
Most botters use a 3rd party software program to connect to the lineage 2 server. This program (or in some cases PROGRAMS, yes, there are several) will remain unnamed by me, although if GM's or whoever at ncsoft would care to know Ill be glad to tell them, I have names, websites and various other specifics that divulging on a public forum would would be "uncool".
At any rate, these 3rd party programs dont actually show a screen per say, its more like a map with icons and names and junk. Suspect a person is a bot? Create a forum, specifically for the purpose of people posting screenshots...when a gm gets a petition about a person being a bot, have the GM pop in, ask the person or personS in question to take a screenshot. Then have them post, said screenshot in the forum made for this purpose. Anyone who is able to login and play a mmorpg should have no trouble, taking and posting a screenie, the gm could even relay intructions to the person(s) on exactly how to do so. Failure to comply results in ban. If the person logs out, then back in....Ban. (that would be them logging out of the 3rd party and INTO the actual client.
Now I know for a fact that there are INGAME versions of this same botting program but that is not used as much, even then, theres another way....
Have the GM's polymorph into a mob around the person they suspect is botting. If the person AUTO ATTACKS this GM have them go "purple"...a REAL player playing with the REAL l2 client will be like, WTF, Im purple from hitting a mob...oh em gee. Then the GM says, blah, blah just a bot check, thanks for playing L2. But if the bot keeps attacking regardless, and moves on to the next target as though nothings different...Smack em with the banstick.
Come on now, its not that freaking hard. a few hours of research and a couple downloads here and there and I was able to gather all this info. How is it that a corporation cannot? Know thy enemy NcSoft. Botting endangers us all.
Do something about it. I dare you.
BTW, fun fact about botters....the most POPULAR versions of the bot programs...have to be PAID for MONTHLY. El Oh El!
some bot groups are so obvious (yea 7 ppl synchronised attack pattern and always a fixed distance from tank, healer sitting and standing all the time due to tank moving around to target mobs even if it's a few steps away, healer sitting and standing while buffing) all reports on them have so far been ignored... yea it takes 1 month to investigate a bot group...
just like how you asked me which character was stuck in monster derby because of a bug YOU caused and closing petition not allowing me to reply, so i made another petition telling you to ask me directly instead of making me repetition all over again, logged off, logged in an hour later and found that you found out which char was stuck and ported him back into town... yea please just quit it with the lazy excuses, if I can do you should be able to since it's YOUR JOB to find ppl who break rules.
I have also noticed that only 1gm is on duty ever and sometimes (like 1-2hrs of a day) NO gms are present. Has there been a budget cut back for customer support? GET a couple of full time GMs (2 per shift, 1 of them starting halfway to overlap with next shift, that's 6 employees... OMG it's going to break you bank! /sarcasm), PAY them well (ofcourse you will have to continuously determine their performance level to justify their pay) and you'll get happy customers!
My current bot detection methods:
1) Is it a group? Goto 2) otherwise goto 3)
2) Are all or most of the following behavious present in the group?
- 1 tank (usually a bounty hunter or sometimes a dark avenger) followed very closely by his party
- party members aside from tnk and healers/buffers attack at exactly the same time
- if tank sits down party sits down as if synchronised, similarly with standing up form sitting down
- if you attempt to train them (bringing in a a large amount of monsters toward the group hoping that they draw aggro from you because they attack a social monster) they either force log off (after about 15seconds they just dissapear even tho they are attacking a monster, OR they run away from you (the group aside from the tank all in "follow mode", where they are always behind the tank in a tightly assembled pack, BEFORE you appear on their screen (assuming they are using normal client where you can see behind walls).
- Logs off or says the same thing if you hit the tank
- takes 30s or more (sometimes never) to reply to some simple but out of the ordinary questions, e.g. what is the time?, hey do you know xxx?
- logs out when a chaotic character is nearby (if the chaotic character is near their log off spot they log in for a split second and log of immediately (impossible in rea clients because it takes more than a split second to load the graphics))
THEN this group is most likely botting
3) Similar to 2):
- does the player respond to your pms or chat messages within a reasonable amount of time? (30s or less, maybe 45s)
- if you attack them do they continue about their hunting? Or stop and log out? or repeatedly use a respond phrase? (usually an insult)
- if killed do they stay at spot for a set amount of time before logging out or respawning in town? (instantly counts as 0 time) Do they come back to spot if they respawned?
- Do they log off when a chaotic character is nearby?
- if you attack a monster before he attacks it does he change targe immediately? If not, does he continue to "ks" without commenting?
this is too easy... if I am a GM there should be no bots around after a week of me working on them, after that the fear of being banned immediately should do the job of keeping them away.
I think what you need to do is announce that all bots will be banned permanently on sight, so at least that gives the so-called "casual botters" a chance (I suspect alot of these exist on all servers) to stop using it then banning all bots on the spot, no inquiries or investigations.
oh and right now almost every legit player on the server beleives that NCSoft loves farmers and botters and don't give a **** about us. Maybe you should change your no-information policy into a community friendly attitude so you actually get to know what you are doing? Do you have no faith in your ability to out smart the cheaters out there? Or are you just too lazy to implement new anti cheat systems? You need to remember that there are lots of players you want to help you out as well, so that should add alot to your currently low brain power, if only you would accept our help and use the help we give you.
Problem is, every now or then NCsoft shows up with statistics (numbers) of people/acounts they have banned.
Come on, we dont care about statistics, I care about the state server is in. If I see bots at every catacombs and on best mats gathering places ALL DAY, from WEEK to WEEk, from MONTH to MONTH, I can see nothing has been done. Word NOTHING is just it,.. no mater what numbers are you throwing at us, it doesnt matter. Make server bot free, make Gameguard sa***uards, make GM hecks, patroll the bot infested regions. Do something,... ACTIVELY, so players see it, experience it and feel it. Dont just be transparent and your presence nowhere to be evident.
Personally, I know they will never deal with banning farmers. That's just a reality. Fine, I can live with that. The only thing I want is for them to remove force log. Our only tool that we used to have to kill bots was to train them, and now with forcelog, it's just not possible. I think most of us here would be thrilled to train all of the bots because
A:) we are doing something about the problem that we can tangibly see, and not relying on the unknown and ineffective petitions system
B:)we get nice bonuses for cleaning up these bots from their dropped gear
C:)this actually does work for eliminating bots, as even bots get sick and tired of having to replace dropped gear all the time.
D:) it is SOOOOO much fun.
There was a 3 month period in my life where I used to love looking for bots so I could train them and get their gear. It was so satsifying to do something about the bot problem, and have immediate results to boot. In every area that I did this in, the bots eventually no longer showed up. I'm sure they went somewhere else, but that was just a part of the hunt. You could have people dedicated in your clan just to hunt for bots. They're like mini-raid bosses.
Eliminate force log, and you will see how effective this is. I'm sure it would take you guys less then 4 hours to program a fix for forcelogging.
Problem is, every now or then NCsoft shows up with statistics (numbers) of people/acounts they have banned.
Come on, we dont care about statistics, I care about the state server is in. If I see bots at every catacombs and on best mats gathering places ALL DAY, from WEEK to WEEk, from MONTH to MONTH, I can see nothing has been done. Word NOTHING is just it,.. no mater what numbers are you throwing at us, it doesnt matter. Make server bot free, make Gameguard sa***uards, make GM hecks, patroll the bot infested regions. Do something,... ACTIVELY, so players see it, experience it and feel it. Dont just be transparent and your presence nowhere to be evident.
brings up one of the things that I used to teach: The first part of the use of force in law enforcement is 'officer presence' . . . when people see the law enforcement officer they are more likely to obey the law. Get out there and be seen - crime will go down & after a while people will become used to seeing a GM wandering the game land much like a TEXAS RANGER - you guys are in Texas now . . . when in Rome (Texas) do as Romans. ^^
Well I just want to ask: WHY is so dificult to ban bot players??
Why is so dificult to put a GM in every catacomb?
Well I arrived a situation that I can't play ¿And i am paying for this? Today in NoS i couldn't play 'cos every room had a group of bots. I have a screen of 17 bots togheter!!
Well my party decided to pk the healer to take a room. All good, bots gone. But 5 minuts later the situation gets worst. A player loged in the room and killed the pk of our party, after he trained mobs to us, and all party died.
WTF?
I made a petition, well 7 HOURS later!! I recived a single message for submiting the names... 7 hours alter i wasn't in NoS, 7 hours alter i can't remember 30 names like ghkjsxkj. And i don't want a robotized message that makes nothing, i want my exp, i want to play, i want to talk with a person, with a gm and not with a computer.
lol it cost monney and bots are monney for NCSoft, just try a thing all GM (at least one evry time i check GM list :/) go to begginners village, you'll see an army of bots delvl on gards, it's so difficult to check, just one time a day if your coffe break is to long, begginers villages ?
Evry player see bots evry where, and when we petion them
"blabla bla we'll check" stop guys, you do nothing against bots, absolutly nothing...
I see only player posts ..... some from NCsoft may doing with bot problem. I am new player and L2 is beautiful MMORPG but this i unacceptable for my playing this game. I have two choice....ad 1) someone do with bots..... ad2) on market with MMORPG is not only Lineage 2 and change is too light (srry fo my english)..... This is ideas many players who start play L2 and who leave sadly from this great game. Please GM.... Use your power and clean that bad users. I wish stay same as many players but is on you. Thank you all who hear my pray.
lol it cost monney and bots are monney for NCSoft, just try a thing all GM (at least one evry time i check GM list :/) go to begginners village, you'll see an army of bots delvl on gards, it's so difficult to check, just one time a day if your coffe break is to long, begginers villages ?
Evry player see bots evry where, and when we petion them
"blabla bla we'll check" stop guys, you do nothing against bots, absolutly nothing...
This could be a very easy answer. When you attack guard and get killed. You should be thrown to the farthest random place. Not in a town. Not the town you died. You will be inmobile for an hour. (BTW, an reason a real player wants to be killed by guard?)
lol it cost monney and bots are monney for NCSoft, just try a thing all GM (at least one evry time i check GM list :/) go to begginners village, you'll see an army of bots delvl on gards, it's so difficult to check, just one time a day if your coffe break is to long, begginers villages ?
Evry player see bots evry where, and when we petion them
"blabla bla we'll check" stop guys, you do nothing against bots, absolutly nothing...
This could be a very easy answer. When you attack guard and get killed. You should be thrown to the farthest random place. Not in a town. Not the town you died. You will be inmobile for an hour. (BTW, an reason a real player wants to be killed by guard?)
I've done it. There are very legitimate reasons for doing so. Not knowing this shows your lack of knowledge of the game.
I read through the thread knwoing it is about how you detect bots. But most of us assmune that NCsoft did not know the tricks you just figured out, and we assume NC wants to elimite all bots. But I do not think it is the right assumption. At least I wouldn't run game bot free if I were NC.
1. Botting brings in revenue to the company. How many real player quit ONLY because they hate bots? Close to none. How many bot subscribers? Go figure.
2. Botting, especially farming, won't hurt that much. The price of adena is constantly falling on ebay. Say, if farmers get so many S grade gears so everybody can buy it cheap, is that good for you also? I know the farmers will get rich. But this world is still better with them selling adena on ebay rather than drugs on street. If some real player wants to buy from ebay to better enjoy the game, that is quite reasonable. If a seller wants to make it a full time job, it is fine with me also. To me, problems is not that bots will benefit from killing mobs. The problems is the third party program will one day be too powerful and wil directly affect other players account.
Overall, I think NCSoft is strategically right on how they fight bots. NCSoft, be harder on 3rd party program (not only individual bot accounts) if you have the same worries. Yeah, ban high level bots first.
P.S. I do not bot/farm and I do not buy/sell anything on ebay. I wouldn't get GM's attention here if I were a bot. I am just trying to think from another angle.
This could be a very easy answer. When you attack guard and get killed. You should be thrown to the farthest random place. Not in a town. Not the town you died. You will be inmobile for an hour. (BTW, an reason a real player wants to be killed by guard?)
I've done it. There are very legitimate reasons for doing so. Not knowing this shows your lack of knowledge of the game.
I should rephrase my question and suggestion above. Do you have a reason to do it over and over, each and every day, so that you can stay at a certain level? I wanted to say this panelty starts after you suicide so many times, but I cut it short so it is an easy answer.
I eliminated the names from these shots. I think I posted them earlier and they were deleted. Oops, I forgot to read the forum thing on that. Anyways...when looking for bots, looks for a couple of patterns:
1 dwarf, 1 other DD, 1 SE or other healer
1 dwarf, 1 other DD, 1 Buffer, 1 SE or other healer
9 member party with a combination of 1 dwarf, 1 healer, 1 buffer, 6 dds.
Mostly goofy names of random symbols. Here are a couple of screenies of the way they fight and the combinations in action.
Well i know that NC really want the bots but i know a lot of people that quited the game or is quiting due to bots. The politic of NC is very bad compared with others companys and i wont say names.
I dissapoint you when you say that botting, especially farming, won't hurt that much. I tell you why, Lineage is completly designed withouts bots. Taht bots and farmers are breaking the economy of the game. I played in c1 long time ago when everybody started, it was very dificult obtain for exemple mithril gloves or manticore boots and top D weapons a very strange item. Well now i am playing and everybody goes with top D +5 or +8 with a lots of ss or bsps. What hapen people dont learn to play. I laugh a lot when me (cleric with devotion) beats a elf mage with top D +5 furthermore partys arent needed and people dont know how to play partys.
Well there are a lot of thigs that afects that farmers and bots, but the principal is that makes the game less enjoying and funny.
Be the best of lineage now is so easy as being rich (privileges like in a real life). You buy a lots of adena and gear, some lvl 75 players and makes a clan. And the worst is NC is "doing" nothing, well they makes something saying a lot of words, apologizes and statics but not results.
I have to say, Im at the end of my rope with the char I have in Erica...DE village is completely swamped by dwarfs with names like THHIOWAFH etc and its just doing my head in.
Forget trying to petition, as the little notice says, it can take up to 24 hours due to high rates........well, thanks *NOT*
Its pretty soul destroying sometimes.......add that to PMT and Im not a happy DE!
It couldn't possibly be that difficult to detect whether or not a logged on account had the right amount of interaction with the server (going through all the menus) before attempting to sell seeds. Ban those that did not, and if you can get it through to Korea, please put delays on the menus so those that disregard them can be banned and all others have a fair chance to compete with each other.
I'm here on the dwarf Island on the Teon server at the whinstone and obsidian golems and all the bots here with names like JNDKJRBFV (and there are at least 10) are running around like chickens because the NPC server has once again gone down. Wouldn't be to hard to catch them right now. :)
how hard would it be to change the rules within the game a bit related to bots? why not just detect them (at server lvl) and have 'no fault' pk in place? I know that groups of bots can be tough since they are all tweaked out but if 'whites' could pk them without recoursce, wouldn't that 'open season' bots? It seems they would become like raid bosses--where groups of real players could form parties just to pk bots......clans could pk bots.....make the bots like 'red' players--have their drop rates out of this world and no karma penatly for killing them. You can't tell me the servers can't detect them and apply 'special' rules to bots--the server detects 'red' 'white' and 'purple' players and applies different rules already.....
Make it easy open season on bots and SOMEBODY will kill them.....
I agree with xXxDarklingxXx.... The bots in DE village on Erica are thick as thieves. They always get buffs from the newbie helper, and go to either the northern part of the swamps hunting marsh zombies and festering bats, or southern part of dark forest/spider's nest and hunt spiders and golems. They are there all the time in big enough numbers it's hard for any real person to get any quests done. After these bots level for a while, they first deposit their good with the warehouse keeper Dorankus in DE village, they hit the gate keeper, go one trasport away to Gludio and then in droves throw themselves on the guard Melvile, who happens to be the guard closest to the gatekeeper in Gludio. Anyone who watches for any amount of time sees these bots are following exactly laid out paths in towns and when they first show up in mob area. I have litterally drawn "Dorf Xing" on the ground in adena (1a each) and shown the paths these bots take, and they always take them....
One idea I've had is, if you kill yourself on a guard 'X' number of times in 'Y' number of minutes, you either have to wait a certain long period of time before you can 'resume' playing, or you get KARMA and the next time you get yourself killed, bingo, you're in Floran which is most likely a long way from where these bots want to be. OR... Turn them purple for an Extended amount of time. Real players would notice it, and wait until the purple status had left, but bots might not, and if they don't, then it leaves them open to "justice" from honest players without us having to come out looking like the bad guys (getting karma).
Another idea is like the "empty police cruiser". If the bots are programmed to respond when some one with the '=GM=' tag comes around, spawn random non-hostile "mobs" with the '=GM=' tag in popular bot areas. But to make it really effective, that means that at least on occasion, there should be a REAL gm that shows up to take action. Put the fear of GM into them.... :p
I was in the wastelands on the Bartz server yesterday and saw a guy running the prog, reported him, got a reply saying my petition had been dealt with. Then this morning what do I see........the same bleeding character in Gludin. What the hecks the point of reporting them?
As for the wastelands, u cant move for the little queues running around, sitting down, standing up, sitting down.
The GMs etc know where they hang out, yet nothing gets done. Its soul destroying sometimes.
I am new player on the official server. I logged in and started play on Teon server. First thing which I saw in School of magic was a bot killing Goblins! Those bots ruin this game, and to be honest, if I would knew it earlier I wouldn't buy the oryginal game;(
I see the two methods that could be applied to remove this bots.
First: we could record AVI files from the game with suspected behaviour and send to the proper people.
Second:(a little controversial) Server should generate a questions and PM such question to a player.
For example: "What colour have a grass?"
Then, player would have some response time, and if he did not respond properly, he is get kicked from the server.
Even GM could do that, if they did not kick the bots from server, what is their job?
I decided to make a reply to this thread as well...
If NCSoft would really want to eliminate botters, it would have done it already...
Believe me there is no need for GMs to hunt bots ingame...
There are millions of ways to botproof the servers, there are hundreds of ideas and ways to make ONLY the official client connect to the server...
It's just you have to realise that botters are also paying customers. And obviously NCSoft does not want to lose paying customers. And very conviniently are pretending to be "working very hard" to hunt botters which aparently is not true...
Botters will keep rising in the game till 100% of the population in the servers are just botters. And legit paying customers will just quit the game once and for all since it will not be worth the time and money we all spend...
And then think about what was better... Taking actions in favor of the botters or the legit players?
Sorry for my flaming post, I'm so frustrated with the whole botting situation...
true, i think the only way to really reduce them is to start banning people that ebay and huge clans / alliances that entrusts thier whole castle defence to it , however if that would happen there wil be to few players left to make money and lineage wil close down to all of us ........ LOL
After a 3-4 months of break to L2 i have returned and saw that nothings changed since i quit.
I am playing the game again for 2 weeks and i sent 3 petitions within this period about botters. Same players still doing same thing at the same place and no ones doing anything.
Who can say FC is dealing with bots via petitions or is there another way to report them to FC?
A friend of mine just told me he called the FC by the phone and reported the botters couple of days ago. Even this kind of reporting seems didnt work those players were still doing the same (train of 9 fuzzy named players) at the catacombs...
Please just tell me that anyone is free to use bots and banning some people within 1-2 months period is a joke.
Please FC pay attention here and stop frustrating the real, commited players.
Well I dont think there ever will be 100% bots(or close to 100%)
Remember the whole reason why someone bots, is that they earn adena which they sell for real money.
So if everybody are bots, then there is no one left to buy the adena.
Also there are somethings "good about bots" (dont flame me now :) )
The main reason that I can earn adena in-game is that I do a lot of trading.
Usually I buy 5000, 6000, 800, even. 10.000 units at once (eg. buy 5646 Animal Bone) from one person. I dont think the common players farm that much at one time.
So, due to that, I can buy mats for like 10-15kk within 2-4 days and resell it all for 20-25kk in 2-4 days.
So I have a profit of 10-15kk in one week :)
[the best trade I'v made was a profit on ~30kk in 4 days.... by trading only :) :) :)]
Instead of forcing the players to police the bot and farmer problem on the servers, how about you find a fix to people not even using the game client to connect via programs like [censored].
Instead of forcing the players to police the bot and farmer problem on the servers, how about you find a fix to people not even using the game client to connect via programs like [censored].
omg so brillient. so original
so brillient and so original that.... it will never happen
not flaming you just saying that the answer is so obvious and been suggested so many times you'd think they would do something ^^
Instead of forcing the players to police the bot and farmer problem on the servers, how about you find a fix to people not even using the game client to connect via programs like [censored].
I haven't played any other MMO's but I understand the problem is in just about all of them. So, figure out a way to completely eliminate the bots and the game companies will beat a path to your door.
Once again, why are the players the ones who have to find and develop a fix to this problem? I'm not a programmer so I don't have any technological know-how. Lineage is my escape from day to day junk.
Creating and "offical" thread on the subject and censoring out words like Walk in the er does not make a problem just disapear. That just seems to be the mindset everyone has.
Once again, why are the players the ones who have to find and develop a fix to this problem? I'm not a programmer so I don't have any technological know-how. Lineage is my escape from day to day junk.
I totally agree but my point was that none of the games have "fixed" this issue. It's not just NCSoft.
Creating and "offical" thread on the subject and censoring out words like Walk in the er does not make a problem just disapear. That just seems to be the mindset everyone has.
We all know the name of the censored program. You don't need to say it to talk about botting. Besides, I like that they've gotten it off the main forums so every other thread isn't "OMG, there's bots!"
I just wish we had a section where we could talk about this ongoing issue and where NC could take an active role in the discussion.
Over the course of a few days i've reported countless players only to see them disappear and new ones taking their place.
Banning those third party players is not the answer and going after the ones that buy is just to resource intensive. We the players need a discussion with NC to come up with a better way to handle this.
I'm game with anyway to fix the problem, but the current standpoint NC has of sweeping everything they don't like into a thread that they more then likely have not read in awhile is kind of disheartening.
Sometimes ignorance of the problem only causes more problems. I would love to see a thread where Ncsoft publically came out and started posting their progress on it. As is we hear so little it really does feel like they do nothing.
They have came out with numbers, maybe not as often as you would wish but they have. I just think we need to take a different direction with this.
Say for the sake of saying it. They gave me a Bot killing NPC i could control and i went on the massive spreed. It's like killing one ant, you have a million to take it's place.
I just wonder if a change in the loot tables would be the answer to stop this flood.
Lowered drop table would defintely battle the farmers and bots.
The best way to combat adena sellers is to give them little reason to sell. Guildwars and City of Heros don't seem to have the market like we do. One could even say our current in game economy kind of encourages it.
It's all speculation really, messing with in game economics and drop tables at this point could cause more problems then it is worth. Maybe if they had done it in C1 when the bots were more managable. But 3 chronicles later and alot of people might get upset by a change like that.
I'd welcome anything concrete to stop the problem personally. But I have friends who have devoted months to BH and WS alts who may not be so welcoming.
I'm starting to think the only way to combat this is to lower the drop tables...Maybe even give castle owners more control over the towns economic condition.
You should ask your dwarf friends what change they feel would be in the better.
To be honest, I don't see why those people who have alts for spoiling mats should be upset. If they lower the drop table all around then the only thing that would happen is it would help them.
Lowering the drop tables would eliminate the need for farmers, maybe not all farmers but it would eliminate quite a few. There are so many ways that bots and farmers have cornered the market it is not funny. From 24/7 bot groups for mats, to 24/7 bots hunting quest mobs in the noob towns. To even the big high level Raid boss killers, they've even started killing lower level raid bosses around guldin and other areas. Now there are bots fishing.
When every aspect of the game is dominated by adena selling bot companies then the only thing really left to do is change the drop tables.
I'll have to ask for a little leniency because I am exceedingly sleep deprived and, well... not fully functional.
Lower the drop rate? As in, drop it back to what it was in C1? No thanks. Raising it so that mats and parts drop in multiple numbers and in greater frequency? Yes please.
Drop and spoil table saying what monsters drop what, and their levels? Yes please. (And yes, this is one of the ways that running at the town guards is useful to me; I want to keep my mat-gathering alt at that level because there IS no reason for me to want more than one character in the high 60's)
Fix those broken A grade recipe and parts quests. I say they're broken because helmet recipes are almost nonexistent on the market, and the one time I saw a Dark Crystal Helmet recipe on sale, it was for 40 million. No, seriously, WTF? It was a bot-boss's minion too. Also, the ToI quests are so happily abused by farmers because of the sheer number of parchments you need - and it's random conversion too.
100% A grad recipes would have helped. Infinitely.
The prices for helmets are insane. the cheapest is tallum helm, at 40 million. The next is Dark Crystal, at 60-75 million. (Full item, mind, and sealed) Majestic and Nightmare helmets are over 100 million.
The rest of the armor? They don't cost anywhere near as much.
Now, I have following choices, as a player. Buy adena to complete my set, farm for say, anywhere from four to six months to make an attempt to buy all the parts you need and hope you don't fail the craft - and not quit the game if you do fail it... or go about with incomplete A grade on your main.
I've gone with the last choice, and am considering going back to my Zubei set because set bonuses are yummy (That, or switch my main's armor choice to Tallum Heavy and save up for a whole chronicle to get the helmet... too traumatized to try crafting it!). I can only guess at how many players go for the first choice, however; and given that the price for helmets remain incredibly high, it means people DO buy at those prices.
Great, but what about those players that like to lone-wolf it? If they never can spoil(sorc classes, etc.) they never get a chance at any decent gear over C grade. C grade is at least sold in the prestigious shops.
I am BH on hindeminth and just love train bots with fake dead
but
1. bots I pettitioned most of time still there or different location on the server
2.One person most of the time looking after the bots they dont only if place didnt wisited for long while by antibot players
3.Force log when train them they do force log but not allways
& someone will talk or say something to you. Some bots i reported log straight after i come close enought 2 target.
4. If some GM let me walk him around Hindeminth for BOTS
exposition i presume lag issue or Heavy traffic on server would be resolved :D
5. How 2 report bots when name like "aiiiiiiqrgvqerrrrrgv"
thats hard work we pay money for the game not work :mad:
6. Its some reasons when ppl can use bots for like seeding
so they interested for bots to be.
7. The new think about drops from ppl in party 15 second
thats best thinks for bots becouse if Mob drops bot will pick up
all drops including his bot group drops so if GM cant ban all bots we cant strip them ether.(done that to some bots) :cool:
As i writed before some kindly policeman delete my post in general forum because also this type of post go against the law.
Delete all commands/macros that do autofollow like action.
Effects:
-Multi boxing people will play like every one else.. if they can real play at the same time with more than one toon good for them.. but with that type of macros and commands is like a cheat.
- If you see the 1 f@ck dwarf with a party going same time and doing same time actions they are true people OR they are using bot programs. No more doubts.. and very easy to see.
Some of the GM should go to Gludio (devianna) and keep an eye on the guards there. There are loads of third party users who are delevling on the guards. and they are so easy to spot as well. :p
Who else who are delevling would in their right mind sit down after the reapear in town after death for the next 10 of a second stand up and run to the guard they just died from?
They also seem to have a prefered guard in their program, so that no matter where they end up make their way to the same guard. It also seems that they can put a certain lvl in the program, so that it stops and just stands close to guard when the lvl is reached.
I was shocked when i got to Gludio with my new character. There where 20+ bots delevling. :( I reported close to 10 of the ones that was close to one guard, only to notice when i got back to town later, there where even more and others doing the same. :mad:
As i writed before some kindly policeman delete my post in general forum because also this type of post go against the law.
Delete all commands/macros that do autofollow like action.
Effects:
-Multi boxing people will play like every one else.. if they can real play at the same time with more than one toon good for them.. but with that type of macros and commands is like a cheat.
- If you see the 1 f@ck dwarf with a party going same time and doing same time actions they are true people OR they are using bot programs. No more doubts.. and very easy to see.
The bot programs have their own autofollow command. You see it in action when you get the yo-yo effect. Deleting macros does nothing for this.
NCsoft, if you can nail the entire companies, then your problem will be greatly reduced. Although you can't nail them for sale of non-existent property, you own all the rights to the name, and usage of Adena. Consequently, cracking down on illegitimate users isn't enough. Gotta go directly to the source, and that isn't ingame. Prosecute those who are technically breaking the copyright laws, if the loophole isn't big enough to let them slip through.
But.. it's so difficult make the comunication protocol secure? or validate the official client?
The bots exist because devs are not able to do that?
Using a 3part secure software.. making official thread that asking how to detect bot.. seems to me that is like saying "we have a piece of software that we use like modders.. not like developers".
Can be that UnrealTournament engine (and communication protocol) is out of devs capabilities to make that see like a black box? Is that lineage? big and hard mod work on Tournament base engine? or there's more?
Breaking Tournament core net protocol.. this means no games using same protocol is "secure"... is right?
Or maybe different situation.. like source leaks.. tools leaks?
I mean.. ok.. if i want i can install a sniffer.. and break the communication protocol.. i can see login, commands.. in and out.. i can write a program that can replicate it.. but it cost time.. i don't think this guy can reverse engeenering lineage2.
And also if this happen.. why don't insert frequently changes in protocol communications?
A secure protocol don't always is something crypted.. but also something that can change frequently.. more frequently and imprevedilble way that take too much effort to recode bot software to it.
Crypted is no good solution.. because take processor time to be decrypted for every command, and if someone find the private key to decode and recode all is lost. You must change frequently the keys.. but you don't solve the processor overload in decrypting all single messages.
But also in this way ... why all message should be crypted? is not importat the informations go through the wire.. you can change frequently the private key (also position in memory heap) making update with updater for clients.. and make the client send a crypted message in response on a crypted answer from server.. 1 in 20 seconds.. after 3 or 10 false response.. boot out the false client.
All this things can be done if developers have control on low level software, time to do and "want" to do.
Fix the software so that if anyone uses a 3rd party program that they automatically become a killable mob..another words..make them the same condition a perma red would be in and then people could just kill them. If they get a new account and new names..no matter..as soon as they use that 3rd party software..character becomes an instant red type player and fair game for anyone that wants to kill them. Just an idea and maybe it can be developed from here. So the key would be to get the software to detect these programs and as new programs are written, just add that to the detect list.
Fix the software so that if anyone uses a 3rd party program that they automatically become a killable mob..another words..make them the same condition a perma red would be in and then people could just kill them. If they get a new account and new names..no matter..as soon as they use that 3rd party software..character becomes an instant red type player and fair game for anyone that wants to kill them. Just an idea and maybe it can be developed from here. So the key would be to get the software to detect these programs and as new programs are written, just add that to the detect list.
Oh man, that's brilliant. Then the Devs don't even have to worry about it half as much. This gives the players the power to take care of the problem, because it affects US the most. Not sure how they would code something in like that though. Like, variable wise, it seems odd. But if it's workable? Oh yeah...
Fix the software so that if anyone uses a 3rd party program that they automatically become a killable mob..another words..make them the same condition a perma red would be in and then people could just kill them. If they get a new account and new names..no matter..as soon as they use that 3rd party software..character becomes an instant red type player and fair game for anyone that wants to kill them. Just an idea and maybe it can be developed from here. So the key would be to get the software to detect these programs and as new programs are written, just add that to the detect list.
I second the notion that this idea is brilliance. I am not a fan of PvP or PKing, but I would most assuredly engage in player destruction if these conditions were met, and us players were given the sort of 'policiing' authority to eradicate the obvious cheating mechanisms that plague this game.
There was an article in the latest issue of PCGamer that dealt with copy protection schemes but there was an interesting twist that would be humorous for bots, when detected.
What this particular game did if it detected that you weren't using an original copy of the game was that you could still play, but as time went on, performance degraded. The game in question was a battlefield type game so, basically, your tank would start to handle very badly, your helicopter would be almost impossible to control, your sniper couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, etc...
Imagine this type of setup for bots or anyone using a 3rd party application. Your toon would start missing more often, your spells would fail more, you could spoil worth a ****, shots wouldn't fire, etc.
Now personally, I feel that if a 3rd party app is detected, it shouldn't be allowed on at all but I'd enjoy this kind of approach as well...
There was an article in the latest issue of PCGamer that dealt with copy protection schemes but there was an interesting twist that would be humorous for bots, when detected.
What this particular game did if it detected that you weren't using an original copy of the game was that you could still play, but as time went on, performance degraded. The game in question was a battlefield type game so, basically, your tank would start to handle very badly, your helicopter would be almost impossible to control, your sniper couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, etc...
Imagine this type of setup for bots or anyone using a 3rd party application. Your toon would start missing more often, your spells would fail more, you could spoil worth a ****, shots wouldn't fire, etc.
Now personally, I feel that if a 3rd party app is detected, it shouldn't be allowed on at all but I'd enjoy this kind of approach as well...
Rofl, that would be awesome.....Great way to stop bots haha and funny too.
I think the thing holding l2 from stopping bots is because A. They make the adena to sell to little kids therefore making the little kids keep playing and B. They are making l2 more money by paying for 400+ accounts or w/e they pay for monthly. I think that's the main reason why l2 hasn't really stopped bots yet. Hopefully, they will soon though. Until then, keep pking!
Only a fast question. Why does Nc not ban there IP nummber / adress instead of leting them buy new account after they have been banned and start boting again? seems so stupid there has to be a simple answer i must be missing.
Only a fast question. Why does Nc not ban there IP nummber / adress instead of leting them buy new account after they have been banned and start boting again? seems so stupid there has to be a simple answer i must be missing.
Good question.
Going on the notion that most IP addresses in use by residential consumers/customers are static (meaning they change each and every time you logon), that'd be a bit difficult to enforce. Most ISPs distribute static IP addresses like candy during Halloween (not really, but you get my drift, eh?), and although I'm by no means any kind of network/Internet security professional, it doesn't seem like a practical measure to restrict specific IP addresses (since you never know who actually has it, and, that can and does change everyday).
Only a fast question. Why does Nc not ban there IP nummber / adress instead of leting them buy new account after they have been banned and start boting again? seems so stupid there has to be a simple answer i must be missing.
Good question.
Going on the notion that most IP addresses in use by residential consumers/customers are static (meaning they change each and every time you logon), that'd be a bit difficult to enforce. Most ISPs distribute static IP addresses like candy during Halloween (not really, but you get my drift, eh?), and although I'm by no means any kind of network/Internet security professional, it doesn't seem like a practical measure to restrict specific IP addresses (since you never know who actually has it, and, that can and does change everyday).
Just my ignorant opinion.
Ok but what about there MAC adress. Every network card has this and is unic to everycard.
You can say that the IP nummer is the phonenummber and the MAC adress is the residentail code.
I am not a 100% sure but i dont think the MAC adress is static.
And if they could ban this adress then you couldent use that Network card again; to play L2.
Hmm looked it up and it seems one can clone you MAC adress so people dont see the burned hardware MAC adress; But someone elses or whatever you have put in.
I don't think that anything is been done to try to prevent bot's...
I tryed to sendt some msg to GM in Lionna because there is alot of bot's in the elven village and along the path towards Gludio...all I got as answer was "we will investigate it" and "are you comletly shure they use 3rd party programs"...
They are doing so litle that it seems that the risk of getting your account closed/banned is equal to 0...all they have to do to catch the **** bot's is to play in each server let's say 1-2 hours a day with an non GM account and go from place to place and observe the bot's they see on they're way...most of them can be found in the villages auto de-leveling.
If that would had been done then we would had far less bot's in the servers ruining the game play completly...it's almost imposible to find an good spot to gain some exp because all the good spots are taken by the bot's.
In the area between elven village and gludio castle there are atleast 20 bot's...10 of them that I saw today where solo and the rest where in huge parties.
Kind regards from one that is having enough of those bot's and are thinking of playing as an pure bot PK'er from now one :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
When bots delevel by getting killed by guards, they fade out from returning to village almost instantly, way before death animation is complete.
Normal players can't do that, because the client pops the "To Village" button once death animation is complete, and that is a few seconds.
One day of monitoring this beavior server-side would automatically collect most 3rd party program users.
Of course, if they got banned from that the programs would quickly be modified to not do so... the point is it would be very easy to make life harder for bots.
I seen a bot group in the rift last night, one of the best new aspects of Chronicle 4 is about to be taken over by bots. My party and I made a petition giving names etc and we got the typical "automated" investigating message. I love this game alot and I really do NA Ncsoft takes the proper procedures to get these guys banned. Its easy to say we will do this and that because no effort is being made, words without action is dead. Please Ncsoft try to clean up our servers for Chronicle 4.
I went to Witches (Hindemith) last night at the start of the new period and all the rooms were already taken over by bots. Every room I went to had bots in them. What does it take for a GM to actually see this and do something about it. Report it, automated message, ... /gmlist .. automated message again no GM's are available. haha.. It is absolutely rediculous that we have to keep posting and sending messages to GM's and Support. All they have to do is sign into the game and view all these bots, in every town from newbie all the way up. Give me a break... just about every server now is heavy or full.. full of BOTS.
GM's do what? What exactly is the job of a GM and why are they never in game?
We would like to thank everyone who has posted in this thread for continuing to bring these issues to our attention. Although we cannot respond frequently to this thread, we do read it regularly.
On the topic I'm sure many of you are interested in, we've been continuing our efforts to combat the use of 3rd party software and sale of virtual property. Since I first spoke to you about this in mid-September we've kept our effort consistent and continued to update and upgrade our methods of detection and punishment. I had stated in the past that I would not give a specific number again regarding the amount of accounts we terminate in our various policing programs. I will still not give a specific number, but as an update, we have banned over 21,000 accounts since my last letter to you on September 16th. We remain committed to combating players who do not abide by the EULA and will continue to do so. The support team works long and hard to make the game fair for the players who abide by the rules, and as we continue to push forward, they become more effective almost by the day.
Thank you again for all the suggestions and reports you have submitted; we appreciate it!
I was recently told by a GM that GMs cannot investigate bots unless the bot is reported by a player.
So after hearing that I was determined to report as many as I can, by going through all the dungeon areas where botting hurts legit players the most. I started at the dungeon I leveled at, apostate, I reported a group of bots... but as you know there are soooo many bot groups in a single catacomb it would require several petitions...
After 1hour... (mind you I had 10 massive petitions ahead of me, they must've been something major...) I got my automated response to the bot report....
So if I were to deal with one dungeon I would have to either:
1) report them one group at a time.... thus that would probably take me a day to do due to the slow response times to petitions, but wait! I can only do 5 petitions a day T_T so ditch that idea
2) report them all at once when I have compiled a list of them... that would probably take me 20-30min to do for one dungeon, but.... there won't be enough space for me to post all the names of the bots... so in the end it would take me about 2-3 hours to report them all in several petitions.
ok you might start going... why is this guy posting? He already figured it out!
Well... I have about 2-3 hours of play time a day... unlike some players in the game I have things I gotta do before I start playing. So basically if I were to do that I would become the official bot reporter working for NCSoft for FREE. I would lose the reason I play this game: "fun"
In my other thread which was unceremoniously locked within an hour... I suggested that if demos recorded player names as well it could help GMs with busting bots much faster since someone told me that bots can detect GMs nearby... so if players were the ones that could obtain and give incriminating evidence to GMs then they would fear players as well (which they do not at the moment). How these demos would be submitted to GMs would be up to NSoft to decide and design, we can't do all the work for you.
I think the thing holding l2 from stopping bots is because A. They make the adena to sell to little kids therefore making the little kids keep playing and B. They are making l2 more money by paying for 400+ accounts or w/e they pay for monthly. I think that's the main reason why l2 hasn't really stopped bots yet. Hopefully, they will soon though. Until then, keep pking!
Stop falling for the idea that NC makes a great deal of money from the bot accounts being active and unbanned, it's not true. They make far more money from banning them for a few simple reasons.
They will buy another game, the gametime they had prepaid is lost, they have to buy more gametime and they will then remain active until banned again.
This makes more money for NC than simply letting the accounts stay active, so it's in NC's interests financially to endlessly remove bot accounts from the game.
Why they don't do it more and why they haven't stopped the 3rd party programs is anybodies guess, but I doubt it's because of money. If anything it's through a lack of resources, which I guess you could attribute to money.
I saw a cool diea from an other game - bot bomb. When you see bots, you summon the "bomb" which has the same attributes as the mobs around but look different. When attracked, the bomb kills the bot (and better let them drop their gears).
I can't speak for NC. But it seems to me that know how to stop bots but do not want to do it. You may violate the forum rule by just discussing bots.
i agree with many things i read there, but i want to say something to bots hunters.
When you see character without crest on their head, it doesn't mean they are bots. If you see a dwarf, he can be a legit player.
I'm often insulted, ks, attacked etc... because people think i am, or my party is, bot.
My girlfriend can't play her warsmith without people insulting her and saying she's a bot. She has same problem with her shilien knight or shilien elder. I have same problem with my bounty hunter.
Every day, many people insult us, send private message or send petition against us thinking we are bots. Sometimes people train mobs on us to try to kill us because they think we are bot, but we are not !!!
There are legit players who doesn't want to belong to a clan, who wants to play freely and are annoyed by ohter legit players because the only thing they can say is : you're a bot. Are you a bot ? oh, you're acting like a bot. I think they are bots, what do u think about it ? Well, i don' think they're bots 'cause btos don't pole... and many onther things.
SOmetimes i just have time to connect to game, i appear and there's already someone asking me if i'm a bot.
Yes, bots are annoying. Yes, i'm playing in an area where i meet about 3 or 4 legit players and 3 or 4 party of 7+ bots. Yes, i hate bots. But i know i'm not the only real player in this game and i know some dwarfs are real players too.
Please stop harassing people. We hate bots but we're not all bots.
SouSou has a good point there, way to often people without crests get seen as bots. I have had the same problem with my alt, even ended up needing a bodygaurd to save me from the trains i got after me.
Some people on the other hand start a convo with you to see if youre a bot. I would advice this to everyone before you judge people of botting.
I hate bots too, and ive killed allot of them with my main, but not without talking to them. And when they are bots but respond, lucky for them. But most dont respond.
Recently heard that there are "green server" in Asian. Among other green (player friendly) features - No bots. I can't imagine that there not one single bot but the point is that banning server is technically doable.
We do not need more "ideas" about banning bots. Just do it.
Recently heard that there are "green server" in Asian. Among other green (player friendly) features - No bots. I can't imagine that there not one single bot but the point is that banning server is technically doable.
We do not need more "ideas" about banning bots. Just do it.
as posted before, bot banning is not the issue over in korea.
for one reason only:
on that particular server it is known that itesm are free, there is no pvp, and there is a level cap.
NOBODY plays it. theres nothing in it to exploit.
this is the reason why bots dont exist in the korean market. they have migrated to NA because over here we are quite willing to pay 700k for an EWD scroll. we are also likely to turn around and sell that scroll at 750k.
korea: not so. if youre lucky you will see an ewd scroll selling at 150k and even then thats overpriced.
the old adage: "if you build it, they will come" has come to pass already in NA. it has been build, so the bots came.
if we NA werent so piggish there wouldnt be any bots to begin with.
We would like to thank everyone who has posted in this thread for continuing to bring these issues to our attention. Although we cannot respond frequently to this thread, we do read it regularly.
On the topic I'm sure many of you are interested in, we've been continuing our efforts to combat the use of 3rd party software and sale of virtual property. Since I first spoke to you about this in mid-September we've kept our effort consistent and continued to update and upgrade our methods of detection and punishment. I had stated in the past that I would not give a specific number again regarding the amount of accounts we terminate in our various policing programs. I will still not give a specific number, but as an update, we have banned over 21,000 accounts since my last letter to you on September 16th. We remain committed to combating players who do not abide by the EULA and will continue to do so. The support team works long and hard to make the game fair for the players who abide by the rules, and as we continue to push forward, they become more effective almost by the day.
Thank you again for all the suggestions and reports you have submitted; we appreciate it!
No offence but your efforts simply are not working. Get a GM to create a player and go take a walk around Witches catacomb on Sieghardt (and probably any other catacomb on any other server). If you don't recognise the trains of bots all clad in C grade armour in a 60-70 dungeon, all following one "player" in perfect harmony then I'm afraid that your GMs simply are not up to the task. The bot problem is increasing to utterly ridiculous levels.
I fail to see how you have to be reactive (in response to bot reports) when being pro-active would reep such rewards in terms of banned accounts and gain you a lot of respect from your customer base.
WID is where you punch in EXACTLY as you see it in the picture..
the randomness is both generated by login server (changed on a weekly bases on the code generated from millions) and from Client (client must be updated for that week with the new code information)
The letter numbers and generic symbols (for example / - ? ! + = etc.) will appear..
ALSO.. it's CASE SENSITIVE!
This will prevent any player from being able to login and seeing that image without actually using the L2.exe client.
With frequent updates and changes, it'll be quite a tight security system.
I'd add it to login and several other areas of the game that seem to suffer from the automation plague. Manor system and lucrative quests (spider quest at DE village) are just two examples.
It is true that the makers of the two popular third party programs would probably quickly amend their products to display the image, but that would not stop them having to have a person there to read the picture and type the numbers in. Stop automation of manor buyback would go some way to appeasing genuine players.
That said, the GMs still need to get out there on the servers and start being pro-active. Even if you just ported around the catas/necros you'd find loads of bots to ban.
I bet 90% of theose bots are programed to log off the sec a GM appears in a room. IF a GM was atleast on the /gmlist and appeared in the area. Bots would Forcelog faster then Cockroaches running under the fridge when you turn the lights on.
Even tho NCSOFT will not publish account/Charther names.. Or ever how many accounts they have banned ( they did this one, and they said it was the last time).. They can alteast show us they are doing something. But instead we get automated messages saying will looking into the suppected accounts. I think it would be kewl too see a GM even in town, asking if anyone has seen some bots.
You may have noticed that, while many websites now have a system such as this (captcha?) to inhibit automation, they also have an audio version--people with certain visual difficulties are not able to distinguish the numbers through the "noise" despite their ability to see at almost-normal levels under other circumstances. It's a sort of difficulty with visual perception that only becomes apparent under
In other words, we'd need a backup plan...and even with that backup plan, there are issues still unaddressed with "captcha" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha).
I agree that it would be likely that bot programs would integrate this system. Improperly done, they could even automate it, but the potential for an improper implimention is not a flaw in your idea. However, even properly done, it would likely be a minor inconvenience to them--they would not be able to auto-login, and whenever the client parser was updated they would be unable to log in for a day or two, but the day-to-day functioning of the program would be unaffected.
A third issue is the possibility of a deaf-blind user being suddenly unable to access the game...however, I'm frankly doubting their ability to participate in the game at all, with or without this mechanism, so I don't consider that a major problem.
Despite those three issues, I still consider this a good idea, and would like to see some form implimented. The first one is easily overcome in a manner already done on dozens of websites. The second merely indicates that it is not a silver bullet--it won't solve the problem, but it would be a significant inhibiting factor to the automated crowd while only causing a moment of real users time. The third is, I hope, theoretical.
I bet 90% of theose bots are programed to log off the sec a GM appears in a room. IF a GM was atleast on the /gmlist and appeared in the area. Bots would Forcelog faster then Cockroaches running under the fridge when you turn the lights on.
That's why in my original post I stated that they should create a player. There's no reason why they couldn't port that player around the map to the entrance of each catacomb and then walk in like any normal player.
I guess that it comes down to time and resources at the end of the day. Either NCNA want to do something about this problem or they don't. Actions speak louder than words.
Mistryl can visit this thread every few weeks and post a "thanks for you comments, we really apreciate it" message, but if I see the obvious bots, that I have reported half a dozen times, still running around 2 months later then I'm going to have the opinion that NCNA aren't doing anything about this issue.
Outwardly it would appear that NCNA/NCSoft do not give a **** about bots and are simply trying to maximize income and minimize outlay by employing as few staff as possible. Throw some money at the problem, be creative in your detection methods and watch the problem diminish.
Notice how each character is stopping at the exact same spot every time before targetting the guard.
Last time i petitionned to suggest gm to investigate on people killed by guard Melville in Gludio, i had the old answer "please note the names of the characters bla bla bla"... Let me tell you this, you want me to do your job instead of just playing and enjoying the game? fine... What about sending me your salary? If i'm doing your job, i want your paycheck.
I don't really post a lot on these boards, but I have to jump in on this topic. I don't think it's reasonable for NCSoft to ban 80% of their paying subscribers to make the other 20% happy. That would be a pretty self-destructive business move. In fact, I'm willing to bet that many of the supposed 21,000 "banned" accounts weren't permanently banned, but rather banned for a period of time as a warning. Maybe there were even 1000 accounts that were each banned 21 times (hehe), who knows.
So what can be done? Instead of trying to eliminate a problem that NCSoft is (rightfully so, as a business) not willing to eliminate, why not regulate it? What is the biggest problem with bots? They are everywhere, stealing mobs, camping areas... Why not establish a zone for bots?
Hear me out on this... NCSoft knows that many players want to buy adena. As long as they exist, NC will continue to allow botting and adena selling because it ensures a number of subscribers who may not otherwise play. Additionally, it ensures the income from the botting accounts.
What if an area was established where there were NO DROPS other than adena from killing mobs, and there will be no enforcement of bot policies? This way, legitimate players can farm for materials and drops in the player zones without being crowded by bots while bots can farm adena all day. Since they won't get item drops in the bot zone, legit crafters and mat sellers can farm their mats all day without interference while the adena business (and so, NC's business) continues on strong. The adena drops in such an area can be tweaked so that the area is lucrative enough for the botters, who will not be getting item drops.
I tend to think about 75% of people who complain about bots would have nothing to complain about if they could hunt and quest and NEVER actually see a bot. This would also eliminate a large number of bot-sellers in Giran, leaving only legit people trying to sell a drop they got or a weapon they crafted.
I think the only mistake made here by NC is that they haven't been honest with the player-base. I think the legit players would appreciate a statement like "Ok, guys, we make a large amount of our income from bot accounts so we really can't enforce it the way you'd like. Instead, we're going to clean things up and get the bots out of your way so you can play the game.) :D
The main argument I can think of AGAINST my idea is the fact that NC wants to protect their EULA. Of course, now they are protected because although they allow botting, they publicly discourage it and from time to time they do actually take action against (some) accounts... just enough to say they are doing something, and just little enough to allow the activity to go on.
They don't have to publicly acknowledge that the area is for bots, but if they start banning accounts from other areas and teleporting bot trains to "Automaton Island" or whatever, I think the adena sellers will get the point that they are safe there and nowhere else.
..... and there will be no enforcement of bot policies?....
They already have that. In fact there are two, one is called Aden and the other is called Elmore. ;)
If people want to buy adena and NCSoft start condoning it then they may as well just sell it themselves and still get more pro-active on banning bot accounts. Howver, the issues around bots are far more than that of buying adena.
People who play this game fairly get mightily pee'd off when they are two-shotted by some 6 week old lvl 75 nuker who sits afk leeching off bot parties and has never actively gained any XP themselves.
Also your idea does nothing to address the automation of areas of the game other than clearing XP areas. What about the manor system? What about the bots that do the spider quest out of DE village to such an extend that there are no spiders left for the legit players. What about Raid Boss farmers who, although they have a large number of active players, still use bots?
And lastly, your "plan" would still involve NCSoft becoming active in the management of bots. If they were to do this then why not just ban those accounts. That way they get a purchase fee (for the new bot account) plus the monthly subscription, hence more cash for the corporate coffers.
So, for the reasons above and for the fact that I hate bots and the many impacts they have on this game, I think your idea is poor.
Best tool to detect and remove bots is with human as hammered posted. Bots should not be tolerated and this problem should not be at the levels it is since C4 was released. It is pathetic and ashame that NCSOFT is doing dittely about it. Its [censored] that the number of bots are allowed to freely run around our servers.
They already have that. In fact there are two, one is called Aden and the other is called Elmore.
Right, that's why I suggest they shift it to another location, so they no longer ignore it in Aden and Elmore.
Also your idea does nothing to address the automation of areas of the game other than clearing XP areas. What about the manor system? What about the bots that do the spider quest out of DE village to such an extend that there are no spiders left for the legit players. What about Raid Boss farmers who, although they have a large number of active players, still use bots?
As I said, the point of this is to clear out XP areas and the bot-farming of drops for sale. I don't have an answer for people botting the manor system or the spider quest. I would wager that at least a large proportion of the bots are farming for money. Like I said in my post, I think 75% of the complaint about bots is that they are EVERYWHERE, you can't go ten feet without running into a botgroup. If at least the money-farmers were moved somewhere else, it could significantly reduce the number of bots interfering with normal gameplay.
The only reason I made this suggestion is that you guys are banging your head against a wall. It doesn't make any financial sense for NC to ban all the bots. Just because you "hate" bots doesn't mean they're going to do anything about it. So instead of trying to swim upstream, why not consider a painless compromise that greatly improves gameplay?
You are NEVER going to get NC to take a "hard-line" approach to banning these people when a very large portion of their income comes from bots.
...for the fact that I hate bots and the many impacts they have on this game, I think your idea is poor
This doesn't make a lot of sense since the whole point of my idea is to reduce the impact of bots on gameplay...
The only reason I made this suggestion is that you guys are banging your head against a wall. It doesn't make any financial sense for NC to ban all the bots. Just because you "hate" bots doesn't mean they're going to do anything about it. So instead of trying to swim upstream, why not consider a painless compromise that greatly improves gameplay?
You are NEVER going to get NC to take a "hard-line" approach to banning these people when a very large portion of their income comes from bots.
Yes NCSOFT makes money from bots, however, bots will only be around as long as there are people playing this game. As the number of bots grow on the server, there will be less people willing to play the game. Also NCSOFT does not want the bad publicity of tolerating bots, that would be suicide on their part. Bots will always be apart of MMO's but majority of people will not play a game that openly allows bots.
DAM!!!!!!!!!!!
Since last i write in this topic i can say that on hindeminth all going worse!!!!
I train bots all the time i can and i got result when passing EV bots loging just i reach target range LOL
But bots i reported gone AND SAME TYPE SAME PLACE DIFFERENT NAMES????? WHAT IS THAT NCSOFT ? Besides i can't train anymore in EV no mobs becouse 7-8 bots for 1 mob!!! Until we get report on how and what was done following report BOT nothing will hapends
CAN WE GET BACK UP TO KNOW YOU ARE HERE FOR US PLAYERS NCSOFT ?:mad:
Create Topick for GM'S WHAT WAS DONE where and when :D
technicle suggestions how to fight the bot problem more efficiently:
1. client: add a small button if u target a player to report him for botting (maybe where clan/alliance shows). player presses the button and the whole list of that reported party members is send into a "bot check up database"
2. "bot check up database"
this is a temporary database to determine hints if the character may be a bot (observation time 3days). please note that this is only a "prior to investigation" method to save the gm some time and give a rough estimation if the char should be investigated for botting. basicly the database records actions from the reported player(s) and gives points for certain criteria:
- char plays in the same group always
- char delevels on town guards
- char is online an unusual ammount of hours
- char plays with a certain perfection (buffs/dances/assists always on time)
- char does communicate very little (in clan/ally/general chat)
- char has a unusual history of his loot (never gets lootshare/ always trades loot/adena away)
- char has a unusual wa f moving loging (moves with group/ logs with group)
- char has an unusual playstyle (no pvp/ no shopping/ no questing)
- char gets reported for botting often from different players
3. investigation by gm
if the checkup (2) got enough points the char is flaged up for gm investigation.
gm aids:
visual aid: the gm can look at the spot where the player is and observes the bot group a while
textual aid: use a tool where you can talk to a whole party at once and see if all player react in a given timeframe or only the bot leader
gm protocoll:
if you think its a bot, make a temporary ban. usual a player would fight to get a account back, normally a bot would not (prolly)
make the protokoll so easy that a low paid gm can execute the protokoll, hire a lot of (low payed) gms specially assigned for this task