First of all I'd like to state that I do understand that it's literally impossible with the staff of 20 or so people to be on every server at every time and ban bots manually. I work in support as well. However that doesn't mean there can't be an automated solution.
After introducing level restrictions on chat, number of bots who are taking server slots for spamming became very obvious as they forced to level to Lv 20. TI, GLUDIO I've seen at least 50-100 on the same spot not to mention running trains for quests.
So how to automate a banhammer of these bots? Well you have the tool already called bot report button, all you need is to enable auto ban of whole IP after certain amount of reports gathered. It's that simple.
You might say how do we protect players from abusing this system or bots firing it back? Well it's pretty simple and most of the work has been already done by the function it self when it was introduced back in the day.
Sa***uard #1 IP: X and only report IP Y once in certain period of time.
Sa***uard #2 Set that only characters who are <25 would be auto-banned. This will help to avoid high level players abusing the system on high level players.
Sa***uard #3 Put a limit of bot report per account per day so legitimate players would only press it when they really think it's a bot and not on any random player who is <25
Chances that a random player will gather 50 or so reports while leveling to 25 is rather low even if some1 accidentally reports him while chances of missing cluster of bots is really small.
Also NCsoft should embrace players of using this kind of feature so players would start using it and once IP gets certain amount of reports, all the accounts gets banned associated with that IP and kicked from the server.
With people not even caring using the report button since there's no visible effect with it...
With people presumably reporting characters with a level inferior to 25 because they don't talk/they mind their own business/they're bots...
There's no way a legit player can play if he's auto-banned because one of his toons was <25 and reported as a suspected bot!
A long time ago, in server bartz, lots of heroes shout about bot in auto-ress in Hellbound. 50% of server put bot report in the bot. The bot get delevel from 83 to 72.
Result: the player pay name-change server, transfer to naia and is playing fine.
Bot report button don't work.
Any sort of automation is bad. NCsoft allows players to drop potentially $1000's of dollars into NCcoin for items and an advantage. Implementing an automated ban system is going to drive players away faster than NC could count their money.
Players in L2 have always cried "Bot" first and petitioned when they really have no way of prooving the person in question is on bot. Just because someone doesn't respond to you in white chat/purple chat doesnt mean they are afk.
Also, a lvl setting won't work, as its too easy to lvl now.
I'm not sure what you are trying to stop, but with the ability to purchase +15 weapons legally now on retail servers, a few bots should be the least of anyones worries.
5 GM's are enough to ban bots (1 on each server)
1h a day they can ban many accounts,they only need to visit argos\ruins of agony\beast farm those are some of the most famous spots.
just ran into a grp again tonight. destro/ee/wc..lastnight wc died and dest/ee kept on lvling. used mob that aoes to kill them both so i could lvl. tonight. all 3 dead in WoA same spot.
Any sort of automation is bad. NCsoft allows players to drop potentially $1000's of dollars into NCcoin for items and an advantage. Implementing an automated ban system is going to drive players away faster than NC could count their money.
Players in L2 have always cried "Bot" first and petitioned when they really have no way of prooving the person in question is on bot. Just because someone doesn't respond to you in white chat/purple chat doesnt mean they are afk.
Also, a lvl setting won't work, as its too easy to lvl now.
I'm not sure what you are trying to stop, but with the ability to purchase +15 weapons legally now on retail servers, a few bots should be the least of anyones worries.
that's true...
But i always thought.. if someone will use a bot plz first learn how to configure it and do it right, coz there are a lot of train bots that ks u every time they can, and if u are questing is :mad:ing annoying
TBH the bots don't bother me. I have 3 characters I've easily leveled above 50 in almost a week of playing. I play normally and ignore the gold-spammers in chat. Despite the amount of people/bots on the server, I still manage to find an area to grind quite easily. Same goes for TOI and grinding 55+. With all the bots and people playing, I'm surprised to even get a room to myself even though it happens every night. Before the server shutdown tonight, I grinded 2 levels (62-64) in an hour having my own room. Yeah, people ran in an KS'ed me every now and then, but they ended up leaving. I was there for an hour and left twice to grab more ISS buffs and came right back to an empty room.
Sorry maybe I'm lucky or something, but I don't get all the hype with the bots. They don't effect me at all.