Botting: Could This Prevent It?

[Williee]

I wouldn't mind a system similar to this, as long we don't get those weird ass blurry messed up letters that are unreadable.
Please type these two words. Hated them cause you have to guess certain letters because of how unreadable it was sometimes.

[Cracked]

Why do you assume bots can't read and perform simple tasks like this? Any 2nd grade programmer could write a script for that. Thank god bots are written by people with no clue, right?

[Detheavn]

I have created programs for work which basically take a screenshot and parse it for recognizable patterns (like text, with specific fonts). What would stop me of simply determining the X and Y of the digit you want to be pressed, move my mouse to that spot and send a mouse click?

This system only inconveniences actual players rather than botters. And no, I don't bot

[Sprinky]

So many bad ideas and misinformation in this thread. You cant make a system which is simple enough to not inconvenience players but complex enough to avoid pixel detection and logical programming methods. The person who said taking away click to move would stop botting also was wrong as bots existed long before that came in.

If you really want to stop bots you need to find a way to reward only good play. For obvious reasons that will never happen though.

[Christan]

I was going to post a good explanation for why I'm against this, but then I read that you would consider me a botter, so I'm gonna have to simplify it:

No. Because.

I'm going to assume you're a botter if you ask why.

i would say no, because it doesn't work in other games that also have tech like warden (runescape bank pin does the random number thing)
and it has been beat by bots, it's so simple, the program looks for a text strings finds the code being asked, more strings, finds which digits being asked for, fills them in

and if you think bots can't use a mouse... that is where 90% of antidetection comes in, getting good...human-esque movements going on with the mouse

a lot of time and effort would be brought in to develop something that is easily beaten, while at the same time completely inconveniencing the real players.

btw i am against botting but i've used them in the past for d2 / autoit pindleskin runs single player, anything multiplayer is a hell no, unless its something made to use mats you gathered (such as a bot that goes back and forth from your bank training smithing with mats you already have)

if a bot can take away from other people its a big F U I WANT YOU TO DIE GO DIAF in my books...
it's all a matter of degree, and bg bots take so much away from their team because bots are not human...

[Deleted]

The problem with your idea(OP) is as many says, it dosn't take long to get around it. I think that the only way of getting rid of bots is if Blizz starts monitoring bg's. this dosn't have to be every single bg all the time, but imagine what a group of 10 people, who sat in 2 teams of 5. 1 day 1 night, could do,

just going in inspecting the players in the bg, looking at average play time per reset, if it's above 16 hour, and the person has suspecious behavior, boom=banned.

[sgprounicycler]

No, this system is pretty basic and bots have been around for a while now that are able to get around this quite easily. Hypothetically speaking though even if this did work it would only delay bots for a very short while and they would be back. Bots will always exist in the game.

[traen]

Yes because banning them before studying how the bot works when is use is a good idea. They have said, and will continue to say so, that the bans are done in waves. A good chunk of them are compromised accounts used to farm crap for gold. The ones farming BG's are generally lazy people and they too will get banned in waves as well. They need to study the bot, find a way to detect it/break it without breaking normal addons or disrupting gameplay for regular players.

Just because they aren't doing things right away and are taking time to figure out how to break the bots doesn't mean they are doing nothing.

You don't get it. They don't do this. AT ALL.

I know people that used fishing bot for 8 month. The same free fishing bot, without updates, available to anyone who can google it. And they are still playing.

I know people who got 250k hks achievement by using the same bot. And they are still playing.

How big is your "wave"? How long should we wait for those people to get banned? A year? 4 years?

I know goldsellers who got their characters banned. But they don't care. They say "hey, this account was banned after 4 month of farming, I earned 30 times more than this stolen account cost me so I'll just buy another one".

So please, don't tell me fairy tales about blizzard that fights bots. They don't do this efficient enough.

[nameuser]

captchas have no place in a video game

and this will not stop botting. nothing will.

Yes, captchas will.

Right now blizzard are trying to HIDE the fact that they have botting problems, that's why they won't implement something like this.
You'd only have to do it like every 5 BG you enter or so.

[Deleted]

Remove honor and conquest points from game. Give everyone basic pvp gear. People can arena and rbg for cosmetic gear/other rewards + rankings on a more competitive platform. Need a carrot to play normal bg's? That would unfortunately require a verification system

[Wildtree]

It amazes me how naive people can possibly think.....
There is literally NOTHING that would prevent a bot from becoming usable. What ever there is out there, it has and will always be tunneled.
OP, the idea is rather horrible. And why the heck re-invent the wheel in the first place.

The solution is a rather simple one, and everyone could possibly live with it a lot easier, if any repetitive action would trigger something different.
Now if botting would only be a "dungeon" problem. Then the solution would super stupid easy.
To clarify, Battleground and Arenas are also nothing else than a dungeon/instance. Only difference there is that players fight other players, whereas in PVE instances they fight scripted NPC encounters. The technique to make both possible, the frame for it, is the very same.
So for that the solution would be...... After entering any instance three times in a row. Authenticator window pops up.
Can get annoying when you really are playing and on a instance farming spree.. But it would eliminate the auto pilots for hours on end.
Yet that's not the only problem. The equally big problem is the negative impact on the realm economies, caused by the same bots who destroy the market through flooding the economy with mass amounts of materials.
Now try to throw a miner random numbers in their face, just because they want to level mining, or level their other profession, crafting, making money, whatever..

Horrible idea OP really...
If you want to come up with something, you have to have a solution that fits the entire problem, not just that little pet peeve of yours.

[Deleted]

Really bad idea, I dont see how ANYONE would enjoy playing BG's with that stuff in your screen. Why not also put up extremely advanced math-problems too, if player fails to solve them - No entry in BG.

[The One Percent]

I'm down with authentication. I have no problem entering in those annoying captchas in fileshare type sites, so this is nothing if it helps prevent bots or at least makes it harder for them.

[Wildtree]

Really bad idea, I dont see how ANYONE would enjoy playing BG's with that stuff in your screen. Why not also put up extremely advanced math-problems too, if player fails to solve them - No entry in BG.

Login screen.... Problem solved with dumbheads in the game...
Or even better, Math test at the counter in the store, or the checkout page online.
You can't buy wow if you aren't intelligent enough to solve this test...

---------- Post added 2012-10-28 at 05:59 AM ----------

Yes, captchas will.

Right now blizzard are trying to HIDE the fact that they have botting problems, that's why they won't implement something like this.
You'd only have to do it like every 5 BG you enter or so.

The best efficient method is in the game...
Who needs additional crap if we already use an authenticator..

Really.......

[Demec]

I wouldnt mind to solve multiple CAPTCHAS if i could play bot free BG. This also could be applied every time you try to queue so you dont need to worry about the crazy mess CAPTCHAS in BG.
Anyway hopefully we will see MASSIVE ban wave soon... but then again why would blizzard ban 500k+ players while they have been going downhill in subs for some time.

85-89 "leveling ladder" is so full of bots...

[Mifuyne]

Terribly bad idea.
I've seen these kind of "anti-botting" systems 10 years ago.
It's heavily outdated and restricts the game way too much.
Bots have been able to solve CAPTCHAS forever now (a few programs are already capable of reading the fuzzy/weird looking letters/cyfers)



My suggestion would be invisible randomly generated artifacts that (for example) taunt, attack, trade the player without you seeing it on your screen (and without the statuses like "in-combat".
This would obviously require quite some coding considering you'll have to hide the actual name and actions from this artifact without the bot (that injects) is able to view them correctly.
Also won't affect gameplay.

[Deleted]

This won't happen any time soon but there is a simple solution to most bots out there. Get rid of the 32bit client and the majority of bot issues will go away, 64bit client won't reveal all the information most bot program writers need.

[Mifuyne]

This won't happen any time soon but there is a simple solution to most bots out there. Get rid of the 32bit client and the majority of bot issues will go away, 64bit client won't reveal all the information most bot program writers need.

Totally correct - however the problem lies with the compatability of the 64bit client.
A massive portion (70-80%) of the people that own PC's are still using a 32bit OS.

Also a funny note about bots ;
Most do not work with DX11

[Deleted]

Totally correct - however the problem lies with the compatability of the 64bit client.
A massive portion (70-80%) of the people that own PC's are still using a 32bit OS.

Also a funny note about bots ;
Most do not work with DX11

Yeah that why unfortunately it won't happen anytime soon. So people get your stuff updated and upgraded

[Janir]

I've played several years and rarely seen any botters

This is odd. Usually when I join a BG there is almost always 2-5 botters in each bg's. My record is 34 bots in alterac valley they were all running exact same way and got stuck at same place.