Bot Deterrant (real)

[Zentetsuken]

Plot Boosting is a great mechanic that could be fleshed out.


Right now, we use plot boosting on pclaims to increase siege defense.

However, I think that both vclaims and pclaims should have a plot boost mechanic that needs to be maintained, much like presence, to determine the amount of people who are allowed to be physically on the claim, or better yet, even those who have permissions or oaths.

This would also lower the advantage that megavillages and markets have over other villages and make pvp more fair. We all know that these types of villages require many alts and bots to function, so it might even encourage more people to trade and build small groups, add a new challenge, and make the world feel more alive for longer. Blueberry based economy, anyone?

Having a plot maintenance mechanic should be no problem for most big villages, so if numen points or some kind of payment needed to be made to ensure that more than 10 players could actively be present on a claim, or oathed to it, it should be no big deal. If you have 10-15 active players, and a bunch of alts oathed to a village, it should be an added layer of complexity, but an achievable one.

The cost should be exponential and add the ability for 10 more people with every boost level. A village with more than 40 people oathed would be absurd, and I think that we can all agree that any village with more than that is definitely being exploitative in some way or another, so the costs should also become absurd.

Think about the average snail bot village, probably having 50 bots oathed and given perms. This would make it very difficult for him and his shenanigans!

[SnuggleSnail]

retarded to save the world

[Nocturnal-Rainbows]

I prefer my idea. Just disallow alts. Fixes everything you've just mentioned, because of course it does, alts were always the problem from the beginning. Even in the examples you yourself have given mass alts are the problem.
That's the real deterrent that would work.

[Zentetsuken]

I prefer my idea. Just disallow alts. Fixes everything you've just mentioned, because of course it does, alts were always the problem from the beginning. Even in the examples you yourself have given mass alts are the problem.
That's the real deterrent that would work.

Aren't you one of the people crying about all the Robben accounts on the forum?

How would the game determine what is an alt if it's on a new account?

The only solution is limiting it at the claim-level. Nothing else will work.

[LaserSaysPew]

I prefer my idea. Just disallow alts. Fixes everything you've just mentioned, because of course it does, alts were always the problem from the beginning. Even in the examples you yourself have given mass alts are the problem.
That's the real deterrent that would work.

If you're talking about 1 character limit per account - does it actually solve anything? You can have 10 alts but you can only play 1 at a time, it's 1 player - 1 character situation. Limiting that probably won't change a thing.
Limiting the amount of accounts a person can have certainly will have an affect, but how would you enforce it?
Email? Won't work.
IP address? In our age of VPNs - no, won't work.
What other means are there? MAC address? Same story as IP as far as I know.
Like, yeah, let's limit alts, sure, but how exactly do you propose to do that?

[Nocturnal-Rainbows]

Aren't you one of the people crying about all the Robben accounts on the forum?

No?
I don't think I've ever actually brought up robben's alts... ever.
The reason there's so many robben accounts is because it's piss easy to make alt accounts. I've never been on a forum that is easier to make alt accounts than this one. I myself have like 15 forum alts. This isn't even my main forum account because I don't necessarily have a main forum account, I just decided to pull this one out this time.

How would the game determine what is an alt if it's on a new account?

Use an algorithm to detect and cross match IP's used on accounts. If there's 1 IP using two accounts, nuke both accounts. Simple.
Disallow account sharing too ofc.

Any work around that you can think of for this is risky/expensive.
Like what's the work around here? People with 2 computers in their house can have one computer with a VPN permanently on so they can play 2 clients? Yeah, and then the VPN connection randomly drops 1 day for a few seconds and they get both accounts nuked.

You can't stop botting. It's a futile effort. You can stop alts which makes most of the botting that WILL still happen be more benign.

If you're talking about 1 character limit per account - does it actually solve anything? You can have 10 alts but you can only play 1 at a time, it's 1 player - 1 character situation. Limiting that probably won't change a thing.

First of all the plan is indeed to have 1 character per account and only a single account being allowed. That's one of the lines of defense. Naturally, people will still create multiple accounts. People already use multiple accounts now to bot so it was never a solution that could fix botting alone, but it does mean that if those people who did wanna try getting away with using more than 1 account, they'd need to pay and potentially sub all over again on the alt accounts to get maximum efficiency.

Limiting the amount of accounts a person can have certainly will have an affect, but how would you enforce it?
Email? Won't work.
IP address? In our age of VPNs - no, won't work.

IP address would work. See above in this post where I explain why, but basically what does using a VPN accomplish? Let's assume you have 1 PC. You throw up your VPN, now what? You can still only load up 1 account otherwise the IP algorithm will catch you and nuke your accounts.
The problem with botting isn't that people are loading up 1 random alt account, it's that they've got their main on questing or doing w/e while they have multiple other clients open with bots taking care of all things industry.
This solves all of that shit. Even if you sneakily made 5 different accounts you'd have to (potentially depending on what you want the bot to do) pay for those accounts all over again, which is the first deterrent and then you'd only ever be able to play 1 at any given time, even with a VPN and the only way you're getting around this is if you have multiple PC's and permanently have a VPN active on them, but I've used VPN's plenty of times and their connections can and do drop and if/when that happens and your real IP is exposed your accounts are getting nuked because the algorithm will detect it.

[Zentetsuken]

I prefer my idea. Just disallow alts. Fixes everything you've just mentioned, because of course it does, alts were always the problem from the beginning. Even in the examples you yourself have given mass alts are the problem.
That's the real deterrent that would work.

Any deterrent you try to put on this at the account level is going to wind up with problems.

What is more than 1 person in the same house plays the game? Do you think the devs have the capacity to manually allow every instance of this?

Don't think you think it would be an easy thing to fake with AI?

Don't you think VPNs would be an issue?


There are so many layers to why your idea is bad and unmanageable. It's almost like you put zero thought into it at all.

[PBR]

I am retarded and have no technical understanding

Have you considered just not posting? I am getting second hand embarrassment from reading your posts here. Not to mention the fact outside of any issue you whine about here that many people who live in the same house as their spouse, you know, play the game together.

[Nocturnal-Rainbows]

Have you considered just not posting? I am getting second hand embarrassment from reading your posts here. Not to mention the fact outside of any issue you whine about here that many people who live in the same house as their spouse, you know, play the game together.

The classic braindead leftist retort.
Isn't it fascinating how you can never muster up a reason as to why the idea is bad but you absolutely can sperg out about it being bad because.... BECAUSE IT JUST HECKIN' IS OKAY???

You talk about second hand embarrassment but that's all I feel when I see another one of your NPC-like ilk respond to me with your braindead takes.
You sound vaxxed and boosted to me.

[SnuggleSnail]

Saying "just do X" when X is neigh impossible over and over more angrily each time reeks of somebody who's never had to solve a hard problem in their life

"just use an algorithm to do X"
"How does the algorithm work?"
"That's the programmers job. Just do X with an algorithm"