Anti-bot mechanics

[Xcom]

Most mechanics in haven are prone to bot abuse and are designed to favor the botters. Its no wonder that botting have become so extremely prevalent and commonplace. Talking from experience I have noticed the key cornerstones of what really does hit features that can be abused. Features old and outdated as there min/max have been explored and methods built around to create extreme advantages that make newcomers int mere ants compared to the oldies. Every world reset even aid the oldies to the point where they organize faster then the last reset and get on top faster each world. Features I'm talking about are the badly designed passive time gates and the annoying active time gates.

A few examples of the badly designed passive time gates.

Farming: crops grow and change stage in specified time intervals and require exact timers for active players to login and rotate the crops. Bots can abuse it as no human can actively rotate crops as efficient when crops fully grow on that exact hour. Simple fix, make crop growth universal and only change stage in specified global timer ticks. One only need to replant within the 24 hour window to get as efficient crop cycles. A bot could still rotate crops but any active player could do the same and still compete making the bot no longer a necessity for competing in the farming race.

Curios: Nearly all curios finish there study time in less then 24 hours creating the need to constantly fill the study. Micro management of the study box creates an extreme advantage. When people foolishly talk about pearl bots they completely ignore the major problem created by the method curios are studied. Even if foraging bots didn't exist you could still get far far ahead mass producing crafting curios and auto fill the study for an extreme curio study advantage. YES, foraging bots aren't the problem, study fillers are.

Curios if even showing up in hafen could be fixed by two simple methods. Increase there study time to a very long timer reducing the need for micromanagement. This would make it more manageable and reduce the gap. It would however create a problem where long curio timers would prevent active need for immediate LP right when your in the first hours of the game. Either there could be 2 classes of curios. Short term low LP gain curios for the starting stages of the game or simply give LP on a constant trickle from curios getting studied.

The second and slightly more complexer part of the implementation would be to prevent login bots to mass curios on multiple characters as now that curios are slight more commonplace with the longer timers. This would simply be fixed by creating a strategic study method giving more LP gain for mini game implemented for the studying. However this method would be implemented would need to be done giving active strategic studying, in reverse to the current system where tea buff actually benefits inactive studying. En example of a minigame, give more LP for a specific curio type giving more LP bonus as your character is more curious about flower type study for that moment as an example. Note that the suggestion given is just one of many ways to nerf the (login / study / loggoff) method, other better methods probably exists. Simply put, tie LP bonus to active gameplay but also at the same time be careful to not create a min/max sinkhole yet again.

Examples of active time gates.

I must have repeated this exact phrase over 20 times on this forum. The hourglass kills this game. Every action in this game irritates you when your forced to watch a stupid hourglass slowly change state. Have you ever watched that progress bar when a PC game was being installed or your favorite youtube clip had to pre-load before you could watch it? Imagine living in that moment for the entire haven gaming experience. I can't express this more accurately. I rather bot the shit out of this game then give a damn about what anyone thinks of it. I don't waste my life watching progress bars. I pity fools who watch hourglasses. That is why bots are made, or even when bots are made. When you have to fill 20 cupboard of mulberry leaves and your guy is doing the hourglass is when I make other bots to prevent other instances of avoiding other types of hourglasses. Obviously bots take advantage as a human can't compete with the stupid hourglass timer. Human endurance breaks down while bots truck on creating the advantage.

Fix for this is extremely easy. Look at how mining fixes it and mimic it. Higher stats reduce the hourglass timer and at some point it diminishes to a minimum. If other parts of the game could just be this perfect.

Here is a shocking suggestion that could actually fix hunger botting. Remove the hourglass when table feasting. Yes its shocking and confusing but it WOULD reduce the advantage bots have over humans. Feasting is a bot abused mechanic as grinding down food down that pipe takes longer when sitting on that table. If you didn't have to sit there for 5 minutes watching the hourglass timer you could actually feast from time to time upping your stats in between chores. Bots take yet again advantage when large amounts of consumables only can be done without going absolutely mad watching the stupid hourglass timer.

Clearly this is just the beginnings of how to fix bot abuse. Good understanding and smart decisions could further reduce other areas of the game that are heavily bot abused. Removing hearth secret spawning is a perfect example of an amateur move that simply harms the game instead of reduce the bot abuse. Botting will clearly always exist but it will reduce when the advantage is absent.

[shubla]

Solution: Facecam to every client
Then moderators can watch everyone and look if theyre really playing or just botting
ADD THIS

[TeckXKnight]

Solution: Facecam to every client
Then moderators can watch everyone and look if theyre really playing or just botting
ADD THIS

God no, anyone stuck with moderator duty wouldn't be allowed to play the game anymore. Way too much conflict of interest going on there.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

I will get naked for you Techy.

[ydex]

oh! and that antibot thing where objects have ID numbers instead of names and they are saved in a database next to the name and then when ever u as a developer feel like it u can scramble those numbers. the interface in game looks the same as new ID is used on physical clicks, but if some1 sends the old ID number throught a bot the object is another or not even in game anymore! that would surely break lots of botting for the casua boters (the ones that doesnt even design bots but just gets em from other ppl)!

[mvgulik]

Topic is about "Anti-bot (game)mechanics"

Its not about "Anti-Bot (protection)mechanics"

Botting will clearly always exist but it will reduce when the advantage is absent.

[Granger]

[plenty]

^ THIS ^

[Potjeh]

Farming: crops grow and change stage in specified time intervals and require exact timers for active players to login and rotate the crops. Bots can abuse it as no human can actively rotate crops as efficient when crops fully grow on that exact hour. Simple fix, make crop growth universal and only change stage in specified global timer ticks. One only need to replant within the 24 hour window to get as efficient crop cycles. A bot could still rotate crops but any active player could do the same and still compete making the bot no longer a necessity for competing in the farming race.

This is a great idea, not just because it'd go a long way towards reducing bots' advantage but also because it'd work really well flavor-wise (seasons).

[Metruption]

[plenty]

^ THIS ^

^ THAT ^