MSF vs AD vs DIS vs etc. ?@!

[Juukin]

Bots mean no conscious being has to operate all the actions that otherwise would limit somebody.

If you have a bot doing all farming, building, chopping and grinding, then you yourself, as the conscious being, can take over control of another aspect, say, raiding, which would usually be impossible to do, since you'd be busy doing the aforementioned tasks which now a bot is doing instead of you (or friends, village members, and so on).

Using bots obviously has a great advantage over not using any, as shown throughout all the worlds by factions that just botfarm behind their walls until the last bit of the world, then come out with horrendous weapon and armor qualities and ridiculous stats.

I have just come to accept that botting is a part of the game, sadly, and that's how it's always going to be. If the devs wanted to fix it, they could make a test, like, a captcha every 20 mins or whatever ( allowing you to miss say 2 in a row, but 3rd you're getting kicked/timed out). It would appear somewhere at the corner of the screen and you'd have to fill it out. I'd allow 2 penalties, because maybe someone would be in the middle of a fight or something, or AFK even and miss it, but thus the 3rd time, it'd seem like it's just a bot running on an extra client.

Though it is not for me to decide how the game should run, it's a know issue/aspect of the game already, and people just accepted it.

[Amanda44]

Honestly I just think a captcha every 20 mins would be infuriating! I don't bot and would also like to see a way for it to be further discouraged ... but not like that. As you say yourself you are often really busy, could be in combat or simply afk ... it would annoy me enough to quit playing if I had to stop every 20mins to respond to a captcha!

Other games I play do it by an in-game report button, not sure how hard that is to implement though for our devs, and then the offending player has their accounts banned ... but I know devs don't want to go down that road either and I do get it, in a small community where so many players do bot it would probably not bode well for the player count.

[zebratul]

Doing a blanket ban on all bots is indeed an imperfect solution, if you calculate the amount of time Jorbtar has to dedicate to coding/enforsing the rules, and how the game as a community would benefit. Especially if you consider small macros like adding 12 coal to a furnace or a Quality Display option. From the programming point of view, any modification made to the basic client is, basically, a bot with a function of making your life easier, large or small.

Devs are doing a right thing, negating custom client features with one of their own, built into the basic client.
You had to manually pick thing up from the floor in legacy, manually plant every tile and custom clielnts with auto-study provided steady LP boost for people using them.

Now we have shift+click planting and gathering/picking stuff up, and study tables. They level the ground between bot abusers and your everyday gamer.

P.S. Purus Pasta is a godsend tho, when you have to manage a big plot by yourself. It strikes a good balance between actually playing the game (it's farming bot is basically the shift+click harvester from ingame, but it also replants the seeds), and botting as in «your bots do all your cheese while you afk»

[Juukin]

Honestly I just think a captcha every 20 mins would be infuriating! I don't bot and would also like to see a way for it to be further discouraged ... but not like that. As you say yourself you are often really busy, could be in combat or simply afk ... it would annoy me enough to quit playing if I had to stop every 20mins to respond to a captcha!

Other games I play do it by an in-game report button, not sure how hard that is to implement though for our devs, and then the offending player has their accounts banned ... but I know devs don't want to go down that road either and I do get it, in a small community where so many players do bot it would probably not bode well for the player count.

I've played a game that suffered from bots goldfarming and all before, and this worked perfect.

The way it works is as follows;
You play the game, all fine, big screen. At the bottom left corner, pops up a little 3 letter capcha code window. It doesn't hinder your gameplay in any way. You have 5 minutes to type the code in. If not, you get a strike. After 3 strikes, you would be disconnected/timed out. They got rid of all the goldtrading quite effectively that way. If you can't stop for a moment in a frame of 5 minutes to drop in 3 letters/numbers, then that's just weird. And as I'm saying, it's nothing wrong if you don't get it once, or even twice, but the third time if you let is pass, you get timed out.
And say, if you missed first one, get 1 penalty point, then you get the 2nd one, the points reset back to 0 so you're allowed 2 misses again.

You might've understood it as a legit capcha popping out in the middle of your screen and you have to fill it out before you can continue doing anything, or simply close it to continue doing what you were up to. Nah, it's a little window that pops up and you gotta fill out that captcha in a 5 minute timeframe. If not, it disappears and you get a penalty point. It's simple, and efficient.

[Amanda44]

^^ Thanks for explaining further but to me it is still annoying to have to break game play, esp in such a short time frame and over and over until you log off ...

If you can't stop for a moment in a frame of 5 minutes to drop in 3 letters/numbers, then that's just weird.

I disagree, it's not that you can't stop, ofc you can it's just that it breaks immersion and would become irritating. But that is just my view.

[Kaios]

I disagree, it's not that you can't stop, ofc you can it's just that it breaks immersion and would become irritating. But that is just my view.

I agree it would be annoying but they really need do something, anything, and there are very few options apart from annihilating the major offenders entirely.

Sure, mechanics that even the playing field for the regular players are good but at what point does it stop? Do the devs just keep automating more and more of the game until we basically have Progress Quest 2? Because that's where we are heading.

[Amanda44]

I disagree, it's not that you can't stop, ofc you can it's just that it breaks immersion and would become irritating. But that is just my view.

I agree it would be annoying but they really need do something, anything, and there are very few options apart from annihilating the major offenders entirely.

Sure, mechanics that even the playing field for the regular players are good but at what point does it stop? Do the devs just keep automating more and more of the game until we basically have Progress Quest 2? Because that's where we are heading.

I do actually agree with you completely ...

I do think that devs alleviating the need for some of the botted task mechanics is a good step but I also worry how far that will go, you don't want to go so far that you surpass the reasons non botters don't bot.

Personally I am and always will be in favour of a clear 'no-bot' rule with some form of punishment handed out to those who break it. I understand that it may be hard to enforce and that it won't eradicate the problem entirely but no matter what anyone says it does act as both a deterrent and as an encouragement to other players, those already here and future players.

[Juukin]

it breaks immersion and would become irritating

Well, see, botting is doing that in a way worse manner.
I think a 3 letter captcha every 20 mins (or 30 mins, or an hour, as long as bots don't get to work for free too long) maintains more immersion than an AI running around, that nobody can talk to or interact with, instead it just does its job unconsciously. And that is 90% of the "endgame" these days anyway.

H&H has no more immersion left, that's for sure. So a system like this that would get rid of some bots or whatever would help take it back, at least to some extent.
But as stated before, it's already generally accepted that this game is unplayable without botting.

Reminds me of WoW and addons. You could play on a clean client, but you're at such a great disadvantage by not taking your time to install addons, which are so simple to understand (so is botting in H&H) and get to be on par with the others playing the game. So yeah, we just gotta accept, H&H is a game where bots are the majority of the population, nothing to do about it.

[Amanda44]

it breaks immersion and would become irritating

Well, see, botting is doing that in a way worse manner.
I think a 3 letter captcha every 20 mins (or 30 mins, or an hour, as long as bots don't get to work for free too long) maintains more immersion than an AI running around, that nobody can talk to or interact with, instead it just does its job unconsciously. And that is 90% of the "endgame" these days anyway.

H&H has no more immersion left, that's for sure. So a system like this that would get rid of some bots or whatever would help take it back, at least to some extent.
But as stated before, it's already generally accepted that this game is unplayable without botting.

Reminds me of WoW and addons. You could play on a clean client, but you're at such a great disadvantage by not taking your time to install addons, which are so simple to understand (so is botting in H&H) and get to be on par with the others playing the game. So yeah, we just gotta accept, H&H is a game where bots are the majority of the population, nothing to do about it.

I do agree with your sentiments behind botting just not with the use of captchas to combat it, you have to think this would be every time you play, every day, day in and day out ... you play a game that does that and it doesn't seem to bother you personally, but, I know it would bother me and I don't think I'm alone in that.

I've given my preferred measure in the post above, I honestly think that having no rule at all and a vague the 'devs dislike botting' msg but still allow it, does nothing in any way at all and is just the same as giving free licence.

But, we all have this same discussion every few months year in, year out and you are right in that the devs take no action, so yes, it is something we can do nothing about except hope one day the devs take a tougher stance.

[ricky]

I would like to think devs are tolerating botting now to focus on more important game development, such as content + mechanics. If anything, I hope that devs will see what the botters are doing and implement features to negate the need for botting (such as autostudy). I also hope that at some point in the future, once the game has reached a stable, clean version that devs sit down and focus on developing their client and work on the botting problem.

the way i see it, devs are putting off their botting solution until all core mechanics are thoroughly fleshed out. there's no need to work on a botting solution when 2 months down the road they implement a feature which can be botted, so they would have to visit the problem again.