The amount of botting in this game is out of control.

Returning player here, breaking into EOK group content and all I see is bot groups - and they're not even trying to hide their activities. Instead, they blatantly run their bots day and night in open-world, current content zones. They pull and kill named, they are robots so they don't care if you spent your evening spawning something, if it's on their program's kill list they'll snag it out from under your nose.

In the 11 years I've played EQ, I've known bots existed, but I've never seen them so directly impacting the game for active (sitting their in their chair and playing) players. I can only assume the state of the game is due to Daybreak's lax stance on hacking, AFK grinding, botting, etc.

A GM could spend 10 minutes in Lceanium and corral up 3-4 bot groups at any given time on FV. Can you just not be bothered to do it?

Is botting legal now? I'd sure as hell love to go to sleep and come back with max banked AAs and some named loot to boot. But what I'd like to see more is DB taking a proper stance against abuse and putting this behavior to rest.

EQ - now on D2's level.

That's all for my rant.

Just bring them more mobs. See how well the script they are running works.

I guess i'm blind because I have yet to see a group I consider to be botting. Boxing yes but not botting now that not to say I don't think there are people botting out there. Just I have no way of telling the difference between the two.

There are obvious signs if you know what you are looking for, but like you, i think it's the fact people are confusing boxers for botters. Then again, DBG pretty much implicitly approved botting with the unattended gameplay rule changes (which are clearly much easier to enforce when they actually do so).

Having seen real bot groups you need to watch them for a while. First time I saw one I wouldn't have caught on but I wanted that particular camp and so I sat just waiting and happened to watch them while I did.

I am guessing with all drops able to be sold on FV they would be more likely to be on that server botting.

But you make a good point that it can be hard to tell especially if you are just wandering by.

What changed?

I think before this discussion continues the OP needs to provide what criteria he used to determine these are 'bots'. It seems 90% of the player base just see's anyone playing more than 3 chars and goes 'THOSE BOTS ARE KILLING THE GAME AGAIN'.

@Trotts I've personally seen bot groups on FV. Easy way to tell is they do the same things over and over again, no one in the group will respond to /tell, /say, or /shout. They are completely oblivious if you enter their camp and stand right in front of them.

I sort of took the unattended game play rules as making it easier on them to enforce against botting. Though with audio alarms the only botters they would catch are those who aren't home at the time I guess. But I think they really only go to much of an effort on there money makers Phinigel and the new one coming up. They don't have to prove illegal software just that you are not at the keyboard.

Of course I think it is important to note that regardless of the unattended gameplay rules that Daybreak's Terms of Service still covers software for cheating though I suspect they are more worried about H1Z1 then they are Everquest.

https://www.daybreakgames.com/terms-of-service#section9

Cheating
Maintaining the integrity of the Daybreak Games is extremely important to us. When an end user obtains an unfair advantage by cheating it can ruin the gaming experience for everybody else. You may not disassemble, reverse engineer, or modify any Daybreak Game(s) software in any way. You may not decrypt or modify any data transmitted between the game software and Daybreak’s game servers. You may not develop, share, or use any software, program, macro, or interface that modifies the game play in any way or that gives a user any kind of advantage over other end users, except as expressly authorized by Daybreak. All forms and methods of cheating, including hacks, bots, aimbots, and duping are expressly forbidden. The sale or exchange of accounts, Virtual Items, Virtual Currency, Krono and/or in-game currency for real world money or monetary value is prohibited, except when purchased from Daybreak or otherwise expressly permitted by Daybreak in its sole and absolute discretion. Daybreak reserves the right to suspend or permanently terminate the account of, and restrict access to the Daybreak Games by, any end user that engages in any form of cheating, or that attempts in any way to disable, circumvent, or tamper with any anti-hacking or anti-cheating components or features of any Daybreak Game(s).

Now I expect the usual suspects to get all upset at me for posting Daybreak's terms of service on cheating which includes botting but that's life.

You make some good points and when you add all that together it does make it easier to see someone is boxing Though I think most boxed groups won't answer on most toons. I usually send a tell to whoever is pulling figuring that is the one toon a boxer has to be keeping an eye on. But even boxers get in a rhythm.

I usually take a lot of small afks so stop fighting a minute here or there but if I have a second melee in my group and RL doesnt interfere I will be pulling to the same spot every time (so the second melee doesn't have to be moved. And with social hotkeys set up usually firing off nukes in the same order. For me its not all at once because I don't use ISB so takes me time to hit keys but if you are using that I could see it look a lot like botting. That and I usually acknowledge in some way anyone running up to my camp and standing near it

to be fair, i ignore anyone trying the "are you botting" tell litmus test unless you are a GM and i have GINA triggers for all my toons.

This is basically what I do. It's very obvious to spot the difference between just normal boxing and botting, so when I see actual botters in a camp that I'm wanting, I bring them a few friends. What gets really tricky is some of these bot setups have gotten so good with multiple chanters and such, that its even hard to train them. I have some characters on FV as well, and they are in every zone - 24/7 - all day.

I understand the rules but there were some discussions in the TLP forum when the unattended rule was added and they (DBG) wouldn't say that you couldn't use MacroQ (a definite change in stance) but would just reaffirm that if your accounts are playing unattended then you can suspended/banned. Really don't feel like sifting through them. Phinny is a different monster because the MacroQ folks disabled it for Phinny at launch, so there really was no effort on their part but more of a way to stream line their enforcement, which as we both have stated is much easier to do via unattended gameplay.

Well regardless of the rules or what they say or don't it is pretty clear they don't bother doing much as far as the Live servers go. But all the points you make are very good.

when they added this after RF/LF launch to in an effort to deal with the issues caused by botting and the ways in which advanced looting incentivized afk killing.

This isn't a bad step but isn't fool proof. In my 5 box setup I pull with my bard while tanking with my warrior, and I barely pay attention to the bard's text spam.

Which reminds me, I need to set up a gina trigger for when someone sends me a tell to a character who isn't my warrior.



Anyway, it's tough to differentiate a box vs bot group. Best way is to watch their combat behavior. If you pull a mob near them (but maintain aggro) and they all activate and start to attack it and then go quiet for a bit until you pull another group, it's probably a bot group.

Broadcasting could easily do the same thing if you are using casters. It's much easier to see botters if they are using melee when they return to the exact same position every single time.

I ignore people that come next to me and just stand there. If they send me a tell, I'll reply, but otherwise, what are you supposed to say to someone lurking? They have a right to go anywhere in the game they want. To me, sending them a tell is basically telling them they need to go away and leave you alone.

Yea, I've been playing for many years, and I 3 box. I can tell the difference in a bot group and a boxed group. It might take me a few minutes in some cases, but I will eventually be able to tell. It's not rocket science. Anyone who has played for a while can tell by merely observing.

So if you were in a camp, boxing, pulling mobs and I brought my group and stood right in the middle of your pull spot, you would completely ignore me? Would you ignore all my attempts to communicate? What if I also started pulling mobs to the exact same spot? What if I stole a couple of your pulls? You would say something, right? Sure you would. A bot group won't. They will continue along oblivious to any action you take.