Blatant botting is completely out of hand

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by JeffHanson, Sep 3, 2019.

  1. Graves Elder

    I don't think there is besides advanced loot.
  2. Whulfgar Augur

    Learning how to post a video ..

    JUST .. to prove a point to some one who is literally clueless..

    Please hold..
  3. Tanols Augur

    Oh you are preaching to the choir there. But really I wonder how many afk farmers would disappear if there was no way to automate looting?
    Graves likes this.
  4. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Identify the botters then.

    Oops. You can't positively identify the botters on sight, can you? Your whole argument went up in flames.
  5. Laronk Augur


    The special magical tool can already loot corpses the old fashioned way. Also the way to get rid of AFK botters is not to make gameplay worse for normal players.
    Bigstomp, Skuz, Kaenneth and 3 others like this.
  6. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Laronk, the use of logic is not allowed in this safe space. Be quick, 'fore yet another logical response emanates from your fingertips! :)
  7. Tanols Augur

    There goes that idea :p lol I knew I'd read somewhere there was a way to auto loot corpses before advanced looting was implemented.
    Wonder how many servers are starting to feel the impact from that dude farming Dranik's Hallows missions and selling off in North Ro. I'm not 100% sure but im 95% sure hes turning around and using plat to buy up Krono. At least in the last few months Krono values on Bristle have been rising. Certain TS mats have plummeted in value. May not be related.
  8. Laronk Augur


    Hey now, my FEELINGS need to be recognized to, your lack of recognition is making this space not safe for myself!
  9. Laronk Augur


    Yeah you can't fight them by taking away game features, really they usually have the game feature first and then everquest actually ends up getting the game feature. It's just like how iphones used to be (maybe still are) where "jailbroken" iphones got certain features and then apple adopted some of the features into the actual IOS.

    It would be nice if Everquest had an addon system like wow, I think some people actually turn to the special super magic stuff because Everquest is lacking a proper addon system.
  10. code-zero Augur

    If you call everyone you dislike a botter then sure, you're going to get the botters as well. Most people in these sorts of threads have a very strong confirmation bias when it comes to spotting potential botters.

    Here's a tip, if you think someone is going to watch the 3 hour video you made following the puller from some group you're wrong. No one is going to do that and they're going to think that there's something odd about you for doing that sort of thing
    Whulfgar likes this.
  11. Mazame Augur

    No people in this thread have not identified anyone because calling people out is not allowed on the forms it needs to be done using the reporting system that tend to get little results and that is why this post was created.

    They're people that disrupt game play. I will give you that but some of them are not botting or breaking any rules doing it. (example I was farming a named. I wiped and was running back to try again and when i got back in zone a min latter a group of people had already engaged and was killing it.)

    I was the only one in Smoke at the time and so for a group to just show up in zone and engage a name one may think that they were running some sort of program to know the named was up but in truth their is no proof. It could have been they were just passing through and saw the name and engaged.

    my point is their are jerks out there and there good people out there. that doesn't mean they breaking rule.

    Botting is breaking the rules. Boxing is not. the difference is are you using a program to control your toon or are you the one controlling them? a program like [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] lets you push a key and it send that command to all the char. so something moving you may see 6 toon all move forward at the same time but their is a player pushing a key to make the action happen so it is with in the rules.
    There are other programs that play your toon for you. you can have it pull mobs, CC, cast spells. and you never have to do anything. you could be sleeping and it will still be playing. This is not allowed.

    When you group Botters, Boxers, and Jerks all into the same group then I am sorry but you are wrong.

    You can have good people boxing that don't break any rules. That doesn't mean that they should be punished.

    You can have people being jerks that are not breaking any rules.

    When you report people it is then the task of the DBG to investigate and decide if any rules were broken. The current system is not perfect and they have posted they are working to make it better. but it also not as black and white as you make it sound.
    Duder likes this.
  12. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Thick-headedness strikes again.

    I never said they POSTED the names of the people they identified. But seriously, do I have to point out that if nobody thought they saw people botting, then this thread wouldn't exist?

    Well, first, thanks for an example which is not an example of anything we're talking about in this thread.

    But the first part is the money quote. It doesn't matter if they're botting or not. If they're disrupting your gameplay, then it makes you want to play EQ less. Leave it unaddressed long enough, and people leave. No subs eventually means no EQ.

    My suggestion solves two problems: DBG doesn't have to be the botting cop, since they obviously don't want to do that, and people can play the game without others (botters, rule-breakers, or not) disrupting their gameplay.
  13. Cokkie New Member

  14. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    I think if you never leave FM then you are clearly serving some type of "jail time" for something. What an awful zone to be in ever......
  15. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    In my opinion the solution to rampant botting is a game design change the developers thus far do not want to make or simply lack the resources to impliment, it would also be one which would alter the feel of EQ quite a lot.
    The idea that better enforcement, hyperactive GM's or community activity will solve the problems have all failed miserably to address it.

    The very simple "unique mob that drops a unique item" paradigm has to be changed to fix botting.
    Introduce a variety of creatures that can drop items of identical stats/clickies with a different name & have them spread throughout the zone & you create a situation where monopolization of those unique items by permacamping the single specific npc that drops it becomes impossible, the creation of competition in this way would reduce the value of the items so much it would be uneconomic to attempt to monopolize all of the spawn locations.

    Of course we could be looking at this all wrong and in fact botting drives the krono market so much that the devs will not change as the current situation helps fund the game by too much and as players we must accept that & adapt to the situation forced upon us by those economics.
  16. Captain Video Augur

    You do realize this guy necro'ed a year-old thread just to post his video...
  17. Sirene_Fippy Okayest Bard

    If platinum, characters, and items are worth money there is an incentive for botting.

    If EQ sold max level characters that would cut out a lot of it. This might be an unpopular choice, though.

    If the zonewide rare items were no-trade that would also help. Or if they came from a reward set for completing group progression (i.e. complete all group progression for an expansion, choose ~3 previous expansion raid-tier items).

    Platinum will never stop being worth money afaik. But it's probably the least lucrative of the above 3 (items, characters, pp). I suppose Darkpaw could also sell platinum in the Marketplace.

    So if we imagine an EQ where you can buy a level 115, max AA character (since the game itself has the capacity to create one with much less effort than botters invest, and would eliminate 3rd party character sales, if priced correctly). Buy platinum in the Marketplace. And you don't have ultra rare zonewide drops, you've eliminated pretty much every incentive to farm/automate EQ.

    I guess botters might reach for more (automating bazaar, farming TS items via bots, farming raids). Each of those things would then need to be sold in the Marketplace, or be sufficiently available that no one feels the need to buy it. Ultimately it's a race between "people want to buy x in-game for USD" and the ability for the game itself to either a) police it (requires a consistent time investment to do correctly for the remainder of the game's life) or b) provide their own in-game sale/inflation. Then you end up with games where you can buy everything, and it no longer feels like an accomplishment.

    EQ is actually choosing c) to do almost nothing, which makes it a profitable hobby for 3rd parties, and IMO is a negative outcome for the game (hence the above video of someone who will never be able to access the Sarnak fort due to perma-bot groups living inside of it, and encouragement of selfish behavior on TLPs). I don't want to say it "ruins" the game, but it's definitely a net negative.

    I want to say this is a game design problem that didn't really exist in 1999 (how do you make a game that doesn't incentivize 3rd party markets), and is too far for EQ to fix entirely (i.e. TLP servers specifically), but steps could be taken to seriously hinder it (at least on Live) if they choose to do so. Botting will probably never go away entirely. Even if EQ was a totally self-sufficient game and no one who played it felt the need to buy anything from anyone - you would have some people who automate because, well, that's the fun part of the game to them, or because they just want to have ___ without actually playing (which is confusing).

    It's been said many times that "oh Daybreak is in on the krono market / they turn a blind eye because of it" but that seems unlikely to me. My personal guess is most krono are traded between different players and the more krono there are in the game, the fewer there are purchased from Daybreak directly. It would be in their best interest to also police the 3rd party krono market, which is going as well as the automated botting is.

    As an aside, this is a problem for many games and tech companies (isn't twitter also inundated with bots), big or small, and doesn't seem to have a 100% solution. The only really strong defense a game team would have is enough resources, and desire, to adapt quickly to cheating/botting.
  18. Nadisia Augur

    I like the idea, that would be a pretty cool.

    For each part of the progression, add a T1-level non-prestige item, no-trade btw, to the rewards.
    Nothing crazy, just on par with the snowbound items for ToV.
    And it'd be a good incentive to complete the progression.
  19. cadres Augur

    That
    That's a no from me
    I hate hate hate group progression (but do it, once, as a necessary evil)
    To have even more outcomes tied to it is not good
    I can see the argument that it would deter botters - which certainly needs to happen

    Personally, I think GMs can deal with botters perfectly well. If they answered reports of all the chronic cases and watched them in action for just a few moments and then took action immediately and regularly it would stop, or be much diminished
    Heck, I'm sure they could get a volunteer to do the job for free for the joy of cleaning up the game
  20. Tegila Augur

    you do realize there was an issue before the "ultrare random drops" that you cite. how big this issue actually is..idk, because ive seen many people accused of afk botting for hours..while ive been talking ot htem in tells for those same hours (and even while they talked in general chat the whole time.) I think people perceive the problem to be wider spread than it is. Out of curiosity the other day i looked at a well-known site that sells al lteh above things, and services, and it appears only a small handful of servers have the services available, and they would be the first ones to make this more widespread...also as a note: after reading said site, if someone you know suddenly disappears from fellowships, goes ANON, and doesnt talk for a couple days meanwhile gaining many aas and levels...they could very well have purchased such service. It also wouldnt be too difficult imo to find at least that service's workers...someone at dbg just has to enlist their services.