Lets bring together our knowledge and experience in order to devise a system to fight the bots.
We need a BOT BOUNTY SYSTEM so the work of banning the bots is done by us, the players, and rewarded by AGS/SG accordingly.
What we need is to create a fail proof bounty report method to auto-ban the bots and a bounty reward system that provide rewards good for real players but useless to bots themselves.
My inital proposal:
Bounty report method - Using the existing report button to provide a report. After 50 bot reports by different players a CAPTCHA window opens up at the reported character and needs to be answered in 30/60 seconds. After 3 failed CAPTCHAS immediately auto-ban for 24/48/72 hours (to be decided). After 3 temporary bans a more permanent ban can be imposed but we need to be careful so real players are not hit by the system.
Bounty reward system - For example, each banned bot provides 1 point to the real players bot bounty score. At 25 points = 1 card to access ONCE any Abyssal Dungeon independent from the weekly limit. At 50 points = 1 card to access ONCE any available Abyss Raid independent from the weekly limit. This system can be complemented with bounded honing mats and other items that cant be traded.
Ok guys, these are my 2 cents. Please provide your feedback and ideas, lets help AGS/SG save the game we so much love.
Reason I say it could backfire is because you can get a guild to mass report one person and they would have to do it and with the connection issues currently, what happens when your reported and have to do the CAPTCHA and you dc, auto ban without doing a thing.
This is the issue. Unless Amazon is going to enforce strict anti-abuse aka perma ban people who take advantage of the system then the system won’t work and will be abused.
And Amazon doesn’t want to put people or money into fighting the bots, as evidenced by their simple “VPN block” solution.
The reality is without people dedicated to enforcing and removing bots, the issue will only go away when people stop buying gold.
What Amazon could do in the interim is something akin to AnarchyHD and make bot banning into some what of a community event or reality IPTV show.
Hire some admins or add “bot squashing” to existing AGS staff’s position descriptions. Assign each member to a specific server/group of servers. Each day, the employee logs into a server for 10-15 minutes, checks a location that’s known for botting, and starts swinging the ban hammer. Record the session. Post it online, twitch? youtube? Maybe make some video edits/jokes on videos once every couple of weeks.
What will it accomplish? Active bot removal and community awareness that AGS is really working toward removing bots. It may not stop the bots, but it can’t be that time consuming of a tasking and it will disrupt them some what. It’ll at least be a start to slowing them down and getting them off the server.
This would be awesome, entry level/interns would do, they get experience in the industry, see how a team operates and player community benefits as well
The video also can be stored for a period of time for record management and review if an innocent accidently gets banned. If its uploaded to Twitch/Youtube it wouldn’t need stored locally.
Additionally the video would be proof. They could record a minute or two of the group moving around, and then go at it with the bans.
It could potentially get views, start a meme culture, who knows.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Amazon will ever do it even though they’re perfectly situated and have the resources to do so.
Yeah, which is why I said it could be added as “other duties as required.” in work statements.
I think if I was Roxx or Shadow Fox, maybe smashing some bots on a Friday afternoon would be a good way to let off some steam and get some kudos from the community though.
I think it’s optimistic to think 50 different players are going to report the same bot. I came across a group of 8-12 of them in a far corner in Shushire autocasting. It’s not likely 49 other players are going to come across them & report them.
What I’d like to see is more communication from AGS or SMG. Tell us what is going on. Is the reporting working? I spend too much time reporting 100 bots a day. Is that working or helping? Why when I report a bot do I have to type additional reasons “botting” in the box. Obviously if I’m reporting them for botting they are botting. It’s an annoying additional step to make legit players take.
Is the system automated? Because if it is then the bots aren’t being banned because not enough people are reporting them. I know yesterday I said the heck with it and didn’t report any. It gets old. We need to know what’s going on. The secrecy is annoying.
