Curse

Sarevok Thordin · Jan 21, 2010, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Server side this stuff cannot be blocked against, it needs client side monitoring ._.

And I do have to agree, this stuff is going to spiral out of control soon unless it's sorted now with SERIOUS consequences for those knowingly abusing it to ward people off, a simple slap on the wrist won't do squat here.

Tullzinski · Jan 21, 2010, 09:58 PM // 21:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarevok Thordin

Server side this stuff cannot be blocked against, it needs client side monitoring ._.

And I do have to agree, this stuff is going to spiral out of control soon unless it's sorted now with SERIOUS consequences for those knowingly abusing it to ward people off, a simple slap on the wrist won't do squat here.

/agree

Mr S. anything you would like to add to this discussion feel free. Perhaps you can confirm the creation of the RBR bot?

sunec · Jan 21, 2010, 10:06 PM // 22:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tullzinski

/agree

Mr S. anything you would like to add to this discussion feel free. Perhaps you can confirm the creation of the RBR bot?

I'm sorry for how big this issue has become, but the people Borat talk about are in no way connected to me. I'm just an Open Source reverser.

I even sent an email to ANet some time ago, trying to point out my views on this etc., but guess what, they never even bothered to reply. So much for that.

To make the RBR bot is totally possible, simply a matter of moving to set coordinates and using skills at the exact right times. Very easy to code and it does in no way take as long time to create as some people in this thread believe. It could've been done during the Dragon Festival last summer easily.
A year ago, I even tried making this, not full functionality though, and it was working quite well within a few hours.

Tullzinski · Jan 21, 2010, 10:12 PM // 22:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunec

I'm sorry for how big this issue has become, but the people Borat talk about are in no way connected to me. I'm just an Open Source reverser.

I even sent an email to ANet some time ago, trying to point out my views on this etc., but guess what, they never even bothered to reply. So much for that.

To make the RBR bot is totally possible, simply a matter of moving to set coordinates and using skills at the exact right times. Very easy to code and it does in no way take as long time to create as some people in this thread believe. It could've been done during the Dragon Festival last summer easily.
A year ago, I even tried making this, not full functionality though, and it was working quite well within a few hours.

Thanks for being honest

You have way more knowledge on this than a majority of us.

Is it possible for you to remove this from google?

Sarevok Thordin · Jan 21, 2010, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tullzinski

Thanks for being honest

You have way more knowledge on this than a majority of us.

Is it possible for you to remove this from google?

You can't just block someone's site from google from this, you'd have to be the site owner to get it delisted.

jazilla · Jan 21, 2010, 10:18 PM // 22:18

A lot of the whining on here is by people that are like Roger Clemens. You all point your fingers at the cheaters, but do it yourselves! Start pointing the finger at yourselves! If someone is using a bot program in a section of a game I play and the community for said game is crying foul that they do nothing about it...stop playing that section of the game! It's really simple. Why would anyone spend their leisure time playing a game or whining ad-nauseum about cheaters? This baffles me to no end.

Martin Alvito · Jan 21, 2010, 10:27 PM // 22:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Revelations

The projectile's course is decided on the moment it leaves your hand. If they were to drop and strafe before such an event, then it would adjust accordingly for their strafe - this is the game I'm talking about, not the bot - and still hit. I don't know whether your opponents were botting or not, but it does seem like inefficient behaviour.

Evidently I wasn't clear. When you drop, you often can't move immediately. There's a delay after dropping before the game will let you resolve an input command to change direction. If you drop right when the snowball leaves the opponent's hand, you're going to get drilled every time. (Don't believe me? Go to the Isle of the Nameless and try this with the flag or repair kit.) You drop early in order to be able to strafe at the correct moment when you DnD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Revelations

All of the things I have listed constitute absolutely MASSIVE gameplay advantages, you'd be a fool to continue to declare otherwise.

But those advantages do not come without meaningful cost. In order to take advantage of the heightened reflexes, you have to script the bot's responses. A botter comes to the match with a predetermined response set to all of the opponent's possible actions. Interrupt X, do not interrupt Y. The botter chooses that set of responses based upon your anticipated actions.

If you can change your strategy such that the botter's prescripted behavior is suboptimal, then you have created an advantage for yourself. If you can create enough of those advantages, you can beat the bot despite its superior technical ability.

You're making an unwarranted assumption. The botting will generate a tactical advantage if and only if the prescripted strategy remains optimal irrespective of what you do. Now, given the interchangeable parts, honor balanced model that has come to dominate GvG, I see why you are assuming that there is no alternative set of responses that can beat technically flawless play.

But the reason the best players won with balanced builds was because they were able to adapt their tactics on the fly when an opponent did something unexpected. The bot can't do that. It's limited by the ability of its coder to anticipate the opponent.

Yes, if the coder of the bot can anticipate every possible action in the feasible set and hard code the correct counter, the botter is going to win. But that's impossible.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunec

To make the RBR bot is totally possible, simply a matter of moving to set coordinates and using skills at the exact right times.

Which is useless if you don't know the correct coordinates and skill timings. The assertion that we've been making is that if you're spending your time coding and debugging, you aren't out there experimenting with the course to find the absolutely optimal line. And we aren't telling. I think the creator of the infamous video has figured out that wasn't such a hot idea.

The existence of a private server and unlimited practice time is a much larger threat than the availability of a bot to do things that a human can easily do, given sufficient practice.

EDIT: Thanks, Tullzinski. Don't know how I managed that.

Reverend Dr · Jan 21, 2010, 10:47 PM // 22:47

If a human can do it, a well designed bot can do it better. Only need time for that bot to be developed; if you believe otherwise then you are a terrible coder and terrible coders have no business trying to talk about bots. The existence of bots, or gamechanging UI interfaces is something completely unacceptable. It doesn't matter how little it 'currently' affects the game, its potential for future problems has no upward limit. This is why as a developer you have to stop it as soon as it becomes present in any format.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunec

To make the RBR bot is totally possible, simply a matter of moving to set coordinates and using skills at the exact right times. Very easy to code and it does in no way take as long time to create as some people in this thread believe. It could've been done during the Dragon Festival last summer easily.
A year ago, I even tried making this, not full functionality though, and it was working quite well within a few hours.

Wait, are you implying that people with closed minds and can't code are making incorrect assertions about the possibilities of coding?

Martin Alvito · Jan 21, 2010, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

It doesn't matter how little it 'currently' affects the game, its potential for future problems has no upward limit. This is why as a developer you have to stop it as soon as it becomes present in any format.

No, you have to stop it once you can get it right. Banning the users would be nice as well, although my fear is that ANet will pass on the ban hammer as they often do when an issue becomes sufficiently widespread.

In the meantime we've all got to live with it. That could be a while.

Tullzinski · Jan 21, 2010, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Which is useless if you don't know the correct coordinates and skill timings. The assertion that we've been making is that if you're spending your time coding and debugging, you aren't out there experimenting with the course to find the absolutely optimal line. And we aren't telling. I think the creator of the infamous video has figured out that wasn't such a hot idea.

The existence of a private server and unlimited practice time is a much larger threat than the availability of a bot to do things that a human can easily do, given sufficient practice.

EDIT: Thanks, Tullzinski. Don't know how I managed that.

No problem, I will be the first to admit that I am not knowledgable to code this stuff or figure it all out without a year or two of working on it....

Killed u man · Jan 21, 2010, 11:00 PM // 23:00

Why are you guys arguing over 1v1 snowball scrimages? In 1v1, it comes to whoever can kill the other person faster, OR get an interrupt on their KD. Even then, TRUE 1v1 scenarios happen maybe ONCE every 50 matches. It usualy doesn't take too long for more people to get involved.

And if it is a 1v1, as said before, the person that kill the other one fastest wins. I do NOT believe a pick-up bot would get you alot of advantage in 1v1 scrims. A Dnd will, as it can DnD a snowball from nearby range, whereas a REAL player would have to time it perfectly.

Martin, I love how you're trying to defend some aspects of botting, but at the same time digging a hole for your guild members. You talk about "abusing" said bot in tricking him to DnD. That's exactly what I did to your guildies. The bot DID always DnD, and we managed to steal a couple of relics that way.

To bad it would only take another KD from your guild's side to steal it back again, as they could so easily out-pick up us...

And yes, I am not involved with Sunec's business, tough he could possibly know "my man on the inside". And we he said is correct and what I have been preaching all along. A RBR IS possible to make, it WILL outperform a player in such a way it WILL cut corners perfectly every time, it WILL have a perfect path and it WILL detect incomming KD's. This on top of the fact you can ALWAYS manually override the bot to manually iron out small errors it makes.

Reverend Dr · Jan 21, 2010, 11:00 PM // 23:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

No, you have to stop it once you can get it right.

For a company with a history of poor understanding of its playerbase and poor support as Anet, they are going to have a much different response if the community's attitude is "oh I'm sure you'll deal with it soon, its really not a big deal right now, its not like its really affecting anyone that matters" as opposed to the appropriate outrage.

I'm also not sure if you believe some amazing solution can be reached where no innocent person will be punished and no abuser will go unpunished. Typically referred to as Type 1 and Type 2 errors, both of these are going to be present in any solution presented. While reducing the occurrence of both is important, it is just not possible to completely eliminate either or both. An ounce of prevention, a pound of cure; right now we do need some cure, but lack of action or a delay in action means we are going to soon need a lot more.

Martin Alvito · Jan 21, 2010, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Why are you guys arguing over 1v1 snowball scrimages? In 1v1, it comes to whoever can kill the other person faster, OR get an interrupt on their KD. Even then, TRUE 1v1 scenarios happen maybe ONCE every 50 matches. It usualy doesn't take too long for more people to get involved.

Assuming that the board looks like it's going to stay 1v1, this is more or less true. But usually it's the case in a 1v1 that you're just jockeying for position until other people show up. You rarely want to stop and try to DPS someone down from full life in a 1v1 scenario. They'll just Cone, someone else will show up, they'll steal and you will be sad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Martin, I love how you're trying to defend some aspects of botting, but at the same time digging a hole for your guild members. You talk about "abusing" said bot in tricking him to DnD. That's exactly what I did to your guildies. The bot DID always DnD, and we managed to steal a couple of relics that way.

If it exists, and I'm not convinced that it does, that's exactly what you should do. The problem is that it's always strategically correct to try to execute a DnD, so it's not possible to distinguish correct play from cheating.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

A RBR IS possible to make, it WILL outperform a player in such a way it WILL cut corners perfectly every time, it WILL have a perfect path and it WILL detect incomming KD's. This on top of the fact you can ALWAYS manually override the bot to manually iron out small errors it makes.

I'll believe it when I see it, and it's still no help if you don't know the course well enough. At best it's a shortcut. A crutch. A substitution for making a ton of runs.

Reverend Dr · Jan 21, 2010, 11:15 PM // 23:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Div

The problem is that all they really care about is GW2, while completely ignoring the 0.1% of serious PvP competitors that actually get affected by this type of botting you're describing. After all, from a business perspective, why should they bother? They rather make the majority happy and have good sales on GW2. Sure, you can say that pissing off the current 0.1% will make them be less likely to buy GW2, or discourage others from buying it, but to be honest, those people they're pissing off will buy/not buy GW2 regardless of their current actions.

Even in this thread, you can see there are people oblivious to bots, there are people who defend bots, and there are people who are clueless to how big of an advantage bots can give. So why should Anet deal with it?

tl;dr version: people that they've pissing off by not dealing with PvP botters don't matter in their business model.

I'm going to bring this back from several pages ago. I've been on and off studying online monitization (content sites, messageboards, news sites, free games, pay games, advertising trends, iTunes, XBL, anything online), I could write a whole lot on Anet's business strategy and its inevitable failure. That strategy doomed the game from the get-go. No matter how 'optional' the stand alone expansions are, with added classes and added skills, they all are effectively mandatory and forever increasing the gateway entering into the game; and no game, not subscription models, box sale models, or free models should ever try to discourage new players.

While one can argue that proph,fact,night,EotN is not too much of a gateway, the business model called not for EotN, but for a new stand-alone with two new classes and far more skills; this model also called for a new expansion after that, and yet another one. EotN and GW2 were Anet even acknowledging the failure of their old business model. Yet I have no clue why they still cling to that model for GW1 even though changing it could not just benefit this game, but also their pocketbooks.

Sarevok Thordin · Jan 21, 2010, 11:22 PM // 23:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

No, you have to stop it once you can get it right. Banning the users would be nice as well, although my fear is that ANet will pass on the ban hammer as they often do when an issue becomes sufficiently widespread.

In the meantime we've all got to live with it. That could be a while.

Just want to say, I DOUBT they will pass on the banhammer here, this is intentional modifying of the game's running (i.e inserting non-standard input sources from the bot), something you have to go out of your way to do knowing full well it's wrong.

This isn't like red resign day.

Tullzinski · Jan 21, 2010, 11:27 PM // 23:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

In the meantime we've all got to live with it. That could be a while.

QFT, until the problem gets big enough for ANET to finally do something about it, we just have to sit and wait...

Martin Alvito · Jan 21, 2010, 11:29 PM // 23:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

For a company with a history of poor understanding of its playerbase and poor support as Anet, they are going to have a much different response if the community's attitude is "oh I'm sure you'll deal with it soon, its really not a big deal right now, its not like its really affecting anyone that matters" as opposed to the appropriate outrage.

So I should get upset because if I rage at ANet really loudly, I can get them to act? Not bloody likely.

I'm just telling you how to cope with the problem while we're stuck with it. It's not like they're going to be able to just bang out a coding fix and then everything will be alright again. For someone that claims to be so knowledgeable about coding, you should know this and be realistic about what's going to happen here.

If you can propose a functional, quick fix, I'm all ears. But my sense is that we could be waiting for a while, and with good reason. The problem is bad, but not absolutely mission-critical. As Div pointed out, it affects a minority of players. And it would be time-intensive to fix unless someone can do the legwork and present a workable solution to the devs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

I'm also not sure if you believe some amazing solution can be reached where no innocent person will be punished and no abuser will go unpunished.

Obviously that's not the case. It's traditional in US criminal justice to accept some Type II error to avoid Type I errors. I would expect that this would be the approach that would guide them.

But it's also been the case that very widespread issues have gone unpunished (eg: RR, Urgoz HM). That's what concerns me here.

Sarevok, it's not a question of justice or deterrence. There are two issues. One is the manpower cost of enforcement. The other is the desire not to ban huge numbers of users. If enough people disobey the rules, it ceases to be feasible for ANet to ban them all. Just how it is.

Tramp · Jan 21, 2010, 11:51 PM // 23:51

The solution to RBR is simple = take the profit motive out of it. Do not give 100 beetles away to the top 100 botters this year. Instead hold a random drawing to all those that enter the RBR and score some minimal score. (tired of the art contests where the same talented people keep winning the big ecto prizes and the less talented of us /fail.) I guarentee you that if there is not beetle for top 100, and the beetles are given away in another manner, then botting will not be a factor. So simple... it will never happen.

Polgara Val · Jan 22, 2010, 12:10 AM // 00:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tramp

The solution to RBR is simple = take the profit motive out of it. Do not give 100 beetles away to the top 100 botters this year. Instead hold a random drawing to all those that enter the RBR and score some minimal score. (tired of the art contests where the same talented people keep winning the big ecto prizes and the less talented of us /fail.) I guarentee you that if there is not beetle for top 100, and the beetles are given away in another manner, then botting will not be a factor. So simple... it will never happen.

Your personally saying practically that all top 100 times in RBR this year will be botters. I am one of those top 100 last year and I assure you that most if not all of us never and will never use a bot, Anet can easily check each and every log and they will find the routes between each and every player completely varies from one another.

Even if they did remove the mini greased lightning reward it wouldent deter me to get the best time I can possibly get and by the way thats with my own hands not some coded bot the bottom line is I love RBR because I want to have fun and get the best time with a little time and effort.

Also I think that this isint such a massive issue in RBR as it is in proper pvp. Absolutely theres an issue there but I highly doubt even with someone who allegedly has a private server to practice RBR can make a bot just for a 3 day period of which he can win a mini greased lightning.

Pol

Reverend Dr · Jan 22, 2010, 12:58 AM // 00:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

So I should get upset because if I rage at ANet really loudly, I can get them to act?

I'm saying that not raging is a guarantee that they will never take action.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

I'm just telling you how to cope with the problem while we're stuck with it.

I'm saying that by giving 'coping solutions' that include such comments as 'bots don't affect anyone that matters' or 'players don't lose to bots' that rather than addressing botting as a real issue, you are dismissing it as a non-issue. Compare that with my above comment and you might understand why myself and other people are taking so much offense to what you are saying.