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Fight Botting by Allowing Botting
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DeLaBu
CAF Industries
#1 - 2012-01-24 10:26:54 UTC
The reason people bot is because it gives the unfair advantage of letting a computer do those mundane tasks that will drive a human insane.

If CCP allowed botting by making the client scriptable, it will level the playing field and take away the advantage of those willing to risk a EULA breach.

Make scripts sellable on the market, then players can spend their time making good scripts instead of click and dragging ore. In the true spirit of EVE, drama can be generated by creating "dirty" scripts that will fail or do malicious things to your enemies when they use it.

Integrate it with the skill system. Level 1 scripts can only plug into an individual module and automate that. Level 2 can move the ship around. Level 3 can access the cargo and scan the overview. Level 4 can get all the info a player can get through the interface. Level 5 can communicate with other ships' scripts.

Obviously a lot of balancing will have to be done to balance the influx of minerals (and other stuffs) this will cause.

I'm not trying to solve the problem of the details of such an implementation. Nor am I examining all the possible repurcussions or loopholes. Nor am I blind to the fact that this will probably be a whole lot of work for CCP.

I'm trying to sell the rough idea that botters can *maybe* be countered by taking their unfair advantage away from them and empowering all players with tools to level the playing field.

The things that takes true skill, will still only be doable by a human sitting behind the keyboard and doing what (some) humans do best - react innovatively to unexpected situations.

Flame away...
Mars Theran
Foreign Interloper
#2 - 2012-01-24 11:17:49 UTC
No flame, but I have to say the idea is bad. Not because it would making botting available as a means of semi-passive mining income or whatnot; but because I don't want the EVE client scriptable. I'm happy with havig the new API keys as the only means of accessing the game outside of playing.

Sure, I hear people can dig through the client and extract models and information, (illegal where I live, whether intended by the game designer or not apparently - silly but true), but that is something else I suppose.

Point is, you make the client scriptable, and people will use that to hack it in one fashion or another. We'll go from mining and market bots, to whatever else can be accomplished through similar means, and CCP won't have an easy way to define he difference between 'legitimate' scripting and scripting intended to do other things.

Not sure what other things they could do, but it is client side access to the servers and the ability to manipulate the game mechancis in one fashion or another. All-around bad idea I think.
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DeLaBu
CAF Industries
#3 - 2012-01-24 11:56:26 UTC
Don't mind thought out critique at all!

The idea would be that the scripts will live inside the client in the same manner that the X series of space games are scriptable. Ultimately, the scripts will only be able to manipulate the calls that are exposed to the user interface.

I development speak, the scripts will talk to the same controller layer that the UI elements speak to, in effect granting them no more power than what the UI provides the user via manual clicking.

In other words, the script will control the mouse and keystrokes and get the information rendered on the screen in electronic format - nothing more. It should most definately not have the ability to directly create data packets that go to the server!

It's kind of like an internal API in the client, much in the same manner as the current API the servers expose.

I do agree however that CCP should keep striving for gameplay that's engaging and very hard to script/bot. That is the ideal solution and the "first win".
Simi Kusoni
HelloKittyFanclub
#4 - 2012-01-24 12:12:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Simi Kusoni
DeLaBu wrote:
Level 4 can get all the info a player can get through the interface. Level 5 can communicate with other ships' scripts.

Using this I could quite easily create a Nyx botting script to blitz anoms with two groups of twelve fighters, with a rapier/loki support that targets frigates>cruisers>battleships and gets reps when attacked. Both "scripts" also initiate warp to POS/Outpost when a new local enters system.

Now, that might "level the playing field" between me and bots, but since literally everyone would now be using these scripts anyone who doesn't bot would be well and truly screwed. That means everyone is now a bot. Yay.

As it is botting is an issue in some areas of the game, mainly high sec mining and some (drone regions, lol) deep sov null sec. If your suggestion were implemented botting would be an issue throughout Eve, and "malicious" scripts could easily be weeded out by glancing through the code, getting scripts from friends or trusted sites etc.

Basically it's a nice idea, and it does level the playing field, but it levels the playing field by turning Eve into the space equivalent of a WoW battleground. So no, unfortunately not supported.

DeLaBu wrote:
The things that takes true skill, will still only be doable by a human sitting behind the keyboard and doing what (some) humans do best - react innovatively to unexpected situations.

It might also be worth adding that some things will always require a human in Eve, like probing or covering multiple systems in null without dying in a fire, but if you earn 50% that amount and can do it 23 hours a day because you're not actually at your computer, it is still more profitable to do the mundane tasks.

[center]"I don't troll, I just give overly blunt responses that annoy people who are wrong but don't want to admit it. It's not my fault that people have sensitive feelings"  -MXZF[/center]
DeLaBu
CAF Industries
#5 - 2012-01-24 18:19:32 UTC
Simi Kusoni wrote:
As it is botting is an issue in some areas of the game, mainly high sec mining and some (drone regions, lol) deep sov null sec. If your suggestion were implemented botting would be an issue throughout Eve, and "malicious" scripts could easily be weeded out by glancing through the code, getting scripts from friends or trusted sites etc..


The idea would be that you can't see the source code and the script is installed (much like a tracking script for example) into a slot/module/whatever.

Of course, people are free to give the source code, but competent scripters may want to sell their scripts for a premium.

I know I also won't like eve to turn into one huge automated mess. The hope is that CCP changes content to make it harder to script (your Nyx ratting bot scenario).

I know this idea is a bit like the whole "legalize prostitution and drugs to minimize the impact and so it can be regulated" debate. It's a stop-gap imperfect solution for a problem.

The ideal would be for CCP to make the gameplay so that botting is near impossible. But that will be very, very hard.
Simi Kusoni
HelloKittyFanclub
#6 - 2012-01-24 18:23:42 UTC
DeLaBu wrote:
The idea would be that you can't see the source code and the script is installed (much like a tracking script for example) into a slot/module/whatever.

Of course, people are free to give the source code, but competent scripters may want to sell their scripts for a premium.

I know I also won't like eve to turn into one huge automated mess. The hope is that CCP changes content to make it harder to script (your Nyx ratting bot scenario).

I know this idea is a bit like the whole "legalize prostitution and drugs to minimize the impact and so it can be regulated" debate. It's a stop-gap imperfect solution for a problem.

The ideal would be for CCP to make the gameplay so that botting is near impossible. But that will be very, very hard.

I think making the gameplay so that botting is near impossible is a completely different proposal to creating in-game botting tools.

Also, if you could not see the code in game, it would merely be distributed via third party sites. I also imagine that if it were made in some kind of pseudo-programming language most Eve players would be smart enough to write them themselves.

[center]"I don't troll, I just give overly blunt responses that annoy people who are wrong but don't want to admit it. It's not my fault that people have sensitive feelings"  -MXZF[/center]
Liandri Kamadachi
Cry Of Death
Almost Underdogs
#7 - 2012-01-24 20:05:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Liandri Kamadachi
Mars Theran wrote:
No flame, but I have to say the idea is bad. Not because it would making botting available as a means of semi-passive mining income or whatnot; but because I don't want the EVE client scriptable. I'm happy with havig the new API keys as the only means of accessing the game outside of playing.

Sure, I hear people can dig through the client and extract models and information, (illegal where I live, whether intended by the game designer or not apparently - silly but true), but that is something else I suppose.

Point is, you make the client scriptable, and people will use that to hack it in one fashion or another. We'll go from mining and market bots, to whatever else can be accomplished through similar means, and CCP won't have an easy way to define he difference between 'legitimate' scripting and scripting intended to do other things.

Not sure what other things they could do, but it is client side access to the servers and the ability to manipulate the game mechancis in one fashion or another. All-around bad idea I think.


Or worse, pirate bots. You'd have every single lowsec gate camped by a couple dozen afk ppl with scripts to kill you on entry.

Yes, VERY bad idea. Mainly because it would also screw with the Eve economy a lot.

  1. You'd have people (like me) who would just leave Eve on 24/7 mining with 2 maxed Hulks and an Orca.
  2. Eve would now have at least 3-4 times the server use, as (almost) everyone would be on 24/7.
  3. This extra server use would equate to massive lag, and a much higher cost for Eve to be hosted.
  4. The extra resources in the market would cause all mineral prices to go down by 50-75%, at LEAST.
  5. This, in turn would make eve even less newb-friendly, and we would lose a lot of our player base.
Kamuria
Space Makers
#8 - 2012-01-25 02:41:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Kamuria
Bad idea, mainly because in the near future once implemented, people who don't bot will contribute to increase ganking. Of course high sec botter will be the easiest victims, leaving the 0.0 rich people in a position to earn even more.

Bottom line, the game will be full of angry jealous gankers and then your idea will implode
Mary Mercer
Doomheim
#9 - 2012-01-25 04:31:31 UTC
Bad Idea.. above listed reasons. This would be an economic bomb.
DeLaBu
CAF Industries
#10 - 2012-01-25 05:15:15 UTC  |  Edited by: DeLaBu
For market concerns, I'll re-quote myself:
Quote:
Obviously a lot of balancing will have to be done to balance the influx of minerals (and other stuffs) this will cause.


That balancing may include for example making mining less effective.

But by how much? Yes, this wil be very hard to get right - so the economic concerns can be mitigated, but are still valid concerns.

Other good reasons stated above why this is a bad idea:
1. More server load due to more people being on 23/7
2. People running 20 accounts simultanously doing stuff like camping gates

So yes, I'll admit defeat and submit that this will probably do more bad than good What?
hmskrecik
TransMine Group
Gluten Free Cartel
#11 - 2012-01-25 12:27:51 UTC
In principle it's nice idea, but in practice I don't think the effect is worth the trouble (wanna see my eggs-ploit?). If the game from the beginning was designed with client side scripting in mind, maybe.

But I was just thinking about server side scripts. Something like autopilot as it works currently: you plot the course to Jita, you press the button, you go to dinner, and after you're back you realise you're still in pod at Uedama gate... I mean, simple, dumbed down algorithms for most daunting tasks. For mining it could be maybe: if the cargo is full and cycle is lost then belch the cargo to nearest can and reactivate stripper on first locked target (just rough idea). They could relieve human from most boring stuff but for the price of lowered efficiency and without any hint of being foolproof.
iNfeck7ed
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#12 - 2012-01-25 15:32:01 UTC
I thought games were supposed to be played? If you bot to get isk then online for just pvp, then CCP could circumvent all that and alot everyone a certain amount of mins per day and you can sell or build pvp ships with it. But, that just sounds stupid because you'd be cutting out a piece of the game and giving it over to bots.

The answer is simple: make it so that npc players can get wardec'd, except in 1.0 systems, which have shi7y belts anyways, and so then these new players are forced to join corps if they want to leave 1.0 in safety. Once these noobs or vets join a corp, their own corpmates can keep an eye on their members, or corps can get wardec'd for having botting members.

Let the Eve community punish the botters. It will make Eve funner as well.

Now cloaky tengu bots in 0.0 is a little different, and that needs to be addressed, but for now, this answer takes care of the mining botter aspect.