Tree of Savior Forum

How to Solve the Bot Issue in 10 Simple Steps

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#1

So, anyone playing seriously knows about the Bot issue, but I don’t see anyone offering simple solutions. So I will.

First things first, implement some kind of Flood Control on chat. You can’t post a bunch of times in rapid succession, you have to wait. Spammers severely hindered.

Secondly, add a Report Option when you click someone in chat. Then set the Report Option both there and when you click someone’s character to also Block that character so we have a one stop shop for blocking and reporting bots.

Thirdly, add large, clearly marked, high level monsters that don’t attack players unless they are attacked to the zones and don’t drop much loot as a Bot check. This way the Bots roll through, attack the big guy that all the other players are steering clear of and get wrecked and the players watching it happen get a laugh.

Fourth, more Channels / Servers. Tenet Church is perpetually overpopulated as are some other areas. This is needed, the city of Klaipeda is rough on the server Klaipeda, and when you enter the Pyromancer’s area or any other areas like that it Channel Swaps you to one of the earlier channels so when you come out you’re thrust into one of the crazy channels. There are going to be even more people coming in, so this is an absolute must.

Next, set additional rules for Character Names. No more than two of the same letter or number in sequence. No more than 4 consonants in a sequence. Lassy would be fine, Lasssy wouldn’t. These rules wouldn’t affect 99% of us, but quickly making gibberish Bot names would be greatly hindered.

The Anti-Bot Statue. So a lot of you have noticed that certain spells and stuff will draw the Bots to it like a moth to a flame. Add an item for 1 TP that puts down a little statue with infinite health that can be attacked and lasts for a hour in that spot. See a bot, drop your statue and watch them go crazy on it and accomplish nothing while you go about your questing. It is 1 TP so even the Free to Play guys have access with their Free TP.

Make it harder for Chat Spam Bots to get Megaphones. Give us 8-10 Free TP max, but set the interval to a longer amount so that the Bots have to wait a long time, but the players are still rewarded so it doesn’t feel like a restriction.

Institute Drop Rate Modulation based on the Market, if an Item’s price skyrockets or falls out because of over-farming by Players or Bots, raise or lower the drop rate accordingly to shift the market back in the right direction.

Give a clearly defined and tiered set of rewards for correctly reporting Bots. Maybe a Title like “Scholar of Constructs” or “Robot Hunter”, some Anti-Bot Statues that I mentioned earlier, Megaphones, just simple stuff cosmetic or convenience items.

Offer monthly or bi-monthly convenience item rewards for Players that continue playing. Bots will get banned and not accumulate rewards, continuing Players get some XP Tomes or something, most Players will out level the Bots so they will be rare in the high level areas.

All of those things together will relegate Bots to a joke and a minor inconvenience that can be easily avoided.

Thank you for reading, have a great day, and if you are gaming may all your loots be phat!

Z

2 Likes
#2

that’s not simple at all.

#3

Did you hide your increased drop rate wish inside anti-botting measures? :smiley:

Otherwise waste of code to implement all that won’t change anything.

#4

@Pappus

A lot of games do that do hinder Bots and keep the economy running smoothly. If you want a few examples, World of Warcraft and EVE Online both do that.

EVE Online actually employs an Economist to run their Market and constantly nudge it in the right direction through changing loot drop rates and releasing things to the players through vendors.

Also, some times loot drop rates need to come down to make other items more expensive if they have devalued. It is a sword that cuts both ways.

As a developer if you implement a bunch of small and relatively non-intrusive changes that hinder Botters then they will decrease in number. If it is harder to Bot here than another game, then they will usually go play another game.

The key to all this is patience, IMC is listening and trying to stop the Botters and solve other issues, but they can’t do it all overnight.

#5

A lot of good ideas there.

I actually saw…

“Thirdly, add large, clearly marked, high level monsters that don’t attack players unless they are attacked to the zones and don’t drop much loot as a Bot check. This way the Bots roll through, attack the big guy that all the other players are steering clear of and get wrecked and the players watching it happen get a laugh.”

…that one in one of the mmorpgs I’ve played in the past, can’t really remember which one. It did it’s job very well, though.

Always tag the staff and GMs when suggesting things, though.

@GM_Francis @GM_Sebastian @Staff_Julie @STAFF_Ines

#6

None of the above will solve anything regarding bots.

About naming policy - wont affect bots in any way but what if i want to name my character Thaxll’ssillyia? Name isnt random in any way.

#7

@nizidr

Thaxll’ssillyia, that name doesn’t break the rules.

Th a xll ’ ss i lly ia

No more than three consonants in a row and no letters repeated three times in a row either.

Here is an example:

wHgjkoi would get blocked.

wHgjk o i

Too many consonants in a row.

#8

it will because you cant use apostrophes in the names in game. That’ll mean that name will contain 5 consonants in a row.

#9

Economist != automated regulation

World of Warcraft is bot infested they just spread through a much much bigger world.

Bots even go raid there.

In fact WoW is the home-base of most botters and you will see their brute force again once the addon hits. Late season there just isnt much to sell there.

Edit: Btw the most effective thing eve does is banning BUYERS. That is something almost nobody else does - for good reasons.

#10

Great minds think alike. I was about to post most of these suggestions. Gonna add some comments here, though.

1.) Would suggest a 1 minute spam filter to the Shout channel, and possibly raising the level requirement to 100 (or at least 75). Also, add a flipping Market Channel and Party Finder channel, also with a 1-minute filter, and make it FREE. This Microphone stuff is a bit of BS. I get that it’s there to filter bots, but it isn’t doing any good when the people who bot for RMT use (which are the bigger problem) are the kind of people who consider money as no issue.

2.) THIS, so much THIS. I tried multiple times when I started playing to right-click bots in chat and report them, only to find out that the function was not there… Also, props for the report+block suggestion, reporting doing both helps. XD

3.) This will not work for the bots that are scripted to farm and attack certain enemies based on Item IDs (specific drops) or Monster ID. It will work on the average botter, but not the ones who do this “professionally” (as in, those RMT Distributor Bots).

4.) Eh, this one would actually be detrimental, I think… Overpopulation isn’t a problem, really. It’s the combination of bots over-farming things, and the massive delay on the monster respawn rate (which, is also there because of bots). Cutting down on the bots would remove the need for the devs to even do this one, but a few more channels/servers can’t hurt much, since people will move to others anyway.

5.) Why wasn’t this done in the first place? Also, if done, it should affect both Character Name AND Team Name. If it’s going to affect existing users, then ONE free Character Name change (per character), and one Team Name change should be given if/when this is implemented. Devs, just generate an item to do this, and send it out to users.

6.) Refer to my comment on point 3. An Anti-Bot Statue won’t have much effect on the higher-end botters who have scripts to farm things specifically, rather than doing it at random.

7.) Er, refer to my comment on point 1?

8.) Not sure if affecting drops based on Market prices would fix, or ruin, the economy… Especially since it would allow users to determine drop rates by just modifying the price.

9.) GMs should be doing their job, but at the same time, I know they CANNOT be everywhere… That said, if players hate bots, and give a damn about the community and economy within this game, then they should be doing their part and reporting the bots whenever they can. Although incentives would be a nice touch, they tend to lead to players asking for MORE.

10.) I don’t know about bi-monthly, maybe 3-6 months. Special cosmetic items (special headgears, titles, et cetera) for playing for long periods of time WOULD be nice… But only if they play “continuously,” (as in, at least 5 hours a week, a total of 24 hours a month, or something). Wouldn’t make sense to give players stuff as their account reaches 6 months old if they haven’t been playing, even if it was sent by the system and not through GM effort. Plus, Devs would have to put in the effort to design these things…

#11

In the past bots have found a way to attack only mobs that they like. In Ragnarok its as simple as typing Poring 0 0 0 in monsters.txt

#12

Well, it would obviously needed to be made no that easy by the IMC, lol. Randomizing the name of the mob shouldn’t be too hard and I’m sure there are other things that can be done to make that method more viable.

#13

There is a workaround for that. using said example you could put

All 0 0 0
Red Kepa 1 0 0
Chupacabra 1 0 0

That will make them ignore every mob except for Kepas and Chupacabra, I think something similar might work for them.

What they really need to do is be more vigilant with their ban waves, make it as often as possible to because botters dont care about banned accounts as long as it already got them money.

#14

Bots are like criminals in real life, they exist no matter you like it or not. What we can do is to make a system that we can weed them out as fast as they spawn. That will keep the balance. The Developers here know this and is trying hard to let players themselves catch all these bots.

#15

OK. They want to anti bot. But the rare material like Mithril Ore, Vubbe Blood drop on low lvl monster.
AWESOME!

#16

Saw your post after I made one. Here is what I have in mind