As we know, IMC has been following up on our Reports and banning bots. This is great, but lets be real. First, RMTs will always exist and I doubt IMC will ban these people for a multitude of reasons (i.e hard to catch due to VPN and hard to prove). Second, RMTers can create bots far faster than IMC can investigate and ban bots. What am I proposing is in no way a final solution or miracle cure to our bot problem, but it will be able to filter bots much quicker for IMC to ban.
The Bot Destroyer Arena (BDA)
- Is triggered once a Player receives 6x reports
- You cannot report the same player for 1 week (1month?)
- You can ONLY be transported to BDA if in open-field area and cities
- You can’t report someone who is afk-open shop + add feature where open-shop players can’t use chat.
- Player is transported to BDA, must perform 3 simple task to escape
- 15minute time limit and it takes under 2mins to complete BDA
- Player gets +100HP/+100SP recovery buff for 30mins + 1 BDA token
- 1 BDA token allows you to skip/escape BDA
Important Notes!
-The 6x report is to prevent real player vs real player abuse. (ex. you cant just roll up as a party of 5 and report another team to take their grinding spot, but even if u manage to grab a 6th player it takes under 2mins to get out of it so…)
- The names of the 6 players reported you and put you into the BDA will appear in header.
-BDA will not trigger if you are in Instance/Dungeons or World Boss maps or GvG
-The buff will cancel if you move from map to map. The buff itself is not amazing, but will save you some money on pots.
-The buff will not be abuse by bots because bots do not use spells to kill monsters and mostly rely on auto attacks. - BDA token is there so that if 12+ ppl abuse the report function against you, you can easily bypass the test.
- Bots will not abuse/farm BDA tokens by self-report themselves because they would be killing themselves by reporting to IMC…
What actually is Bot Destroyer Arena? Below is a rough sketch of BDA
-BDA is based of a 3-Strike System. 3 strikes = Temporary 24hr ban
-Completing Tasks goes from left to right
First Task - DO NOT KILL ANYTHING. DO NOT USE CHAT.
-When you are reported 6x, you are transported here at the Maroon Star.
-A flashing header will tell you DO NOT KILL ANYTHING. DO NOT USE CHAT. The names of the 6 players who reported you will also appear.
-A set number of monsters(9) will spawn from the green Hexagon and stationary monsters will spawn along the green border. They will have 3 HP and are immune to spells/skills. Players can only deal 1 damage to them
-If killed monster = +1 strike
-If Player walks into the Turquoise border area, they will receive +1 strike
-If Player uses any form of chat 3x = 1 strike
Second Task - HOP/JUMP ACROSS
- There are 4 paths to the right, each square is a 9x9 cell platform and each represent a different terrain.
- Talk to the Sign (Purple rectangle) or wait 1 min to get instructions (header flash) to cross the correct path
- Each path is described to you, “Cross the rocky path” “Cross the hot path” Cross the icy path" and there are multiple variations of description like for the Light blue path it can say, ICY,COLD,WATERY, RIVER, etc etc.
- Each correct path is re-rolled every 5minutes and the position (1st row,2nd row, etc) of each path is re-rolled every 1minute
- If you fall in the Indigo “lava” you get transported back to the Indigo star with no penalty
- If you jump on the Incorrect path = +1 strike
Third Task - DOG LEASH QUEST
-There is a Center NPC with his DOG NPC in the center of this section
-There are 3 NPCs at the top of this section.
-The Center NPC asks “He forgot his dog leash at home, but his friend who “insert description” has a spare, could you fetch it for me?”
- NPC will describe a PHYSICAL trait about the top 3 NPC’s like, its person with long hair, or its the only animal of the 3, or he has a falcon, etc etc. He describes a physical or defining characteristic of the person who has the leash and you have to talk to them to get leash to complete quest
- If talk to wrong NPC = +1 strike, warp to yellow star
- If talk to wrong NPC second time = +1 strike and quest changes along with 3 new NPCs(tons of different NPC in this game), warp to yellow star
-Once you successfully get leash, you competed the BDA and are transported out along with the buff + 1 BDA token
If you get 3 strikes, you will receive a BDA temp ban and will notify IMC. This will make IMC job much easier to upgrade the temp ban to permanent ban after review.
The BDA will be effective in getting rid of Bot Silver spammers in cities, and bots out in the field - especially those in lower areas due the high volume of players(This will make the L40 world chat restriction even more effective). In the long run, RMT will only have a few bots that survive the purge and end up in the “higher” levels, but they too will be found,reported, and banned. Thus drastically hindering their ability to farm and horde large amounts of silver on a character(since you cant transfer silver 1:1). Finally, this will affect people who BUY silver from the RMTers because since silver is much harder to get by botting, they will have to charge a premium for silver. Since there will be fewer and fewer people willing to pay a premium to buy silver from RMT, it makes IMC job easier to spot a RMT/BUYER in the Auction House given their 48hr time delay. We want to make the situation go to a point where, it is in the best interest of BUYERS to invest into IMC by buying Tokens and selling to fellow players than for them to buy silver from RMT.
Additionally, temp banning will also free up server space, global chat, and make playing more enjoyable with less lag and with the actual server population.
Thoughts and suggestions? Below are community inspired solutions/tweaks
EDIT: Those who are real players and somehow…fail these simple task and get BDA temp banned, can easily write a support ticket and get un-banned. RMT/Bots on the other hand, will NOT care about getting their account un-banned and will not write a ticket because it takes them less time to create another account.
EDIT: Include the 6 names who put you in BDA in the header while you are in the Arena. So in case of false reporting or exploting the report function to place a real player(s) in BDA, the player can screenshot these names and send them to IMC.
EDIT: Maybe include a feature where if its your 2nd time in BDA (12 reports), after you complete BDA you will be teleported back to nearest city rather than on same map. Also have indestructible wooden training stump(s) nearby that has the coding of a monster, bots would move and attack it. Players in city can then report said bot again, rack up the # of times the bot goes to the BDA
