Macroing

Seems off topic, sir. Macroing is a game design issue long discussed here. No need to make it personal.

 

I agree with others that the CAPTCHA approach isn't the best one.

Games should be designed around fun aspects, and CAPTCHA would be boring and tedious, not fun.It's best not to fix one problematic design element with another non-fun design element. Identify the root issue in the design and fix that, vs. double down on sustaining the problem.

 

Its not really a bad design as more of something that has persisted across all games that are online ever.

Its something every online developer has to address if they are taking their game seriously.
There are many ways to go about countering the use of macros/scripts. The xp pool is a good start.

But that's just one layer, and that wont cut it. If I can macro xp all day then theres the larger issue.
I am sure they are working on some detection tech to help auto squish the macroers, but its never perfect.

I feel like mini games for crafting/gathering can defeat the macroing on that front, but combat macroing is very hard to stop or create a system to prevent that is still fun.

ether way something has to be done.

 

CAPTCHA? For same macro being used a few times, i couldnt vote for that. Being as big into PvP as you claim to be and hopefully the biggest PvP pot, could you imagine trying to PvP and getting sslapped with a CAPTCHA in the middle of your fight? LOL

 

CAPTCHA yea doesn't really work with combat very well.

Actualy is very hard to catch and detect this stuff, a lot of games use the community to help report, some use "pattern" checking or a combo of those.
In the end catching hacker/scripter/macroers is a full time job that requires a dedicated staff. Most cases have to be reviewed by a real person case by case.
All that costs $$$.

I just pled with Port to take exploits seriously right now. We really don't need to add the "hackers" to the list of things on bad reviews.
I don't want to see another Reign of Kings.

 

If we used that logic on everything in life, this would be a very interesting world...

We can't use firewalls! Think of all the false positives!
We can't have fingerprint recognition, can you imagine all the times where the door would't open for you and you'd be late for work?
We can't ticket people for going through a red light. I can just see it now, someone would have to subjectively decide if the light was red or yellow.

I think I could do this for at least another 4 hours before I ran out of material.

 

I should prob clarify

You have now convinced me your are not a competitive PvPer, anyone who would be ok with a captcha popping up if you hit the same button X amount of times , is not really into winning LOL. At that point the fastest CAPTCHA solver wins!

 

to be clear theres nothing wrong with not being comptetive in PvP, roleplaying a pvper is just as fun!

 

There are many kinds of PVP. Some people enjoy arena pvp where you just run out and kill whatever moves until you die and then you do it again, and again, and again.

I'm not that kind of PVPer. For those people, CAPTCHA shouldn't be a problem unless they're scripting or unless the CAPTCHA thresh hold is too tight.

 

There is a plan in place. Not disclosing the source unless told otherwise. R28 Bot/macro detection is in. It will run for R28 to gather data and help to find solutions for false positives. R29 it will be enforced. That should ease some of this tension. As it stands the standard will be 2 mins or less of same activity without human interruption. What does that mean? I'm not sure exactly what is considered human interaction, nor do I care. As long as they are trying I'm ok with it.

 

"one of these lives has a future, and one of these does not" - Agent Smith

 

How do you know what is human being repetitive and what's a bot? I mean if they really can, that's great, but ultimately I think someone has to pop in and say "hey, howsit going?" before you punish.

 

macros use exact timing in a pattern, where humans ussualy vary a bit when it comes down to miliseconds even if done in a pattern for long periods

 

These days bots are much more sophisticated, but it might catch a few.

I hope its not disruptive and doesn't eat up too many ressources.

 

Yeah... there are bot programs out there that can be programmed to vary response times to such a degree that it would be almost impossible to catch someone if you are simply looking for a pattern that repeats with something resembling machine-like precision.

 

Yeah, but no. I could make a bot vary by a bit here and there trivially. Just limiting it to timing precision would only catch the most naïvely written bots.

 

not saying thats the only form of detection, but youd be surprised how many use whole numbers as intervals.
I am aware of the "amazing" things you can do with the programs.

 

That reminds me of something. I was levelling up mining in Etceter mines one day, and had spent about two hours on the lich/ghost level, when a lich suddenly appeared behind me. I was in a cave that is not normally (at least, in my experience) visited by the lich, so it took me by surprise. I don't know if it was a glitch, or whether a dev was seeing if I was a bot. Anyhow, I turned around and - surprisingly - was able to kill the lich, albeit after a struggle. If my avatar had been controlled by software, it would have died and eventually resurrected at the start of the scene.

That, in my opinion, is how you deal with unattended macroing:
1. nodes respawn in random locations, with each node having random respawn delays that are unpredictable (already partially implemented)
2. avatars that remain in the one location for a suspiciously long time get random "visitors" that a human could defeat, but a bot could not

That is more fun and more immersive than a CAPTCHA.

 

Total agreement. Even better if it's something that isn't normally in that area, because it would also add a little verity. Solve the problem in a way that adds to the game rather then detracts from it. I like.

 

Bloody liches!