So much bot flood, why can't this game get rid of this trash?


#41

It is though. Regex is a thing. Player specific filters are a thing. Plenty of other games don’t have this issue on the same scale ROTMG does. DECA has done literally nothing to combat it, and punishes regular players more than actual bots. It is ridiculous.


#42

Step one

  1. Make shadowmute more harsh and indiscriminative.

Step two
2. To counteract the shadowmute carpet bombing, create trust level system for players to distinguish themselves from the bots. Simple. Instead of trying to ban the endless amount of bots. Deca should just find legitimate players and exempt them from the indiscriminative chat muting.


#43

Except that legitimate new players have no more trust than new bot accounts. If Deca could tell the difference between bots and players, we wouldn’t be in this position.


#44

Well here a thing. A legitimate players will able to separate themselves from the bots.
list of things players do but bots don’t

  • actively play the actual game content
  • Link their account to realmeye
  • link their account in rotmg discord
  • Doesn’t wander around in nexus or safe area for too long while promoting rwt site
  • Has a decent pet
  • Bought realm gold’s
  • Doesn’t get mute quickly by the majority players whether in chat or dm.
  • Account fame is more dynamic than bots
  • Have Interaction with verified players without getting ignore or reported

#45

This is the only thing you listed that new players qualify for. Bots get away with most of this regularly, even playing the game (since at least 2014)


#46

You’re wrong, the several factors he said could be used to create an algorithm, BUT it’s obvious and we all know we’re only having this discussion because DECA can’t code anything slightly complex like that algorithm.

If this wasn’t true they would have already done so


#47

So what? You build up some data and then execute a ban. Then the botters make a new account. If you can’t immediately tell it’s a bot and 100% not a new player, you’re not really doing anything.


#48

“Slightly complex”

I love that phrase, because it really demonstrates how difficult such a thing would actually be. If the algorithm were only slightly complex, it would be only slightly complex (at most) for bot makers to circumvent it, they’d be sufficiently pretending within days, if not hours.


#49

:man_facepalming: It’s a synonym for “a little complex”.

The point here is Scalability, not complexity.

A simple algorithm with many factors can make it very hard to circumvent it. That’s my point

Well, now you’re just being obnoxious to me and to the idea for no reason, even if it works, as yourself is saying.

You’re literally just shitting on it.


#50

That’s because it’s the same recycled idea with the same logical argument against it. Most of these ideas don’t bother considering what happens five minutes later, much less longterm. Yours is no exception. I will continue shitting on bad ideas to fight spam bots, because they all affect me in some negative way.


#51

It doesn’t consider because it’s only that, an idea, and I’m not elaborating on absolutely anything lol.

I’m not planning the whole game and elaborating on a better concept for free. I’m saying it’s possible to be done in a healthy way.

The details are DECA’s job, not mine


#52

Okay.

Like what?

What factors can be taken into account to make it 1) Hard to circumvent, 2) Not cause false positives on real players, 3) Simple enough to be feasible to actually make, and 4) Can be fully automated with no active moderation?

Keep in mind that all four are necessary to be a success. Failing any one of these means it would either not actually work at all, impact players, be completely unfeasible, or require active moderation.

All of the suggestions so far have failed one or more of these.
Most are actually child’s play to work around.
Many would catch perfectly normal new players.
Many are actually really, really complicated, there isn’t a built-in FigureOutIfPlayerIsBotBasedOnBehavior() function.
And active moderation has been discussed to death.

One last time, this is a nontrivial problem. Acting like it is doesn’t help anyone. There is no “Make Not Broken” button they they just haven’t pressed yet. Discussing the flaws and advantages of potential solutions is one thing, but acting like it’s easy and there is definitely a simple solution with no flaws and that everyone involved is either lazy or stupid only serves to demonstrate how poorly understood the problem is, especially when hiding behind that “Well I don’t need to share my immediately obvious and perfect solution, it’s not MY job.”

You can’t have it both ways. Either it’s easy and you know how to fix it which means you’re actively withholding information that would improve the game and therefore intentionally sabotaging it, or it’s hard and you don’t have any better a solution than anyone else.


#53

I’m not retarded, stop strawmanning what I said and changing my points lol.

I said it’s a possibility and DECA obviously didn’t even try it out because they can’t do it, since they can’t even fix a hardcoded filter. :man_shrugging:

I won’t be posting an elaborated idea because I don’t care enough and I’m tired of doing that and being ignored

Jesus christ man are you having a bad day


#54

I try to illustrate how “slightly complex” is an extreme understatement for such an algorithm, and you respond by insulting me by defining the word “slightly” with a facepalm.

I try to explain how “a simple algorithm with many factors” is a meaningless statement and any actual automated algorithm for bot detection would either be an enormous undertaking or worthless, and you respond by accusing me of strawmanning and having a bad day.

I do apologize for the last part, that was uncalled for. I have seen so many people making similar ignorant statements along those lines I wrongly assumed you were the same, I re-examined the thread and I believe I misinterpreted your words. I apologize for directing them towards you.


#55

How is it a meaningless statement? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

A simple algorithm with many factors is just that, a simple algorithm with many factors. I don’t know what you want me to say. I have no idea why you think everything about it is worthless. nonsense

Also, each activity can have more or less weight on this.

Examples were already said


#56

they should do nothing because it requires too much effort (or actually, impossible according to some people here) to do, we don’t care about new players anyway


#57

Here is more elaboration

actively play the actual game content

  • New players will definitely try to progress the game organically, unlike automated bots, noob will do Pcave. dies a lot. slowly creep up the content that rotmg has to offers. maxing stats slowly. RWT site just can’t mimic that, even if they can. It going to be a too slow and inefficient way to mass-produce a fucking spambots.

link their account to rotmg related site such as realmeye, discord

  • bots can do that too but it hassles for each of them and makes them easier to be tracked.

Has a decent pet

  • A simple yet effective countermeasure, the rarer the pet that player has, the less chance that the account is a spam bots

Microstransaction history

  • A strong proof that the account is not a bot. I mean RWT site definitely doesn’t want to pay for a spambot right?

Doesn’t get mute quickly by the majority players whether in chat or dm.

  • really solid trait, that can all spambots share. could be used to identify them and mute

Dynamic account fame and naturally increase stars rank

  • simply, if you are a new player, gaining fame isn’t the first you do in rotmg. you’ll gain organically because your obvious goal is maxing your characters. you won’t try to fame farm on your first character right? but for spambots, they want to access the chat as fast as possible. it obvious for them just to fame farm and do nothing else for maximum efficiency.

Doesn’t wander around in nexus or safe area for too long while promoting rwt site

  • no fucking legitimate player does that. that’s definitely a fucking obvious red flag. just fucking mute them.

#58

As a reference, can anybody tell me a free MMO that doesn’t have bot problems? I’m not exactly the most familiar with popular MMOs out there, but afaik all these bot issues have always been around in any MMO. Especially free MMOs. I think we can gain a lot to see how they handle these issues.


#59

as far i know, there’s one called spiral knights that doesn’t have bot issues(probably because it’s not popular).
there may be other ones out there, it’s just that i haven’t seen them. that’s it. also, it’s nighttime and i probably need to go to sleep


#60

Yeah, with popularity comes these issues. Acting with bots as a given that will exist, what steps would be viable for the team to do so the bots don’t undermine the game experience :thinking:

The absolute worst thing that I feel are the chats and messages. There’s the obvious chat filter, but differing human chat and bot generated chat is a multimillion dollar challenge that the latest AI is also tackling. I’d start with the simple whispers. Turning whispers on only for friends would be fantastic for me, since being sent a promotional message in the middle of a dungeon or the vault is very distracting for me.

Besides that, the nexus spawn bots. Without severely gutting the social aspect of the game, what can you do to minimize their spam’s effects… I guess that’s our million dollar question.