Here's How To Discourage Event Botting

Players have voiced their concerns regarding event drops and instances of botting. One of the primary issues is the perceived decline in the value of rewards for players. However, there's a straightforward solution that can restore balance and satisfaction for all.

Currently, event drops flow in like an unrestricted floodgate. But it doesn't have to be this way. We can implement a system of gating these drops to ensure fairness and address grievances.


What does gating drops entail?

Gating drops means establishing a hard cap limit on the number of drops that a single account can collect during the entirety of an event. While I can only suggest these caps, they can certainly be implemented in a manner that satisfies everyone.

For instance:

The maximum number of hats collectible per account, per shard, in one week, should not exceed 200. This would allow each account to farm up to 200 hats on Atlantic, 200 on Lake Superior, 200 on Great Lakes, and so forth. Once the 200 limit is reached on each shard, further collection would be restricted until the week concludes.

Achieving Balance:

There's a method to implement this that can cater to everyone's satisfaction. I'm not implying that 200 hats per week per shard is the ideal solution for all. It's adjustable so that even "power gamers" with multiple accounts can still collect a reasonable amount, while ensuring that casual players also receive valuable rewards.


"everything looks stupid" UO feedback 2024
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Comments

  • CookieCookie Posts: 1,681
    Clearly you are out of touch with current pvm farming metas. :)
  • CookieCookie Posts: 1,681
    Derail my thread, and I will derail you somewhere in the middle of the Pacific ocean. :)
  • usernameusername Posts: 938
    Or, and hear me out.... I know this is very complicated and convoluted but how about... ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients?  :)
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  • sibblesibble Posts: 189
    Cookie said:
    Derail my thread, and I will derail you somewhere in the middle of the Pacific ocean. :)
    @Mariah is this a joke?

    "everything looks stupid" UO feedback 2024
  • sibblesibble Posts: 189
    username said:
    Or, and hear me out.... I know this is very complicated and convoluted but how about... ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients?  :)

    Unapproved client usage has been around for 10+ years so we can either keep flogging a dead horse or come up with other suggestions.
    "everything looks stupid" UO feedback 2024
  • CookieCookie Posts: 1,681
    sibble said:
    Cookie said:
    Derail my thread, and I will derail you somewhere in the middle of the Pacific ocean. :)
    @ Mariah is this a joke?

    It's a joke, and a threat.

    Don't think you can come in all toxic and moron brained into my thread without any consequence.
  • keven2002keven2002 Posts: 2,317
    I'd be against the general idea of doing some sort of drop cap. I'm against any "fix" that is going to hurt the average player in an attempt to stop scripting; which is what that would do.

    For this event where I have half the items and there are only 6 other items (only 3 that are worth having several) and it also runs 3 months... sure. But if we are talking an event like the last one in Tok where there were several really worthwhile items, I wouldn't want my drops limited if there was a chance I could play more in a given week.

    username said:
    Or, and hear me out.... I know this is very complicated and convoluted but how about... ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients?  :)
    Pretty much this. I'm sure there would be push back from the people that make up probably 100's of bot accounts so banning might not be the solution, but I do think they could have a GM watching over places like Void Pool / Winter Spur (last event) and porting suspected accounts to random locations (possibly a spot where you need to run out instead of recall).

    Basically doing anything would be better than what they are doing now which is simply turning a blind eye to the obvious cheating. I doubt that would happen though because based on the last newsletter, Mesanna has made it clear which side of RTM she falls on by saying people who abuse the GM queue will be actioned (aka stop paging on suspected bots).
  • Lord_NythraxLord_Nythrax Posts: 497
    username said:
    Or, and hear me out.... I know this is very complicated and convoluted but how about... ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients?  :)

    They would really need to get at least one of the retail clients into something resembling decent shape first. I have to run in ancient low resolution to be able to see the classic client and even so it looks choppy, and the "enhanced" client is a trainwreck that was never an acceptable commercial product in the first place.
  • sibblesibble Posts: 189
    keven2002 said:
    I'd be against the general idea of doing some sort of drop cap. I'm against any "fix" that is going to hurt the average player in an attempt to stop scripting; which is what that would do.

    On the contrary, I would suggest a cap that is barely achievable by normal players but still there to cap out the botters.  Meaning, a normal casual player would not hit the cap.

    "everything looks stupid" UO feedback 2024
  • usernameusername Posts: 938
    edited May 6
    sibble said:
    username said:
    Or, and hear me out.... I know this is very complicated and convoluted but how about... ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients?  :)

    Unapproved client usage has been around for 10+ years so we can either keep flogging a dead horse or come up with other suggestions.
    Sooooo since they've been around for 10+ years now they're ok? Sounds like even more of a reason my suggestion to ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients should be considered.

    Your method is arbitrary and coming up with a number would be even more arbitrary and surely will punish legitimate players. Why not just 100% punish cheaters without hurting legitimate players? Odd, your suggestion doesn't include this. Perhaps you have some agenda?
    This discussion has been closed.

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  • sibblesibble Posts: 189
    edited May 6
    username said:
    sibble said:
    username said:
    Or, and hear me out.... I know this is very complicated and convoluted but how about... ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients?  :)

    Unapproved client usage has been around for 10+ years so we can either keep flogging a dead horse or come up with other suggestions.
    Sooooo since they've been around for 10+ years now they're ok? Sounds like even more of a reason my suggestion to ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients should be considered.

    Your method is arbitrary and coming up with a number would be even more arbitrary and surely will punish legitimate players. Why not just 100% punish cheaters without hurting legitimate players? Odd, your suggestion doesn't include this. Perhaps you have some agenda?
    I'm not saying unapproved client usage is OK nor do I have an opinion on it at this time.  The only thing I am saying regarding unapproved client usage is that it has already been a topic for 10+ years, and this thread is a suggestion to discourage botting from happening at events.

    The method would only punish legitimate players if the cap number is actually achievable by legitimate players.  If we actually had a discussion about the numbers I believe we could come up with a cap that would be agreeable.  Your immediate reaction is that this would punish legitimate players and I'm trying to say that if there was a cap that a legitimate player couldn't feasibly hit then it would be irrelevant to them - but still relevant to botters that run 24/7/365.

    "everything looks stupid" UO feedback 2024
  • usernameusername Posts: 938
    Occam's razor.
    This discussion has been closed.

    I will be slow to reply because I cannot log in/stay logged in to the forums.
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  • sibblesibble Posts: 189
    edited May 6
    Here's a really simplified way of looking at it, I'm no calculus major but I'm sure it can get more complex.

    What an average # of hats that you make an hour?  We can speculate, let's just set this to a variable for now and call it HatsPerHr

    How many hours a day would you consider a normal player spends?  Surely less than 12?

    HatsPerHr * 12 = daily cap

    Therefore anyone botting over 12hrs a day is not going to benefit over a regular player.

    This is a simplified example of gating drops instead of having a free-for-all floodgate of rewards coming into the economy.

    It adds value to the rewards, thus improving the reward for regular players.
    "everything looks stupid" UO feedback 2024
  • keven2002keven2002 Posts: 2,317
    sibble said:
    keven2002 said:
    I'd be against the general idea of doing some sort of drop cap. I'm against any "fix" that is going to hurt the average player in an attempt to stop scripting; which is what that would do.

    On the contrary, I would suggest a cap that is barely achievable by normal players but still there to cap out the botters.  Meaning, a normal casual player would not hit the cap.


    I get where you are coming from but I don't think that solves the problem. I'm generally not for changes that are aimed at botters but could impact normal players because usually the botters are resilient enough to get around it while the normal players suffer the consequence.

    Generally speaking, if we are talking the typical ToT event where you need to run around then I think I probably get more drops in an hour than the average bot account (ie a single account); especially if I'm using a luck potion. The thing where the bots get the edge is that they have 5-10 accounts all doing the same thing trailing along... so whereas I get maybe 50 drops/hr and they only get 25 drops/hr (per acct), they are still going to end up with 150-250 drops an hour simply bc of all the accounts they are using (but need an illegal 3rd party client to do it).

    In that situation, capping players isn't really going to hurt the bot trains bc they cash in on how many accounts they can use simultaneously. For the typical ToT event, I don't see the same bot trains all day because they are usually controlled by a real person.

    This event is a little different in that people can literally park their accounts at spawn points and just do some unattended macroing 23/7. For this event, sure those single bot accounts will likely outperform a normal player simply by the time spent. Even if I'm getting 50 hats an hour to their 25, I might play a max of 3 maybe 4 hours a day (15-200 hats) before I get burnt out/bored whereas they are running server up to server down (so 500+ hats). It would make sense for this event but I could see a bot account having multiple chars on the account identical so once the cap was reach they would just swap over to a different character on the same account which would defeat the purpose of the change, but could potentially impact normal players.
  • sibblesibble Posts: 189
    edited May 6
    Personally, I can collect 30 hats in 1 void pool.  I asked a botter running around with 7+ accounts how much he pulled in that same void pool and he said 300-400.

    When the event started I came back on like day 2 or 3 of it already being active, seeing a botter in general chat bragging about already having over 3000 hats.

    I think the impact on reward value from rewards flooding in is far greater than the potential impact capping hats would be if that number was high enough to make it difficult for a regular player to achieve.  I do understand your concern, and ultimately someone running multiple accounts and botting them will always get more rewards than a regular player, but at least there would be a limit to what the botter could gather - so that the value of the reward to a regular player is not completely diminished.

    Even if we set the number to a ridiculous amount - no more than 500 hats a day.  Surely a regular player would not be affected by this but it still puts a hard cap on what botters potentially can obtain.

    EDIT: Also it's true that this may not work for every event.  I can only speculate on what's going on right now as I did not attend the last couple events.
    "everything looks stupid" UO feedback 2024
  • SkettSkett Posts: 1,564
    I only went to the void 1 time got like 10 to 15 hats in about the same amount of time I did beacons for 2 days and been doing sos the rest of the time solo and i have gotten over 3500+ hats already ill probably collect about 1500 more and stop doing this event. you don't need to bot is all I'm saying to get a lot of hats, but ya it really sucks seeing how many and how fast the bots are getting and not putting in any effort.
  • TjalleTjalle Posts: 85
    keven2002 said:
    username said:
    Or, and hear me out.... I know this is very complicated and convoluted but how about... ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients?  :)
    Pretty much this. I'm sure there would be push back from the people that make up probably 100's of bot accounts so banning might not be the solution
    Banning is the only solution.
    Bad behavior without consequences will never change. Just look at San Fransisco and the rampant crime that goes on there with retail and car thefts. With the laws they currently have, even if they´re caught they´ll be out the next day and goes right back to stealing.
  • CovenantXCovenantX Posts: 994
    Tjalle said:
    keven2002 said:
    username said:
    Or, and hear me out.... I know this is very complicated and convoluted but how about... ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients?  :)
    Pretty much this. I'm sure there would be push back from the people that make up probably 100's of bot accounts so banning might not be the solution
    Banning is the only solution.
    Bad behavior without consequences will never change.
       I don't want to see people banned, but, if they've been warned & suspended (24, 48 or 72 hrs) for something, and repeatedly break the rules beyond that, then banning is indeed the only solution.      -I know the percentage of players using one or more programs/clients that break the rules is a very large portion of the existing playerbase, and if banning all of them would certainly effect the revenue UO brings in, i don't know if UO could survive that... but arguably, it's worth the risk, cause it sure as hell won't get any better, but it could still get a lot worse, if there continues to be little to no enforcement to curb this and other similar behavior.

     I'd also be curious to see what the average login numbers on each shard are per week/month is, and how drastic the drop would be after, if/when any effective enforcement occurs. 


      It's astounding that "Cheats are Detectable" but any type of 'enforcement' still requires a GM to be paged by a 'witnessing player'  or 'victim' of the offense, in order for anything at all to be done about it, often seems like nothing is done about it...   you can't really do anything in these events without seeing it somewhere.
    Remove or change casting focus & poison immunity it reduces the need for "Player Skill" it's garbage. rant2 Bring timing back and eliminate chance in pvp!
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  • keven2002keven2002 Posts: 2,317
    edited May 6
    CovenantX said:
    Tjalle said:
    keven2002 said:
    username said:
    Or, and hear me out.... I know this is very complicated and convoluted but how about... ban accounts that attempt to connect to the server with unapproved clients?  :)
    Pretty much this. I'm sure there would be push back from the people that make up probably 100's of bot accounts so banning might not be the solution
    Banning is the only solution.
    Bad behavior without consequences will never change.
       I don't want to see people banned, but, if they've been warned & suspended (24, 48 or 72 hrs) for something, and repeatedly break the rules beyond that, then banning is indeed the only solution.      -I know the percentage of players using one or more programs/clients that break the rules is a very large portion of the existing playerbase, and if banning all of them would certainly effect the revenue UO brings in, i don't know if UO could survive that... but arguably, it's worth the risk, cause it sure as hell won't get any better, but it could still get a lot worse, if there continues to be little to no enforcement to curb this and other similar behavior.


    Yea this is kind of what I was saying. I'm fine with banning people who cheat because as someone who doesn't I know I'd be fine. That said, with the amount of people that do use cheats these days I think that by banning them it would crush subscription numbers. Even temporary bans is going to lose some subscriptions for those people who are so used to a 3rd party client they couldn't transition back to CC and play legit.

    I played a few weeks ago and saw someone teleporting in a way I definitely can't do so I asked him how he did it and he straight up said "I'm using Oxxxx" while we were in the game and we don't know each other. People know they aren't going to be actioned.

    CovenantX said:

      It's astounding that "Cheats are Detectable" but any type of 'enforcement' still requires a GM to be paged by a 'witnessing player'  or 'victim' of the offense, in order for anything at all to be done about it, often seems like nothing is done about it...   you can't really do anything in these events without seeing it somewhere.

    Even when a player witnesses obvious cheating and pages the GM and the GM responds, the player cheating isn't actioned. I'm guessing it's like the GM that did the AMA on Reddit said where they were specifically told not to action the accounts by Mesanna;if  they action the wrong person with 25+ accounts subbed and that's a hit to their bottom line.

    That's why I said the GMs should just port them somewhere to mess up their macro. Especially for this event where the scripts are horrible and people just spam casting wildfire/reapers (even when the VP is empty); port them to some random place and they would probably be casting wildfire on themselves until server down. I think this would be like a "Hey... I know what you're doing so stop drawing attention to yourself" that would maybe annoy the botters but wouldn't cause them to stop subscribing.
  • CovenantXCovenantX Posts: 994
    edited May 6
    keven2002 said:

    I played a few weeks ago and saw someone teleporting in a way I definitely can't do so I asked him how he did it and he straight up said "I'm using Oxxxx" while we were in the game and we don't know each other. People know they aren't going to be actioned.

       yea that's because O**** client' can be set to always teleport the max distance, where a legit player would sometimes get 'too far away' and end up having to cast teleport again or get killed.
    it's sad to see.

     garbage like that is the kind of thing that removes the user-error mistakes that used to be what differentiated good players from bad,  lots of things like that and worse, is why some people say there aren't any 'good' players left in UO.     these are the same people that would disappear for weeks everytime there was a mandatory patch back in the day, when the most popular 'cheat' had to be updated in order to work with an updated version of UO.   -but even then, those cheats were so bad people would hesitate to call them cheats lol, they often made people easier to beat cause they'd screwup all the time....  those days a long gone though.  no mistakes now,   and certain imbalances in combat bolster the effectiveness of these cheats, creating an environment where group-pvp is basically the only pvp..  it's not worth the effort to kill other players anymore if you;re not in a group.
    Remove or change casting focus & poison immunity it reduces the need for "Player Skill" it's garbage. rant2 Bring timing back and eliminate chance in pvp!
    ICQ# 478 633 659
  • NightmareNightmare Posts: 3
    They are not only aware of all the cheating they welcome it.  An event that you can sit still and get drops 23/7? You don't think they know how this would play out?  What they wanted is exactly what happened,, I know 3 people that have activated 10-15 accounts just for this event.  Paid a 3 month sub on each account.  They are just looking at the dollars they can bring in and rely on the fact that no matter how upset is makes people we wont quit because we have so much invested in this game and in our homes.  UO isn't bringing in may new players, so they rely on current ones to activate more accounts.  Events are just a money grab. 

  • usernameusername Posts: 938
    edited May 7
    Nightmare said:
    You don't think they know how this would play out?  
    Nope. I'm 100% sure they had no idea how this would play out.

    But username, how are you so sure?
    80 point balron bone armor. Beacons tmaps etc every other activity only giving out only a handful of hats. That's how I know. They absolutely figured it would be hard to get points. 

    And perhaps they were semi right: on dead shards the void pool is *drum roll* dead. The problem is that the majority of players play on Atlantic and, like it or not, the game needs to be balanced based on the biggest majority of players. The test shards are dead so you didn't see it spiral this out of control.... not like they listened to most of the feedback anyways @Kyronix


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  • keven2002keven2002 Posts: 2,317
    Thought this was funny... when not enough bots are there to handle the spawn and they don't ever rez... it's just a bunch of ghost's hanging out for hours. There are 27 ghosts on ATL right now in this spot near the entrance.


  • OreoglOreogl Posts: 501
    Man this a turd of a thread.


  • JackFlashUkJackFlashUk Posts: 1,024
    Close the 2D client

    everyone has to start with the EC

    But

    there is a 2D graphics option 

    that way any modding is done in client

    ALL 3rd party software redundant

    let the cheat piss off to a free shard if they want to cheat 

    and good luck with the RMT $$$$$$$$$

    Get a job you complete losers 
  • JackFlashUkJackFlashUk Posts: 1,024

    keven2002 said:
    Thought this was funny... when not enough bots are there to handle the spawn and they don't ever rez... it's just a bunch of ghost's hanging out for hours. There are 27 ghosts on ATL right now in this spot near the entrance.


    All those accts should get a lifetime ban. No argument 
  • Lord_FrodoLord_Frodo Posts: 2,428
    Close the 2D client

    everyone has to start with the EC

    But

    there is a 2D graphics option 

    that way any modding is done in client

    ALL 3rd party software redundant

    let the cheat piss off to a free shard if they want to cheat 

    and good luck with the RMT $$$$$$$$$

    Get a job you complete losers 
    If there were a EC/CC switch I would totally switch.  EC UI / CC Graphics Zoom disabled for the win.  @Kyronix @Bleak ; Note to the 2 DEVs that still give a crap about this game.  @Community Manager if you have any pull then get on this bandwagon.
  • Lord_FrodoLord_Frodo Posts: 2,428
    username said:
    Close the 2D client

    everyone has to start with the EC

    But

    there is a 2D graphics option 

    that way any modding is done in client

    ALL 3rd party software redundant

    let the cheat piss off to a free shard if they want to cheat 

    and good luck with the RMT $$$$$$$$$

    Get a job you complete losers 
    You must be new. Do you understand what '3rd party client' means?

    How is closing an official going to stop an unofficial one  :D

    Holy hell I've heard stupid ideas but this one takes the cake.
    EC is not a 2D client it is a 2.5 and UO would know the instant you logged a 2D and kick your arse to the curb.  UO knows exactly which client you log with are are you to dense to understand that.
  • Petra_FydePetra_Fyde Posts: 1,465
    I have a theory about the 3rd party clients, and IF it's right, (which it probably isn't) then @JackFlashUk solution could be an answer, IF it's doable.

    I suspect that the devs in the past unwittingly prevented what we want now in the future by allowing uoassist. I think it is not possible to block the unwanted clients without also blocking that.

    Over the past few years much of what is possible in uoassist has been added to CC, but it doesn't have all of it. Yet? 
  • usernameusername Posts: 938
    edited May 9
    Close the 2D client
    No one is going to remove an official client. If anything, IF they were to ever do that, they'd remove the abomination that is the KR client, I mean the EC. Either way, that wouldn't solve anything, as we've already came to the conclusion. These are THIRD-PARTY CLIENTS connecting what's not to understand? And it's the Classic Client. Not the "2D".
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