BOT EPIDEMIC CURE

Its not an argument, i agree with everything you are saying, just making suggestions as to why BigPoint does not take more action, more often, with more severe consequences.

We all know they have the ability to put a stop to it, yet it seems they choose not to take action.

 

I think the reason they don't is because the effects on the game would be so severe now that it is not feasible for them. I don't doubt that BigPoint have every intention of having a bot free game, but as it took so long to come to a solution, the issue grew and grew to a point where it is now a huge business decision that will have huge impacts on BigPoint. They are going to have a lot of difficulties whatever they decide, but I feel it is now too late for action to be realistically taken and recover the game afterwards.

 

Are you out of your mind? You said: 2. The level of gameplay because of bots, has Increased the amount Honest players spend trying to stay competitive against the bots. That is the most insane reasoning I have ever read on here! Edit! (And remember...you have said many times that you don't spend anything on this game. So how would you know)????

 

Just a few comments I would like to address and what the OP and Destruction proposes could help but the increase in players comment is misleading. There is a huge difference in numbers and the type of player who is just starting out in the 1 maps and lower maps. When I played before I walked away from my big boat there were lots of new players eager to learn the game with I remember one guild that was non combat and helped those new players. That was the guild's mission and what those guild members enjoyed. Plenty of activity down there. Now there is hardly any and many of those new accounts are 2nd, 3rd or 4th on up that will end up being additional bots for the original bot owner. Either that or these are new players that intend to bot since this game has a reputation of doing nothing about it online and there is very little respect.

I can see where getting pay to play cannons and options could help the honest players to a degree but those botters can be 24/7 pearl, gold and crystal factories and unless they introduce 23 century Star Trek weaponry and shielding that botter will still have maxed out castles, skills and whatever else vs your Doomhammers or whatever unless money is no object but they will still have the last laugh. Those that bot have the advantage save the money they spend. Just looking at the top players of the league competition watching those numbers turn 24/7 some of them knowing which ones I sank, boarded and reported knowing they would of sank my boat and plundered me in just a few shots.

If they do not take the wipe the maps clean "under New Management" approach or do what we suggested and it happened years ago when I mod went bot hunting for support which would be fairly easy the proposal the OP and Destruction made could hassle the heck out of them. The question is will BP do anything? I have stopped reporting and my long standing no shoot first policy has been revised to I will shoot, board and sink first unless I realize you are not running a bot. lol

Good grief! What a mess!

 

No need to get personal. He is voicing his opinions and I found it interesting. I understand what he means and I agree with it to an extent. Just because you don't agree with what he is saying that is not an excuse. Forums are here for sharing opinions, views, knowledge... Nobody should be targetted for sharing theirs.

 

I agree with the majority of what you are saying, but not where you mentioned my suggested rewards. I thought Doomhammers would be good because they are not obtainable, regardless of how much you bot. To be honest, it is not hard at all through some events for players to get their castles. We have a player in our guild who would play this past event when he was home from work in the evenings and managed to make 8m pearls towards his castles and skills. What reward would be given to those that have not been banned but have full castles and skills and other free to obtain items?

Perhaps my suggestion needs revising but I feel that it is important to reward them significantly, and with something that would compensate for years of botting.

 

Good comments everyone! Bots=Today's Hybrid NPC with BP's longstanding inaction and losing control of the game.

 

The reason: this is what he does to me every time I comment. A personal attack. What goes around comes around. And, by the way, what he says is nuts. Why? Do you really think that a player is going to be encouraged to spend money to try to compete with a 24/7 bot? You can't compete with one. If a player tries, they are indeed truly nutty.

 

Destruction, Sorry I am sleep deprived today and missed it but I do think you have a great idea! Make it so! Engage!

 

here`s a few basic ideas,
alter chests ,scrolls ,possibly shiney`s ,for example :-

scrolls ...
say for example wave one of a scroll has six npc`s ,for now ill call them npc1 npc2 npc3 etc
upon entering wave one you may shoot and sink any npc ,then after it will say on your screen sink npc 3 then sink npc 2 etc in random orders that change every time .
if you shoot the wrong npc then its hp will not go down you will receive no admiral cannon damage and no pve hit points ,just waste your ammo shooting a npc that's hp does not go down ..you must follow the randon sequence as displayed on your screen .

chests ...
what not remove chests from the sea chart ,and instead introduce them to the safe haven in a similar manner to the cauldron of aruba .

shineys ...
only available to ships with a ship level of 4 for a limited time ,any higher level do not need, and introduce scroll pieces into chests instead.

I'm sure there are many idea`s available .maybe even change scrolls for a totally new kind after all weve had solo maps in events before rember the pumpkin festival ,the njord saga phase from the winter event ,the option`s are endless.

I'm sure many of you have a few good idea you may wish to add.

 

Or a random OTP (One Time Password) that banks use appearing at random during a scroll which needs typing into a box within 5 minutes (1 x minute for Virgo) to allow continuance.

If not done, then the system can safely assume it's a bot and scrap the whole scroll, or even serve a time ban.

 

Too Funny!!! I happen to know many players that are still spending $$$ and lot of it to keep their accounts at the top tier of gameplay.

 

I am not the one postin angry responses and insulting players on their opinions of the game, maybe you should seek help with your anger issues?

 

I agree with you 100%

Here's another idea, close the game for a couple weeks, revise and advertise a "NEW" Seafight coming soon, lets players keep what they have on their accounts, maybe update graphics, better thought out events that are unique and different each time(not just same event with different names for NPCs), implement new measures to keep bots and other exploits at bay.
Take out alot of the content that is just not used anymore, IE smaller cannons, ships, etc, Then add a few new tiers of weaponry, skills, ship lvls, making some more items available with gameplay to get the newer players competitive quicker IE voodooo cannons and ammo
This way BigPoint could put out some hype to attract new players to a new game, and the original players could still keep the game they love and play.

Just an idea, im sure some of you, or one of you may disagree, again just my opinion.

 

There is one of the top elite skin bot sailing my map right now and has been for hours still set on harp bot mode looking for ship wrecks bypassing shines and treasure chests. There have not been any shipwrecks for hours and it is funny in a way but sad. All we get are excuses from BP when it is so obvious. Hey developers & management at least do something as posted in this thread. One wonders just how much longer will last realistically.

 

Hi Frank,

A bit of feedback on this.

Scrolls
The NPC order in scrolls is a good idea, but with the bots that are out today it could be easily circumvented.

Packet Bots: Bot creators could take the popup messages from the game code and implement it so that the bot knows which NPC it is saying to shoot.

SCAR Bots: Take action usually by consistently changing targets every few shots, due to many of them not knowing when an NPC has been sunk or not. If the HP just doesn't go down on the NPC you don't need to shoot, it will eventually change target anyway and although it will take a bit longer, it will still get the waves done relatively quickly.

GM's Captcha Code idea is a good thought, but there have been times when I've been in scrolls and then got distracted and start talking on Facebook or go and take a phone call and forget about it and then see I've been sunk because I've not moved in 20 minutes or so. I'm sure there are other players who have done the same, so there would have to be a way for it to actually differentiate between a bot and a player based on more than just reaction time. Having it between waves would work though as most of the time a legitimate player will actually be looking at the screen at the end of the wave, unless they just left themselves afk while shooting the last one. Good concept and could hopefully be implemented if they can figure out a 100% way to differentiate between players and bots. Then how long until bot makers work around it? Who knows...

Chests
Having scroll pieces in chests is a good idea, or what I think would be even better is a Guild Scroll Piece in a chest. Potential idea where they implement a scroll that everybody in a guild can join together, similarly to a group map. Hypothetically we could say it needs 1000 pieces to complete, and every time any player picks up a piece it will be added to their guild's supply. Once they have all 1000 pieces (which to be honest would take too long) then they can all join this scroll, just like joining raid map. It could be scaled with the number of guild members in the guild (as large guilds like 185 and Bam would find it much easier than smaller guilds). Make it 50 or 100 waves and any player can join it at any time. Rewards would be split based on how much damage you did, and everybody in the guild would receive something like 7 days of Queens Legacy. Might be an interesting way to do things.

With regards to putting it into the cauldron, I think this might be counter productive. If you think of Event Chests for example, such as the previous event where they gave out Legba Amulets. With the amount they were giving in chests, if it was in the Safe Haven I could just go and spend 20m pearls and instantly have ~50k Legba Amulets. I think all this would do is just make the botters get even more from scrolls as they wouldn't even need to spend the time chest botting. Not sure, it could go either way really.

Thanks,

~Des

 

I just came off a 30 day ban and another boat of mine just got a 30 day ban today with a false accusation. Game is not worth saving. Will use up my pammo on my boats will walk away again from the game. Not worth making my blood boil! It reeks of complicity!

 

some times i have really bad internet conection and for example if im doing virgo and my internet go down still if it is left only 1 npc shooting me the ship dont go off but will stay until sunked ... since your idea is 5 min than we assume the player is botting .... can you tell me how many min need this npc shooting only 20 damage to sunk me ??? i think way more than 5 min ... and with your thought i would get banned only because i have bad internet conection

and i voted against the temporary stop of the BM for the only reason that this players botting so hard in the past year or years have made the extra HP and % from the BM at least over 3 years ... so even if we stop the BM the only players in disadvantage would be only the honest players that probably will run out of HP and % in 1-2 months at max ... than the game would be worse since they would get sunk easily by the botters who will still keep their HP and % for many years

 

Sorry for the late reply...just saw this. Yeah...one of them you recognize when you look in the mirror!

 

too funny....noone of u is using bot right? frank or des