The Mana World Forums

I've suggested something of the sort before... but a special "monster" of some kind that would appear overhead of a player who's been on a particular map following the most common botting techniques (staying in one spot and parking on the attack button). Once the prerequisite time or condition is met and the Poltergeist appears above the player, it'll start dishing out 2HP a second damage, until the player types out the word "begone" or leaves the map.I know this all easier said than done, and doesn't address the more advanced forms of botting and modded client botting, but still a deterrent. I'm sure there's a better way that it could be done to prevent a botter from simply typing out begone every so often... but still.

Any thoughts?

I personally like the idea

I think this is a very good idea!

I like the idea as well, Looks good

seems this would be a treat for campers too then. and do you think 2 hp will be enough in every case?

anyways, for whatever purpose: its a lovely pet. guess i would be "botting" on purpose to let it appear

well most of the time the only way to see the difference between bot and camp is that campers get some item from where they are

Regards

it should do 2 damage then 4 then 8 soon

would the condition to trigger this "Monster" be

attacking without any other key press for a period of time say how long it take to kill a jack-o by your self and if you don't move it starts attacking you

kinwa wrote:seems this would be a treat for campers too then.

I think this would need to be per map so as not to be a burden for campers in town.

kinwa wrote:and do you think 2 hp will be enough in every case?

I like Werezwolf's suggestion:

Werezwolf wrote:it should do 2 damage then 4 then 8 soon

In fairness to a noob that's not botting, and may not know to say "begone" (or whatever the cleansing word would be), the increasing damage might be fair enough to give them time to exit a map. I know that'd at 2hp/sec, that'd only work out to 120hp damage a minute, so we'd be looking at 5 minutes to send higher leveled botters back to town.

kinwa wrote:anyways, for whatever purpose: its a lovely pet. guess i would be "botting" on purpose to let it appear

Maybe a trigger word could be used to get it to appear at command? Like "haunt me" or something? My thought about a poltergeist anti-botting system is that it doesn't have to necessarily be a spirit icon that appears overhead, but perhaps the system should have the ability to have a different geist appear depending on the map, such as a little angry bird pecking at your head if you're on a jungle map, or a black vampire bat in caves. Not to encourage botting of course, but something to complement the map And who knows, maybe some maps would warrant deadlier geists?

This would probably need a client change, but if the player dies, the geist should hover over the body as long as the target and attack keys are held.

first off u can change your cliant keys this makes writing more difficult..

but my idea is that each player should get a monster count. lets say 100. if they kill 100 monsters without leaving the map, there experience they get would be 0 per monster and to have this guist appear as well maybe as a warning to tell you your getting no xp. and leaving the map should restore your monster count.

in all if this was applied i would like this idea and am totally for it also gets rid of the gms job for looking for botters at all cause u cant bot like this.

and also if possible make the server refuse to drop items and refuse to give xp both not being able to pick up a botters items are very annoying..

There is no automatic bot check method which is nearly as good as a manual turing test by a game master.

Regarding all other ideas posted here: First think about how they will impact the gameplay of a non-botting player. Will it make the game more interesting or is it an annoyance? When the answer is the latter you should think about something else.

ok i can understand having to change the map would be annoying to someone who is there just in a standing position. So what about instead of changing map they change there tile location as in like taking a step than the counter resets. already looked at the time of the health being decreased but its not that dramatic. plus 100 monsters was only an example it could be 1000 monsters . lets say you kill 1000 monsters than you cant gain from the monsters anymore. Than how hard would it be to hit the arrow button once to move and let the game know hay im still here.. and also note: u would know when to do this cause we cant forget the topic it would be like a big sign bann me for botting smiley above your head and maybe have a timed counter on that sign if its up for 5 min strait it auto bans the person.

The point of this is because gms are not on 24/7 (and i understand they have lives so im trying to help that note)

please comment a better idea instead of turning down this one ...meway

ok a anonymous player suggested taking out the autobann part adding a feature that notifies the gms that this person is a possible botter which is much better a pm/ i was thinking more across the line as soon as a gm gets online it would send this message. ""an auto bann as such could go terribly wrong"" as was said by him/her. any more suggestions appreciated.

depending on how big this needs to be i will personally make a new topic about the issue but with votes.......meway

Crush wrote:First think about how they will impact the gameplay of a non-botting player. Will it make the game more interesting or is it an annoyance? When the answer is the latter you should think about something else.

Perhaps the test server would be an excellent place to give this invention a whirl. We know what effect it will have on botters. However, those who camp in the test server can share their experiences.

I'm sure it wouldn't be a huge workload to add an extra line in the global announcements that such a beast has been added and that feedback (positive/negative) would be appreciated. This may help considerably for fine-tuning purposes.

Any thoughts?

Automatic detection of : no move + xp production during a certain time = message send as the global announcement but in another color and in bold

if no move again and xp production : counters for xp blocked with a message in chat windows or popups i think popup is better as it goes straight in front of the char so it is impossible not to see it

if going on a serv kick with a pop up explaining why

i am sure you can count the times a serv kick is done and then talk to the player to know where that problem comes from

just an idea

Regards