Forums » Suggestions
Captcha shouldn't appear in the middle of botting
Just got a captcha while I was in the middle of taking down a couple of Arklans. Since I was strafing, I was holding down keys, so the captcha box filled up with letters. By the time I could delete them to enter the actual text, I would have been dead, so I just hit enter to disconnect. Going to log back in now to see whether I got blown up or not.
im not sure why czptcha pops up when your being active in game tbh... i thought it was a way to catch unauthorized bots or somesuch... adding it whaile inflight seems to be a bit counter intuitive +1
Player-bots pretend to fly, too.
Maybe a visual timer that a captcha is coming to warn the player?
Maybe only throw a a captcha after enough time has gone by after a docking/undocking/docking event? I can't imagine that bots can dock very well.
/explode
yes, but /explode is explode. not actual redocking. And could easily be differentiated from docking.
> Player-bots pretend to fly, too.
I find it hard to believe that anyone capable of programming a bot capable of doing the necessary analysis of the "playing field" (either by visual analysis or some sort of hook into the client internals) and then consistently reacting in a realistic (and productive) manner would not also be capable of detecting and defeating the captcha. I know you've said in the past that you haven't detected anyone managing to bypass the captcha, but the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. The only part that the game client even sees is the key presses, and randomising the interval of those isn't rocket science. It's certainly a lot easier than coding a bot capable of realistic flight and combat.
I'd be OK with a "captcha countdown timer", that let me know I had (say) 60 seconds before getting a captcha foisted on me, especially if I could do something to trigger the captcha early, so I could fill it out between kills. But really, I expect it'd be almost as easy to implement something that waited until there were no hostiles within (say) 1,000m before popping up the captcha, and that there's been no control input for (say) three seconds. Anything that is *always* in combat and/or *always* hitting the controls is surely going to be a bot, anyway, because the idea of a human hammering away at bots for hours without *any* break, or constantly wiggling the joystick while they're turboing between jump points is... implausible.
For now, I (usually) take the captchas as a compliment, that my combat style is so perfect and precise that I am indistinguishable from a finely-crafted machine.
I find it hard to believe that anyone capable of programming a bot capable of doing the necessary analysis of the "playing field" (either by visual analysis or some sort of hook into the client internals) and then consistently reacting in a realistic (and productive) manner would not also be capable of detecting and defeating the captcha. I know you've said in the past that you haven't detected anyone managing to bypass the captcha, but the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. The only part that the game client even sees is the key presses, and randomising the interval of those isn't rocket science. It's certainly a lot easier than coding a bot capable of realistic flight and combat.
I'd be OK with a "captcha countdown timer", that let me know I had (say) 60 seconds before getting a captcha foisted on me, especially if I could do something to trigger the captcha early, so I could fill it out between kills. But really, I expect it'd be almost as easy to implement something that waited until there were no hostiles within (say) 1,000m before popping up the captcha, and that there's been no control input for (say) three seconds. Anything that is *always* in combat and/or *always* hitting the controls is surely going to be a bot, anyway, because the idea of a human hammering away at bots for hours without *any* break, or constantly wiggling the joystick while they're turboing between jump points is... implausible.
For now, I (usually) take the captchas as a compliment, that my combat style is so perfect and precise that I am indistinguishable from a finely-crafted machine.
(Facepalm). It is and has been much simpler to construct elaborate bot behaviours around docking, undocking, variable flight and the like, than it has been to defeat OCR. I'm not claiming defeating OCR is rocket science either, I'm just saying no one has to build a bot "capable of realistic flight and combat".
And the absence of detected bots defeating OCR is not the absence of evidence. My statement was about the absence of anyone taking advantage of the inherent advantages of running a bot, while clearly solving captchas. Solving-captchas is not our only methodology of detecting bots.
Anyway, if we focus more on productive ideas, and less on ranting about personal beliefs and misconceptions, that would be helpful. For instance..
The "countdown timer" is an interesting notion, I'm not opposed to something like that.
And the absence of detected bots defeating OCR is not the absence of evidence. My statement was about the absence of anyone taking advantage of the inherent advantages of running a bot, while clearly solving captchas. Solving-captchas is not our only methodology of detecting bots.
Anyway, if we focus more on productive ideas, and less on ranting about personal beliefs and misconceptions, that would be helpful. For instance..
The "countdown timer" is an interesting notion, I'm not opposed to something like that.
womble, you've clearly never tried recovering standing with a major faction through botting. I've spent hours doing just this before.
On the topic of CAPTCHAs during combat, what if the trigger for a CAPTCHA is reset if a PLAYER_GOT_HIT event is triggered with the character indicated as the attacker?
While it may be possible to write a bot that can travel and dock, I find it a little harder to see how they could write a bot that could reasonably move and shoot a bot.
On the topic of CAPTCHAs during combat, what if the trigger for a CAPTCHA is reset if a PLAYER_GOT_HIT event is triggered with the character indicated as the attacker?
While it may be possible to write a bot that can travel and dock, I find it a little harder to see how they could write a bot that could reasonably move and shoot a bot.
> you've clearly never tried recovering standing with a major faction through botting.
Incorrect. Sooner or later I need to repair and/or pee, or at least fly to the other part of the sector where the bots have drifted to -- all times when a captcha would be less inconvenient than when I'm being spit-roasted by Arklans.
As an aside, faction standing recovery is something that ActivateTurrets is *great* for. No doubt turret kills will have their faction standing benefit nerfed at some point, too.
Incorrect. Sooner or later I need to repair and/or pee, or at least fly to the other part of the sector where the bots have drifted to -- all times when a captcha would be less inconvenient than when I'm being spit-roasted by Arklans.
As an aside, faction standing recovery is something that ActivateTurrets is *great* for. No doubt turret kills will have their faction standing benefit nerfed at some point, too.
"The "countdown timer" is an interesting notion, I'm not opposed to something like that."
That would at the very least make it far easier to deal with for those having this issue. I think I asked for such a feature some while back, or maybe it was something similar to it.
Being able to trigger it 'right now' within maybe a couple minute window would also be nice. Maybe a /captcha command to trigger it. This would be mainly useful while heavily engaged, or about to be engaged in combat, you might see a short break of 10 or 20 seconds.
That would at the very least make it far easier to deal with for those having this issue. I think I asked for such a feature some while back, or maybe it was something similar to it.
Being able to trigger it 'right now' within maybe a couple minute window would also be nice. Maybe a /captcha command to trigger it. This would be mainly useful while heavily engaged, or about to be engaged in combat, you might see a short break of 10 or 20 seconds.
a cooldown timer would be nice.. but significantly more than a few minutes. may be 15..
i fail my captchas typically when i step away to smoke or use the bathroom, check on the kids, trying to see why the dog is barking, wondering what that huge crash sound was.. checking motion sensors at my business.. and so forth.. while having foresight of a captcha is likely bad over a long period of time, ten to twenty minutes wouldnt be terrible from my pov. i dont log out every single time i have to stand up.
yea as far as gameplay goes.. it definitely happens at the worst of times.. if im just flying in a straight line at a fixed speed.. standing still.. may be even changing speeds but still traveling in a straight line.. docking/undocking, jumping, but generally not actually doing anything.. great.. i get it.
but mid-roll, guns blazing, bots exploding.. lua isnt doing that. no reason to be filling in a captcha.
i fail my captchas typically when i step away to smoke or use the bathroom, check on the kids, trying to see why the dog is barking, wondering what that huge crash sound was.. checking motion sensors at my business.. and so forth.. while having foresight of a captcha is likely bad over a long period of time, ten to twenty minutes wouldnt be terrible from my pov. i dont log out every single time i have to stand up.
yea as far as gameplay goes.. it definitely happens at the worst of times.. if im just flying in a straight line at a fixed speed.. standing still.. may be even changing speeds but still traveling in a straight line.. docking/undocking, jumping, but generally not actually doing anything.. great.. i get it.
but mid-roll, guns blazing, bots exploding.. lua isnt doing that. no reason to be filling in a captcha.
but mid-roll, guns blazing, bots exploding.. lua isnt doing that. no reason to be filling in a captcha.
This is objectively and factually wrong.
There are quite complex bots that do complex things to avoid being detected as bots.
We didn't randomly add this feature for "no reason". It's not like we were unaware it would interrupt people's gameplay occasionally; but we had a challenging issue to deal with, and limited viable options.
If you want to step away for awhile.. docking is a good idea.
Any amount of warning can also be utilized by bots in various ways. But, I'm not against giving 30 seconds, or some such, under certain conditions.
This is objectively and factually wrong.
There are quite complex bots that do complex things to avoid being detected as bots.
We didn't randomly add this feature for "no reason". It's not like we were unaware it would interrupt people's gameplay occasionally; but we had a challenging issue to deal with, and limited viable options.
If you want to step away for awhile.. docking is a good idea.
Any amount of warning can also be utilized by bots in various ways. But, I'm not against giving 30 seconds, or some such, under certain conditions.
isn't there or wasn't there a procedure at one time that would allow a person to "register" a bot.. and then it has limited in game fuctionality? Seems like there was something about this long ago...
I never get one of these captchas. What are you all doing to trigger them?