Bag Macroing provention.

[sam3773]

Simple, lower the max. number of things that a bag can hold to 2000, no one puts more than thatin a bag at once anyway and it would prevent bag macroers going over that, also after 2000 if they try and put another thing in Mods are alerted like:

 

BMer's macro puts 2000 ore in a bag

BMer's macro puts 158 ore in a bag

Your bag is over the limit, alert sent

 

====Meenwhile on mods screen====

BMer's bag limit has been exeded, his co-ordinates are....

[misiu]

no one puts more than thatin a bag

 

I can't agree on this point.

lot of people training manufacture with pants making or potioning buy & drop a lot more then only 2k items at once because buying every minutes is really painful, a waste of time, and quiet unlogical.

And what would happend if for any reason someone drop 2500gp or something else, from what i understand an alert would be sent too.

 

But on the other hand if only a message is sent to mods then it's ok, as when they'll be near the so called BM, legits player can always talk & explain what they are doing.

Main problem i see so far is that as currently suggsted most alerts might be false.

[teranoz]

Only alert when the items in the bag are the same as the products being harvested.

Also a clicktime measurement could prevent macroing.

Macros would have the same time between 2 clicks.

If there is being harvested the avarage clicktime should be calculated, and if it stays constant an alert should be sent.

 

Maybe some anti-macro monster spawns could be nice.

Walking very slowely between harvester and product.

A macro will click the monster and attack it.

[Jimbob]

I mine around 2000 ore at tit mines and thats not including the coal that i have brought to me. granted i usually make it into bars before it gets to that stage, but still...

 

what was my point? oh yeah. macroers could just make it wait 5 mins before it drops the next bag so the bag disappears.

[harrybacklarry]

umm no click time wont work becus autoclik is a constant speed as well but its not illegal or doing nething wrong

[Atreides*]

When I am barring Steel I have A LOT in the bag. I usually get all the stuff before I make and chat whilst harvesting

 

I can't chat whilst barring because I can't use the Clicker to bar. 280 steel bars (140 for me and 140 for the coal runner) is 2640 coal and ore.

[duran]

i belive i typed up my solution to this some time ago. basicly we have to monitor a bag for how long it have stayed in game. if it goes beyond 5 min (the max time a bag is suppose to live if left alone) then it starts to get interesting. if the content keeps increasing and its a material that can be harvested very close to where the bag is even more so. basicly we are looking for factors that not usualy show up in other areas then in macroed harvesting...

 

so basicly if you want to beat the detector you will have to drop your stuff some distance from the stuff your harvesting. and walking back and forth will take time.

[Jimbob]

Did you read our posts at all? in the tit mine, ive been known to keep a bag there for an hour... you can make up to 290 titanium bars there. that means having coal on the ground the entire time of having to harvest over 2000 ore. and since you fail approx 1/2 the time (more at 1st few levels) - this is well over 4000 seconds. This is over an hour

[GateKeepeR]

I dont agree, to manufacture stuff I put in 10,000 leather and 7000~ thread in the bag and make tons of leather pants =/ This would ruin my way of powergaming ;D

[Cicero]

Could someone give us an idea of something testable that a macro does that would be different than an actual player does? Ent, Learner, and I have discussed ways of preventing macroing on several occasions, but have yet to come up with something foolproof. We don't have much experience macroing, so . . . :roll:

[sam3773]

maybe something to do with the clicking pattern, like a player clicks in random times from his last click and follows no pattern but a maco or auto clicker follows a pattern and repeats over and over again so maybe you could do something with that?

[duran]

Did you read our posts at all? in the tit mine, ive been known to keep a bag there for an hour... you can make up to 290 titanium bars there. that means having coal on the ground the entire time of having to harvest over 2000 ore. and since you fail approx 1/2 the time (more at 1st few levels) - this is well over 4000 seconds. This is over an hour

 

no you didnt read mine, coal on the ground close to titanium would not trigger it but titanium on the ground close to titanitum mineing, where the bag have been continualyadded to and that have stayed around for longer then the max time a bag is suppose to be around will trigger it. basicly its a matter of conditions triggering, the more you add the more likely you are to not hit people that are doing something else.

[Alastria]

maybe something to do with the clicking pattern, like a player clicks in random times from his last click and follows no pattern but a maco or auto clicker follows a pattern and repeats over and over again so maybe you could do something with that?

 

Only problem with this, people have gotten so use to clicking in EL, they have the tendency to keep up a steady macro-like/auto-clicker-like rhythm...hehe...

 

I know I have that tendency anymore

[Wytter]

Besides, macroes can click a random place within the square (x1,y1) (x2,y2) as well - thus you cannot detect these macroes. They can also click within an interval of 1+rand()/RAND_MAX seconds for instance, so theres really no way that you can use timings or coordinates to detect macroes...

 

Instead it might be an idea to prevent macroes by creating random events from the server. (Enemies coming out of the walls in the mines etc., where the player would die unless he was in front of the keyboard - perhaps questions should be asked, or the player should initiate in a direct fight). Of course, players would whine about this as well, but really I do think that this is the best way to prevent macroers.

[Alastria]

Yeah, the monsters coming out of the walls might be an idea...though, I thought that was one of the reasons for putting rats in CC, so they'd attack people and keep them for macroing...'course, if you're high enough, they won't bug you or even damage you unless you just sit there...but when something attacks, you automatically start killing anyways...

 

Problem with creatures coming out of the walls to fight you, if you're making bars right where you are and you have a bag on the ground, someone can steal what you have/had in the bag while you're busy fighting something...

[Wytter]

Problem with creatures coming out of the walls to fight you, if you're making bars right where you are and you have a bag on the ground, someone can steal what you have/had in the bag while you're busy fighting something...

If that is the case this should be fixed.. You should not be forced to move while being attacked by the anti-macro npc's

[Alastria]

I dont' like the idea of people being able to sit and fight at the same time, though...that's just kinda...stupid...(providing you're one of those people that sits and mines)...and a lot of people do accidently click elsewhere if they're doing something and move off of where they're mining/sitting....

[Wytter]

Hehe, you should not sit down and fight... But it should make your character stand up face to face with the aggressor. I just don't find it very realistic if you're able to grab the contents of a bag when 2 characters are fighting in the nearest area of the bag.

Abstract: it should not be possible to grab the contents of the bag when Player A and NPC B are fighting on top of it. When B attacks A will stand up and start fighting the NPC - unless the player is killed the player should be in the same place as before the fight.

[Alastria]

True, but like I said, sometimes you can accidentally click off of it...I've done it a number of times...

 

'Course, I've never been known to be graceful, either, IRL or online...hehe

[Wytter]

That's an entirely different issue, but yes - it can be annoying Could be fixed quite easily though - if the person is sitting down any click should just make the person stand up - once the person stands up a click would tell the character to move to x,y.

[Learner]

From another bag thread, the next client will have an optional feature called sit_lock that can be enabled to prevent walking by missclicking if your are sitting.

 

But, this feature doesn't help catch macroers just reduces problems if you missclick. A missclick could still make you fight something for instance.

[Wytter]

So, how about an update on the thoughts the devs have been doing regarding macroing prevention?

 

Learner - the whole bag thing was a whole different subject, and it wasnt really what we were mainly discussing, good thing that it's done now though

[sam3773]

Ok been thinking and i got it! At the mines you have ore on the floor on the walls that are constantly there ok, now is there a way to split that ore up into 2 groups, say group A and group B and then say for 10 miniutes only group A was there and group B was hidden, then the bagger would set his "Bagging" device to that ore, then after that 10 miniutes were up, group A would dissapear and group B would appear, and every peice of ore in group B would be in a different place to the peices in group A so the ore the bagger has set his device on wouldnt be there and the player wouldn't be clicking and the bag would dissapear, but because the ore aint there and the player could walt there, when the change back happens, the player would automaticly beam to an empty spot around the ore.

[Wytter]

Hmm, It's probably just me, but I don't see how that would prevent autoers from getting experience?

 

Been thinking a bit about the solution with having npcs coming out from i.e. the rocks asking questions - You will need a long variety of questions from

 

2+6 = ?

(8 is the correct answer)

 

What's the last word in

"He went for a walk"

(Walk is the correct answer)

 

What are the 3 middle characters in:

Countdown

(Correct answer would be ntd)

[Wytter]

But then again... You can easily make a system that'll send the questions to i.e. an IRC-server where the answers could be send back to the client, so this is probably not the best solution.

If they were to attack the player macroers would make programs that could check for the current health status and drink a health pot if it's low enough. And if the npc's were to steal i.e. the pickaxe the macro could just wear another one.

Overall it's very hard to make a fool-proof macro detection/prevention system - random events is the way to go, but I'm not sure on how to implement these in order to make it impossible for macroers to go around these - I'll spend some more time thinking about this subject