A couple suggestions/requests to make HB a little more "human"

[Phyzoon]

Well, basically, from what I could gather from a lot of the posts in the Ban section here in the forums, even tho HB isn't detected by Warden, GMs can still identify HB by the way it behaves. Having that in mind, I myself could identify a couple of things that could be changed/tweaked a bit so the bot can look a little bit more human, helping to avoind it being detected:

1- HB releases too fast after dying, it "clicks" in that release button almost instantly, no human would do it that fast.

2- Picks up loot faster than "autoloot". Even when I'm with autoloot ON, I can see that little window that pops up with the items, but if I'm botting that window just blinks too fast. I know this one isn't this big of a deal but still it would be nice a little "delay" between opening the corpse/gather and the actual "item looting"

3- Most of the time it gather ores and plants looking away from the node, you rarely see a human player doing that.

Now for the actual suggestions on how to fix it:

1- Add the option for us to specify how much time HB should wait before releasing. I think this could even be done with a plugin, afaik there's even this plugin that kinda already do this, but only when you are killed by a player.

2- Same as above, timer after opening loot window and before looting, think this could also be implemented with a plugin, in case devs don't wanna do it.

3- Now this one idk if it's possible to fix it, but it would be nice if HB could face the gathering resource before actually gather it. But Idk if it's possible for HB to identify wich direction it is looking.


Well, if I come across something else I'll be sure to post it. I'd also like to know what you guys think. I'm guessing that this would rather need a new release of HB or a new plugin.

 

[Schizoid]

I also have some suggestions:
PvP
- Avoid going through the middle ground of AV, once bot dies, it will never get to the other side again getting smth like 2:16 ratio total or worse. It usually dies right in the start, running into 40 hostile players.
- I keep deleting towers and gy's from av profile but they keep comming back with HB upgrade, it just looks bad when bot is guarding gy/tower (even after its destroyed) instead of staying with everybody farming hks/waiting for towers to burn.
- in AB I found bot often trying to capture stables/farm ("the home" base of my faction) even though there were 5 hostiles and it just kept getting farmed, after dying 2times in 1base, bot should go around and not try again for at least few mins.
- I don't know if it is CC or bot base but dismounting 20y from target is bad, should run to target on the mount unless ranged/dk/warr.

Moving between hotspots
Bot is always choosing shortest distance, should be some randomized factor there, sometimes go a little to left of that "perfect line", sometimes right. It will slow gathering a tiny bit sure, but will make you move different path each time, even using the same profile for hours.

 

[Phyzoon]

I don't use HB on PvP but that last thing you suggested is made of win. This could all be implemented as settings/plugins, so HB wouldn't force anything upon the users.

 

[Schizoid]

Removed

 

[Phyzoon]

I see. Adding something else to the list:

- When the bot get's stuck on a edge or something, it starts to flicker (using jump) viciously, trying to get unstuck, a more smooth "jumping" would be better.

PS: I'd really like to know the devs opinion on all this.

 

[Lady Rainicorn]

I see. Adding something else to the list:

- When the bot get's stuck on a edge or something, it starts to flicker (using jump) viciously, trying to get unstuck, a more smooth "jumping" would be better.

PS: I'd really like to know the devs opinion on all this.

As a new user there are inevitably a few things to learn about development of a bot like honorbuddy, and I have no expectation that you know the history of the issues the bot's had.
That said, there are a few things that I think a little bit... silly.. about some of these suggestions.

1) Nobody is watching how fast you release closely enough to go 'That guy released way too fast!!!!!', especially in a PvE environment. From the average user's perspective, you could even be using an addon that auto-releases when you die.

2) Looting should be fast. Autolooting should be fast. I haven't personally noticed the bot autolooting anything faster than I normally do myself (you can do a loot cancel of sorts, running away from the mob before the items are added to your inventory). That said, I don't really see this as a top priority issue, I've yet to see anyone ever banned for 'looting too fast'.

3) The current system is -much- better than what was previously in use. Prior to the newest versions of GB2, your character would land pinpoint directly on top of any node it was gathering, even if it was a straight 180 degree flight straight down into the node. This looked way suspicious. As it is now, I highly prefer the bot dismounting next to the node, and have not noticed any significant problem with the bot facing away from a node.

If I had to be honest with you, I don't think that changing any of these features would increase the security or bring useful customization to the bot. I can't see any benefit to releasing slowly, looting slowly, and the benefit of always facing the node is far outweighed by the current benefit of gathering quickly and avoiding ninjas.

To Aldon:

Make sure you're using a pack-following plugin such as Squire. Squire is for healers, but I am pretty certain there's also a similar plugin for DPSers. It overrides the default inane running path, analyzes which player has the most players around them, and sets itself to follow the pack. In AV this is especially useful, as it mean you're pretty much always following the offensive mob.

I don't recommend PvP botting if you like your account though. It's just about the riskiest way to run HB.


I don't want to beat you guys down, as it's always great to see new users get involved, but the development team is constantly busy working on new and high-priority features. Personally, I'm happy to leave these behaviors as they are if it means we get projects we desperately need (Like DungeonBuddy) released on a faster schedule.

If you're serious about fixing these issues, you should take the time to drop by the developer forum!
A little bit of coding will open up a lot of doors in terms of customizing your copy of HonorBuddy, and it's tons of fun to see your code alterations immediately affect behavior of your character in game!

Here's a good guide to get you going if you're interested:
Custom Class and Plugin Development for Newbies! l

 

[Phyzoon]

Well, thank you for your answer, however, I made this post with GMs in mind, not the regular player. The regular player won't really notice how fast you release or loot, nor it'll take note you are going around on the exact same route over and over again, but the GMs will, since they won't whisper you to check if you are indeed a bot, they'll look for behaviors that are "bot-like" to check if you are indeed botting, even if you are babysitting your HB. In that case, the examples we showed in our previous posts apply. Let me put it this way, a botter can easily identify another bot in-game, right? We shouldn't be able to, at least not that easily, because if WE can, so can the game masters.

 

[Lady Rainicorn]

The things that give a bot away are faulty combat and movement behaviors, most especially if the bot is forced to combat a hostile player with a subpar, or PvE only CC.

GMs will not look at how quickly you're looting. They will not look at how quickly you're releasing spirit. They won't look at if you're facing a node at an angle. They'll look at how long you've been online, how many whispers you've failed to respond to, whether or not you're using a foreign IP, etc.

GMs are very, very busy, especially following a 33% layoff in Customer Service staff last week. That's why I said that these changes would do very little to affect the security of the bot. The things that get you caught aren't looting or releasing quickly, those issues are very minor.

Bots are most often identified when gathering because they follow a single, static path for hours. If it's a public path, they all follow each other around for hours attempting to ninja each other. Similarly, if I'm gathering by hand and I watch another player repeatedly touch down after me at each node even after it's clearly too late for a ninja, I know he's a bot.

When you're doing a grinding or questing activity, you're most likely to get spotted as a bot because of a navigation issue, or because you've been in the same location grinding for hours upon hours. If I hop on at 7 am and see you silently grinding out mobs I need for a quest, I'm going to be a little frustrated. If I hop on again at 10pm and you're still there doing the exact same thing, I know you're a bot. Especially if you aren't responding to whispers.

Nowhere in a regular user or GM's detection of bots are 'time spent looting per mob' or 'time until spirit release per death' factors that will be considered. You also should take into account that you will not randomly be checked on by a GM. They're too busy answering support tickets.

There is nothing watching how long you've been online, no flag that gets set if you're in a zone for too long, level too quickly, etc. That's paranoia that runs pretty rampant among newer users afraid of losing their (typically only) account. The only time a GM will investigate is if a player has reported you.

What this means for botters is that your first and most important line of defense lies in appearing 'human enough' that a legitimate player is not suspicious or bothered enough to take the time to report you.

If you have been reported, longer loot and spirit release times aren't going to do anything to save you!

 

[Non Quixote]

There isn't anything in Rainicorn's post that I particularly disagree with. Having said that we are all guessing as to what triggers an investigation and subsequent suspension/ban. It has been generally agreed on all bot forums that player reports are one of the primary triggers for an investigation. There has also been agreement that there are automatic triggers as well that can invite a suspension/ban. Trading large amounts of gold seems to be a trigger. Grinding the same mob for hours or days seems to be a trigger. Using VPNs or free proxies seems to have gotten a few in trouble lately, this view bolstered by emails from Blizz stating that proxies are the realm of gold sellers and can negatively affect your account even when there is no botting/gold selling. The list of commonalities that you can find in suspended/banned accounts includes other factors as well.

It is a safe bet (although still conjecture) that Blizzard owns at least one copy of each and every bot currently out there, and has at least one person who works to find the common faults. There is little doubt that the resulting ban wave from PB's arch bot was the result of Blizzard spotting the weakness of the bot (creating a random channel and sending coordinates to that channel) and creating a solution to exploit that weakness.

Until we infiltrate the Blizzard Bot-Killer community (a possibility that I'd put at around nil) we are all just making guesses about what gets us nailed, although some guesses are much more likely than others.

Having said all that, I absolutely agree with Rainicorn that the best defense is to make your bot look as human as possible in every way possible. And to that end, like you, I would like to see some randomness incorporated into the bot. Not having the bot land directly on the node every time (dead giveaway) is a very good start, and well done. Not having the bot mount at exactly the same time (similar to what was said earlier) may make you wonder why, until you watch your toon and three others in AV all mount up and ride exactly the same path, at the same time, so much so that they overlap each other (dead giveaway). The list goes on, but you get the point.

I'm a botter, have been for years (though a relative newcomer to HB) lost a few accounts, got a few back and will say that HB is in many ways the best bot that I've ever used. As a botter I can spot a bot almost immediately so I think it's safe to say that if a GM watches your toon botting for a little bit, you're screwed. The trick is not getting reported in the first place, as Rainicorn astutely pointed out.

Not getting reported means making the bot appear more human. Pretty hard to do without the ability to make some things appear random and less precise. Good thought, but probably a lot of work on the part of the devs to implement.