Every single way GGG can detect the bot, and how to combat that.

[powerpc]

1. Nonstop playing. Really now, nobody can play for hours without stopping. Literally the bot is always moving all the time, not even a second 'afk' that a real person would do. The bot needs an option to "afk" after every x to x runs (random) for x to x (random) minutes. Even afking when clearing a part of the farming area could be good.

2. The bot does the same cycle in town. Change this cycle. Select a random NPC to shop at instead of the same one. Do the random "AFK" moments sometimes before shopping, sometimes after shopping, as if the afk moments were always during the same routine, that is a catch too.

3. Don't clear entire inventory of items. Real players wont clear the entire inventory. When going to town, clear a percentage of the inventory. x% - x%, random. Notice that the bot stashes everything then pulls out the scrolls its going to use? NOBODY does that! As a real player i have a stack of TP stack of wisdoms and some random currency that i dont really stash all the time.

4. Fighting. Nobody facetanks. Lets add an option to kite a little. Maybe something like if X-X amount of mobs in X-X distance from player (randomly chosen), then kite back x-x feet, for x-x seconds. Notice with our randomization, we do not simply say ok, lets kite back for 1 second, we actually randomize that value. This is true randomness, as even each botter will use different values. Maybe i will kite back for between 1-2 seconds, some other botter might select 2-3 seconds.

5. Adding boss run capability. For example right now i can select the area right before merviel to farm, even though theres no WP there. It will take the closest WP and farm its way to that next area. Take it one step further and add the boss too. Lots of people are farming bosses right now as they have the best drops, so this should be a capability.

 

[Mordred_Lancaster]

Arent you assuming that GGG's detection methods are entirely dependent on observing player behavior? IDK much, but surely there are ways to detect botting that are apparent within the code or packets or some other aspect of the program that doesn't deal with the actions a player is taking.

 

[Epics]

 

[Apoc]

1. Nonstop playing. Really now, nobody can play for hours without stopping. Literally the bot is always moving all the time, not even a second 'afk' that a real person would do. The bot needs an option to "afk" after every x to x runs (random) for x to x (random) minutes. Even afking when clearing a part of the farming area could be good.

2. The bot does the same cycle in town. Change this cycle. Select a random NPC to shop at instead of the same one. Do the random "AFK" moments sometimes before shopping, sometimes after shopping, as if the afk moments were always during the same routine, that is a catch too.

3. Don't clear entire inventory of items. Real players wont clear the entire inventory. When going to town, clear a percentage of the inventory. x% - x%, random. Notice that the bot stashes everything then pulls out the scrolls its going to use? NOBODY does that! As a real player i have a stack of TP stack of wisdoms and some random currency that i dont really stash all the time.

4. Fighting. Nobody facetanks. Lets add an option to kite a little. Maybe something like if X-X amount of mobs in X-X distance from player (randomly chosen), then kite back x-x feet, for x-x seconds. Notice with our randomization, we do not simply say ok, lets kite back for 1 second, we actually randomize that value. This is true randomness, as even each botter will use different values. Maybe i will kite back for between 1-2 seconds, some other botter might select 2-3 seconds.

5. Adding boss run capability. For example right now i can select the area right before merviel to farm, even though theres no WP there. It will take the closest WP and farm its way to that next area. Take it one step further and add the boss too. Lots of people are farming bosses right now as they have the best drops, so this should be a capability.

1) Newest builds have an auto-logout mechanism. I'm debating about enforcing a required logout after a certain amount of hours. (Simply to protect the lazy botters who don't bot smart) We're also adding random extended waits during the town run stuff. However, I haven't been able to figure out a good compromise on how to do it, so it's not implemented yet.

2) This is changing. We've had quite a few talks about the town run behaviors. However, we wanted to ensure everything worked correctly, before we went and added randomization to it all.

3) Honestly, I see this as a personal preference. I have OCD about my inventory. I toss it all in my stash, and keep a stack of TP scrolls handy. Nothing else. I'll see what we can do about it, but I doubt we'll actually change anything.

4) This is up to the CR's to handle. Currently, the logic just isn't implemented at all. It's something I want to do eventually, but for now, it's fine as-is. It's a quality of life thing, not a required thing. (This isn't detectable by GGG, considering a lot of players just rush in and mow everything down)

5) Again, it's on our to-do list. This comes down to the area transition logic. We're working on it, but it's not as simple as everyone thinks.

 

[jeracoo]

Another way which they're doing it is banning by usernames displayed on forums such as this, my brother just got banned, he uses the same username as me, lol dumb bastard.

 

[pushedx]

Thanks for your suggestions, but there's a lot more going on when it comes to bot detection and botting than you might think. It's easy to say, "oh well they can just do this, that, and that", but in reality, some things are not so trivial. Most of what you are talking about stands out to you because you know you are botting. To software that is trying to detect bots, it doesn't work remotely the same, otherwise, we'd all be banned wihtin a day.

1. Nonstop playing. Really now, nobody can play for hours without stopping. Literally the bot is always moving all the time, not even a second 'afk' that a real person would do. The bot needs an option to "afk" after every x to x runs (random) for x to x (random) minutes. Even afking when clearing a part of the farming area could be good.

Non-stop playing under 8 hours is normal for hardcore gamers in this genre. This game caters specifically to that crowd. Having been around this game since 2011, I can assure you I've played much longer than that non-stop. Anything more than 12-hours can get suspicious, but not a huge deal if it's consistent, unless the account is new. The bot actually has random town waits and afk'ing, but it was not enabled for release. We'll be re-adding it after doing some more testing with other things first.

2. The bot does the same cycle in town. Change this cycle. Select a random NPC to shop at instead of the same one. Do the random "AFK" moments sometimes before shopping, sometimes after shopping, as if the afk moments were always during the same routine, that is a catch too.

No, it doesn't. It already uses random NPCs. There's only two, so not much randomness there to be had. Simply alternating to each one shows more of a pattern than what is used now, although it doesn't really matter. There's no rule that says you can't vendor to the same npc each time you go to town.

The bot only does what it has to in town. You should play with it some more. If you have an id filter, and scrolls in your inventory, it will id in place. If you don't it goes to stash to get some. If you have nothing to sell, then it doesn't go to vendor. If you start the bot with items to stash, then it'll stash them, and so on.

If you always have the same thing to do in town, then the bot will do the same thing as it does, just like a normal person would. The only thing we don't have, that is on the todo list, is vendor checking after a level up. We have been thinking about changing some town stuff some more, but the problem is randomness works both ways. A normal player is not random, so if the bot is random, that can work against it more than you'd guess.

3. Don't clear entire inventory of items. Real players wont clear the entire inventory. When going to town, clear a percentage of the inventory. x% - x%, random. Notice that the bot stashes everything then pulls out the scrolls its going to use? NOBODY does that! As a real player i have a stack of TP stack of wisdoms and some random currency that i dont really stash all the time.

That's your playstyle. When I play, I keep a clean inventory except for what I need in the first few slots. Depositing everything then taking out a random stack will probably be changed to be better, but it only actually happens when there's stuff to stash, and the logic randomly chooses the id/tps to deposit. However, it's not something that is enough grounds to be realistically detected as a bot. If you never withdraw scrolls, since you don't id or have a portal gem, then that's not even an issue.

I can't see any reason why you'd leave town with a non-empty inventory, especially in hardcore, but to each their own.

4. Fighting. Nobody facetanks. Lets add an option to kite a little. Maybe something like if X-X amount of mobs in X-X distance from player (randomly chosen), then kite back x-x feet, for x-x seconds. Notice with our randomization, we do not simply say ok, lets kite back for 1 second, we actually randomize that value. This is true randomness, as even each botter will use different values. Maybe i will kite back for between 1-2 seconds, some other botter might select 2-3 seconds.

That's CR logic, not bot logic. For more advanced stuff like that, you need a custom CR to handle it.

Also, you can facetank your way to mid-cruel with mediocre gear and a good weapon if you know how to play the game. Some of the new content adds some exceptions, but in general, it's no big deal, nor is it something you can make any assumptions about. I face tank through a lot of things when I play as a witch, but that's just my play style. If you actually saw some people play the game who aren't really that good at it, you'd understand.

5. Adding boss run capability. For example right now i can select the area right before merviel to farm, even though theres no WP there. It will take the closest WP and farm its way to that next area. Take it one step further and add the boss too. Lots of people are farming bosses right now as they have the best drops, so this should be a capability.

Act boss farming will be added, but you can't say it makes the bot less detectable Area transition support is not official yet, but we decided not to prevent people from being able to use it via the gui.

So, we know there's some more stuff we can do to help randomize the bot, but that doesn't mean it'll be less detectable. We have not seen anything town related that has triggered server sided bot detection, but that doesn't mean we aren't going to do some preemptive things to help prevent it from happening. A lot of people don't realize randomness is also a good bot detection metric, as a normal user wouldn't do certain things differently each time. Consistency is the best, and for the most part, the bot is consistent in what it does, but not blatantly repetitive unless you leave it unattended, over-leveled in a zone, botting all day (which we'll add some stuff to prevent).

 

[doomnezau]

if you guys want to add an re-log you can add an option to re-type your password or get error and get stuck in a cycle of re-attempts. simple. do that first, anyway the bot is not stable. no bots were able to run more than 1 hours without dc.

 

[pushedx]

anyway the bot is not stable. no bots were able to run more than 1 hours without dc.

When you have DC issues, it's the game servers or your network connection.

GGG just performed a server sided patch to address server stability, as there have been a lot of DCs and crashes lately from how many players are now playing the game.

If you're still having problems, please use support.

 

[powerpc]

Wow! Didnt expect such a big response. I've actually been playng PoE since closed beta (when you had to buy a closed beta key), and I do realize how much work this is and its not just so easy to snap your fingers and have all of these features

About constant play - yeah you are right, the hardcore players do play more than 8h a day, as I did for the start of onslaught , but even playing 12+ hours a day I took 5 minute breaks, even 15 minute ones. I would say definitely I would be at least pausing for a second here and there constantly to check my inventory, which is like a 5 second "break" if you would even call it that. Hell they could be flagging accounts that never once checked their inventory while in a combat zone.

Just saying the bot probably has a lot more actions per second than any normal player. Thats great that you are adding a break option. I was going to start setting up some simple AHK scripts to add breaks but I guess I wont need to do that!

About town runs, I see your point about it doing different things while in town. However, thats based on how you have your bot set, it will be repetitive for your account still, but not necessarily repetitive vs. other buddy bots because they will have a different setup. Hard to say if this matters.

Do you really clear your INV fully every single time? I noticed on the setting that ports back to town after run, it literally stashes everything then takes back out what it needs. I think that may me the most detectable thing when coupled with high volume of playtime

Anyway, Ive been botting poe for quite a bit now, first i was using the other bot but switched to you guys as its yours is way more customizable. I have not had a SINGLE BAN yet. So far with this bot I am not botting overnight, only during the day while I am around, and I pause it all the time to do some random stuff on my own that I guess breaks up any kind of repetitiveness there may be so I cant get flagged.

 

[tozededao]

It is true that the bot looks botish, and GGG is not sleeping, they are flagging acounts who are botting. I dont know how. Dunno if it is wether due to injection or packet sending instead of doing things as a human would do. They probably have an anti bot feature that records your inputs in terms of skill usage, dropping items on stash etc. For example you are able to drop things on stash page 2 without being on page 2 with the bot.

Every person that I know that have botted with exilebuddy last week have been flagged, and by flagged I mean the "no currency drop" flag. You get 0 currency drops when you are flagged. I've been flagged twice on my account. It is flagged at the moment and I get no currency drops, not even scrolls of wisdom.

Forum - Bug Reports - ZERO Currency drop - Path of Exile

They banned a couple of people that were flagged.

 

[Apoc]

It is true that the bot looks botish, and GGG is not sleeping, they are flagging acounts who are botting. I dont know how. Dunno if it is wether due to injection or packet sending instead of doing things as a human would do. They probably have an anti bot feature that records your inputs in terms of skill usage, dropping items on stash etc. For example you are able to drop things on stash page 2 without being on page 2 with the bot.

Every person that I know that have botted with exilebuddy last week have been flagged, and by flagged I mean the "no currency drop" flag. You get 0 currency drops when you are flagged. I've been flagged twice on my account. It is flagged at the moment and I get no currency drops, not even scrolls of wisdom.

Forum - Bug Reports - ZERO Currency drop - Path of Exile

They banned a couple of people that were flagged.

The packets that get sent when you switch tabs, we handle. We just don't visually show it (the client doesn't care about visuals when it actually moves things). This is something I'm looking into, to add that extra bit of realism in the case of random detection stuff.

 

[boblmao]

It is true that the bot looks botish, and GGG is not sleeping, they are flagging acounts who are botting. I dont know how. Dunno if it is wether due to injection or packet sending instead of doing things as a human would do. They probably have an anti bot feature that records your inputs in terms of skill usage, dropping items on stash etc. For example you are able to drop things on stash page 2 without being on page 2 with the bot.

Every person that I know that have botted with exilebuddy last week have been flagged, and by flagged I mean the "no currency drop" flag. You get 0 currency drops when you are flagged. I've been flagged twice on my account. It is flagged at the moment and I get no currency drops, not even scrolls of wisdom.

Forum - Bug Reports - ZERO Currency drop - Path of Exile

They banned a couple of people that were flagged.

Really don't see how people are getting flagged/banned. I bot on average 12-16 hours a day and been doing this since I bought the bot few weeks ago. Never been flagged nor have I been banned. Always farming the same area, on the same character with the same skills.

 

[thunder]

Really don't see how people are getting flagged/banned. I bot on average 12-16 hours a day and been doing this since I bought the bot few weeks ago. Never been flagged nor have I been banned. Always farming the same area, on the same character with the same skills.

How old is your account? level? farming zone?

 

[boblmao]

I've had my account for ~2 or so months before EB came out, 2x level 80+ (Would be higher, but I like to run 74+ maps with mods that work against me for a challenge XD ) and few other lower levels. Mainly Docks and Library

 

[staliro]

I've had my account for ~2 or so months before EB came out, 2x level 80+ (Would be higher, but I like to run 74+ maps with mods that work against me for a challenge XD ) and few other lower levels. Mainly Docks and Library

Well mystery solved. Farming docks and libary on an old high level character is perfectly normal, thats why you arent getting flagged

 

[tozededao]

getting flagged = getting no currency drop. look at your bot for more than 10 minutes, if it drops no currency you are flagged. I have 3 accounts since closed beta and it happened to me on 2 accounts, and I wasn't botting with them at the same time.

 

[boblmao]

getting flagged = getting no currency drop. look at your bot for more than 10 minutes, if it drops no currency you are flagged. I have 3 accounts since closed beta and it happened to me on 2 accounts, and I wasn't botting with them at the same time.

I know what getting flagged is, reason I stated I haven't been flagged. Currency and everything else is still dropping for me just fine. I do have a question that I thought may be a factor in bans, or not.

Have you donated for one of the supporter packs, or bought items from the store on any of your accounts that've been flagged/banned? I've donated for multiple packs and bought a few hundred coins for in-game effects / stash tabs. Just small part of me things that maybe GGG isn't throwing down the ban hammer on those that've helped support the game? Not likely, but just a thought I had.

 

[jeracoo]

Nah I bought support pack and some coins, even had a guild and they banned me still, didn't even bot on my main, though my main was a mule