I had a really wild idea just now, was testing my mining profile with randomized hotspots and it occured to me this solution.
IF bliz is tracking us via hotspots / waypoints that means they are tracking where the bot is clicking with click-to-move right? So why can't we just make like 2-3 hotspots per zone and put them apart a lot, like on seperate ends or sth. Then we increase the loot radius to 100yards so while bot is moving from spot A to spot B it will pick up any random herbs that are in his way. That way there will be no specified waypoints, well there will but still if you use randomized hotspots it will not since you will be flying zig-zag all around the pandaria.
Any thoughts on this idea?
I was just thinking the same thing! Did you test your theory? If you have 2 waypoints and a very wide loot radius how does the bot behave?
Do the dev's even give a hoot? I mean there isn't a response from them as of yet... least they could do is respond saying they are monitoring or thinking about the logistics in this argument/topic.
Sure there are, only because it isn't in this doesn't mean there is one...
http://www.thebuddyforum.com/honorb...plans-changing-how-gb2-works.html#post1138544
Option 1/Existing Profiles - Gatherbuddy needs to be redesigned to pick a random waypoint out of the waypoints, then fly directly there. Once there, pick another random waypoint, and fly there. This will result in a less efficient pathing, but you will not trip the LCP (Longest Common Prefix) detection which this article describes. What you'll effectively have is a bot that will stay within the circle or what ever shape your profiles x/y coordinate dictate.
After reading whats been posted so far, I want to make a comment, maybe just a reminder on LCP to keep the discussion of solutions on the right track. My point here, that no waypoint pathing system will be successful in circumventing LCP detection.
(LCP = Longest Common Prefix)
Once the analysis of your historical coordinates have been analyzed, your path is formed. From there, there are two ways to identify a bot.
(read the description under the image for more details)
View attachment 92942
The first way is to track the number of times a segment was passed. This IS NOT LCP, just simply tracking the number of segments passed, and is less reliable an indicator.
View attachment 92943
The second, and more reliable way is LCP. This tells them how many 'waypoints' IN A ROW that you've crossed. Much more reliable method of identifying bots.
View attachment 92944
The end result, ANY pathing system that includes waypoint navigation can/will lead the grouping of your coords around those waypoints, and will lead to analysis or your coords and development of a path from which to measure your future movements against. I can't emphasize this enough! I see lots of discussion that still includes the use of Waypoint navigation (with some random variation to the coord) These won't work. In fact, even my Option1, while circumventing LCP, won't circumvent the technology, since your still clustering your coords around waypoints, and as in Attachment#2 above, they can still track the number of waypoints crossed.
Which is why I strongly recommend that we move to Option2 'farming zone' style GB3 that simply keeps you within a zone (or multiple) and includes a 'redirection' process to turn you at the edge of a zone without looking like a bot. This 'farming zone' can be defaulted to the zone mesh coords, or created by the user by flying/recording a circular path, or inputting the corner coords of your triangular/rectangular/pentagonal area..ect, . I can see several instance where user defined 'farming zone' would be attractive, say to keep you from flying over the ocean looking for nodes while still in Jade Forest...
The result, no repeated waypoints from which Blizz can develop a 'path', since you've really got no true path. And no way to bust you using a Longest Common Prefix.
In short, Waypoint=BAD / 'Farming Zone' & Random Redirection = GOOD
A waypoint path system with enough variation can still work. It just has to have enough variation that in order for LCP to catch it, would cause to many false positives with catch real players. I know for me personally if I'm manually gathering, I'm stilling following waypoints in my head. It's natural when navigating to use landmarks and such to navigate by. I'd almost say that doing something like your option 2 might be TOO random, leading to another form of detection. What player do you know will fly in random directions constantly while farming?
I'm not saying there isn't any player that would do it, but it definitely would not be the norm.
I posted this in the previous thread discussion regarding the article posted by Floops83. If you've not read this article, take the time to read it, and realize this technology has been in implementation since 2009 or prior and imo is the evil behind 99% of the ban activity.
Server-Side Bot Detection in Massive Multiplayer Online Games
The summary of the article is that its not nodes per hour or auctions posted that's getting farmers banned. Its sophisticated waypoint detection/analysis. Entire discussion in this thread.
Here
The solution, which i also posted in that thread, is copied below. I feel this is important enough to warrant a new thread for discussion of solutions, and important enough to warrant developer input as well.
The "FIX"...
Option 1/Existing Profiles - Gatherbuddy needs to be redesigned to pick a random waypoint out of the waypoints, then fly directly there. Once there, pick another random waypoint, and fly there. This will result in a less efficient pathing, but you will not trip the LCP (Longest Common Prefix) detection which this article describes. What you'll effectively have is a bot that will stay within the circle or what ever shape your profiles x/y coordinate dictate.
Option 2/No Profiles - Gatherbuddy needs to simply ask what zone you want to farm in, and use the mesh to keep you within that zone while 'bouncing' in random directions from its edges. This way you never form a detectable path, since your not moving along a waypoint, and you'll never trip the LCP detection since they have no reliable 'path' do develop from your coords, and your not traveling along known coords.
No common waypoints to record, no way for this system as it exists to establish a common path, no actual path which to compare against established 'public path' waypoints, means no way to trip the LCP detection.
Not looking for flamers, looking for constructive feedback.
So there's another simple solution...
Make the bot quest/hunt rares/grind/gather and everything all in 1 profile. No more "modes" as it's put.
If I understand you correct, are you saying that the detection system could eventually, with enough data points recorded, establish your 'path' as the perimeter of the farming area, then use that perimeter as the path on which to detect waypoint occurances, or path segments passed?Any pseudo random selection of a waypoint would still be made from a relatively small and finite number of waypoints where gathering nodes exist in a zone. This limited pool of waypoint possibilities...in other words, the pseudo randomness of the bot becomes detectable.L
GB2 moves to the closest detectable node within "X"yards. Only when none are detectable would it resume navigating, pseudo random angle from node at departure. Although appearing as a poor decision, it would not be detectable by either LCP or Path Segments Passed, which is the ultimate goal. Additionaly, WoW is full of players that don't farm efficiently. This also leads into a Nodes Per Hour (NPH) discussion. This would certainly reduce the NPH to levels that are in line with humans, thereby again reducing the amount of risk of detection using NPH as an indicator.But if a bot is used to farm and takes you to a pseudo randomly selected waypoint further away when closer gathering node options are clearly available, then the pseudo random selection would appear to be making poor decisions while farming, which ultimately creates a different detectable pattern of behavior.
Private profiles may minimally extend your account life, but only until your waypoints recorded server side are analyzed, and a 'waypoint path' established. Then its just a matter of time before your LCP is developed, and your flagged for investigation. Private profiles are defiantly not the solution.And the safest way to farm would be create your own scripts; with your own starting point, tertiary points, ending point, and other decisions that you might make individually (when you farm? for how long? etc.); which, may be similar in path, but would still be unique in comparison to other botters.
I'll wrap this up by citing from the article some valuable points.
Page 24 - "One evasion vector for bots would be to use very long paths, which makes the number of repetitions rise more slowly. However, the player must create those long paths, which means that the amount of time that a person saves by using a bot decreases drastically. Simply using paths shared on the Internet increases the risk that those paths are also known to the game provider?s bot-detection system"
What does 'rise more slowly' mean? It means instead of rising to 10+Path Segments Passed, or Longest Common Prefix within 4,000 movement packets received, it will required 40,000 movement packets, but in the process becoming more similar to human behavior. Using the current system, we should be using multi-zone private profiles. Ones that take 3-4 hours to cover. This can be done by simply editing a farming profile, pasting all your waypoints from continent zones into one profile, or better yet by recording a giant profile with Zaprecorder. This is STILL NOT undetectible. It just requires more movement packets to detect you, which is a variable in the server side analysis of your data. How many movement packets does blizz choose to collect before analysis? Do they every stop collecting it, and reanalyzing it? Does old data ever drop off into the recycle bin? Lots of unknown variables there.
Page 24 - "Another way for bots to evade detection would be to move the character more randomly than it does already. However, the crucial point remains that all current bots for WoW use a navigation system that relies on waypoints, which inherently makes them susceptible to our and related approaches. Even though randomizing the movement along a path would impact the LCP values, the number of average line passes would hardly change."
--My Summary--, Waypoint oriented navigation systems will be detected. point blank.
Why are any of us squirming about this? We all know the bot needs a better base, we all know we WANT a better base... then all of HB base should are belong to us.
I'm a new buddyforum user, so I'm not yet familiar with the established forum etiquette. Does it bother you that other people are engaged in a polite, considerate, non-flame, and non-troll conversation on a relevant topic on the forums?
Open discussion != squirming.![]()