So many botchecks, so little time. (in General)

1 botcheck every 20 battles.

This is garbage. We know nobody can make a bot to defeat the botchecks, so why is it so frequent.

When all I want to do it burn BA, I have to do a botcheck every 20 or so battles.

Boring!!!

I think we should mix it up a little! Every 10 or so botchecks, replace it with a sound clip of Jon saying the word. Then we have to figure out what word he said. ;'D

That's the thing, bots exist that CAN beat them a certain percentage of the time. Having them frequently will make it possible to spot botters. Are they really that hard after all this time?

Not a good idea, if you don't have speakers. lol

It gets really annoying if you have a slow computer.

Or a slow connection, and it takes up to 20 seconds for the botcheck to load. It's happened.

I don't have a problem with them, and I can say with great confidence that I have one of the worst connections of anyone in the community.

i got blocked 3 times yesterday while playing in my char and changing to tourney char.

this botchecks are very boring

OB my connection is worse and i have 0 problems with botchecks when they finally load lol

"Are they really that hard after all this time?" This was never in question novice, Ranger was saying it's boring :P Seconded BTW

I agree with Ranger. I mean, is there some real threat of CB players being secret super programmers, able to make bots that can detect the curve of the cursive letters and find the word?

1 botcheck every 20 battles?
Try 3 botchecks in 4 BA...that's my all time most botcheck in as little BA.
That's a bit too many botchecks in such a little time...

Yeah. I left for a few months and have only come back fairly recently. I was asking myself if I put up with the amount of botchecks I was getting before, or if they had been ramped up a little. I had done 3 when I was still at 151 BA the other day and just decided I felt like doing something else for a little while.

My old idea for this was a grace period, so for 5-10 BA after you do a botcheck, you don't have to do one... I just get annoyed when it's a massive amount in a small amount of BA.

"It gets really annoying if you have a slow computer."

Or during server lag. If it takes two minutes to load the bloody page, it's basically an auto-lose.

At the least we should extend the time-out to five minutes.

Ditto Lord Bob!

My record is 3 botchecks in 5 BA!

Why should the entire community suffer through such frequent botchecks just to spot people who <i>might</i> be using bots. It's kind of ridiculous to have this many botchecks when there are so few, if any, botters out there. I say ease up on them.

Darn I forgot to post my above comment in HTML.

Eh, it could use a reduction I guess. They're hardly a "fun" part of CB.


But, realistically, a botcheck taking 2 minutes to load is incredibly rare. Even better, if you want to not get botchecks, don't click enter so fast. With a steady pace you can get through an entire set of BA with 4 or less botchecks.

Oh, and how bad is it REALLY? Not worth getting upset over.

I don't know Wolf, I don't see the problem with turning the frequency down a little. When I burn BA on my computer and can actually go through fightlist I get about 1 botcheck every 4 battles.

an entire set of BA with only 4? Man, it's hit or miss for me it seems. Sometimes I can get through a little BA sometimes with only 1 or 2 but when they start they usually hit frequently. I'd say with a full BA count, I average at least 8-10 bot checks.

It's not hard, but is irritating when they start popping up between every 3-5 battles.

why do you ask, didnt you quit for the second time?

a little ennui for the sake of security is good in my opinion.

That's the same principle behind the Patriot Act.

I say get rid of the timer, but keep the two chances thing. I have never failed the bot-check on the second try, but I have been blocked 5+ times since I've returned all because of that time limit. Is there something about bots that if they have more time to compute then they are more likely to get the word right or something?

I agree with Kliktu. Because of my poor connection I have failed bot checks before, but only because it did not load up fast enough.

How about a type of list?
We currently have a normal opponents list and a favorites list.
Can't the bot have 2 lists either?
One for new players or suspicious gamers and one for gamers who kind of proven themselves.
While the first list of people get the normal amount of bot checks, the 2nd lists gets half the rate or something?

Not a completely bad idea.


Now, getting rid of the timer completely is awful. No timer means someone could make a simple click bot and a player could just take 30 seconds every hour or two and see if there is a botcheck.

But, honestly why not extend the time limit a bit?

the only downside to that idea is that it has often been the proven players in the past who have tried to play the system.

also, the patriot act analogy is going to have to be explained to me more clearly. it was creating something to give increased security as a trade off for a decrease in liberties. in this case someone is asking for increased liberties and less security, no?

my statement was just supporting the status quo and keeping the same boredom rather than having less security and increase in cheating.

That is the problem.

How can 1/2 or 1/3 as many botchecks lead to more cheating?

We have the current crop of cheaters, that are the multis that are quite rampant in the game. Playing then selling for USD. This is a well known "fact" of CB.

But to make the game a bit easier for those of us who play by the rules is not acceptable?

This is the logic I fail to sometimes grasp in the world of CB.

The only person that I know of who tried to outdo the botcheck system was discovered and banned, all his items being auctioned off for a new server. There may be others, but the admins can see those missing a disproportionate amount of botcheck and go from there.

But halving the current amount of botchecks will make cheating more rampant? That makes no sense.

I am not asking for a removal of the botcheck system, but if I choose to login and burn ba fast, it sometimes becomes a botcheck chore.

And for those who do not reply to the subject of the thread, namely AoD, butt out. Do not troll this thread or I will ask an admin to fine.

Heh, yep, that's why I said "one of the worst" Tal...at least my internet doesn't do like yours. :D

Increasing the timer might be nice, but it isn't necessary. My opinion is the same as dudemus'.

ranger, nov i believe explained that above. more bot checks equates to more opportunities for failed bot checks which also equates to more data gathered against a suspected cheater. this means they would be caught faster than if you decrease the bot check rate.

in effect if you decrease the bot check rate by 1/2 it would take twice as long to then gather the same amount of data and catch someone. that is assuming the decreased rate would have no effect on the fail/pass ratio of any given bot which is not necessarily a given.

i suggest that if you complete a bot check, you get rewarded for it, just like a normal battle without the BA loss, so people will want bot checks, and they will be a bonus to everyone, and the only people that will be punished are the botters who will fail them.

I believe this would make the system much more enjoyable.

God Bless you!

Jesus Loves you!

here is the wiki thread regarding badash:

http://www.carnageblender.com/wiki/Bot

his success rate was actually quite good and i think it took many months for suspicion to be aroused. any decrease in bot rate would just increase the time taken to catch this type of activity.

I would definitely say that losing a botcheck because the server timed out, or there's a glitch and you got the impolite message with a botcheck pending, or any number of nonsensical things is unfair and should be addressed.

However, the current frequency of botchecks is probably there for a reason. I also thought it was less often than 5% already, so maybe you are a victim of the random number generator. Bartjan had a way of figuring out what your actual percentage is using actual server logs instead of a gut feeling. Maybe he can check for you.

Yah, is there anyway to fix the double click glitch?

"in effect if you decrease the bot check rate by 1/2 it would take twice as long to then gather the same amount of data and catch someone. that is assuming the decreased rate would have no effect on the fail/pass ratio of any given bot which is not necessarily a given.....

his success rate was actually quite good and i think it took many months for suspicion to be aroused. any decrease in bot rate would just increase the time taken to catch this type of activity."

Well, actually that's not true. See, the way the "system" works is not the amount of botchecks you fail, but a percentage or fraction. The admins don't say "Oh, this person has failed 100 botchecks in the amount of time he has been playing CB. He must be a multi." Instead, suspicion is aroused when someone is failing one in five botchecks, or maybe even less than that. If you cut the botchecks in half, they won't fail any more or less with the same bot they create, therefore the fraction remains constant. Sure, there might be less data for the admins to base a decision off of, but you don't need an excessive amount to find a botter.

I have just burned aboot 40 BA and I had over somewhere around ten botchecks. That's just ludicrous.

I botcheck every couple of minutes..... it's so annoying!

I tell you sometimes I fight four battles bot, 5 battles bot, 7 battles bot. It's silly. After you have been checked a few times a session that should be enough.If people are going to cheat they will always find a way.When I started playing it was VERY annoying.Bet more than one have quit playing out of frustration over this.

while it is true that they likely look at the ratio, it also has to be set to flag only after a certain number of instances. i think badash' success rate was over 80 percent, so 1 in 5 failed. if the system flags everyone for missing one out of five as a suspect, then that would create a bunch of false positives or even two out of ten for that matter.

with that understood, then the flag would need to be set for a certain ratio within a certain number of botchecks. this is why cutting down the frequency of bot checks would increase the amount of time before a true bot was flagged as a suspect.

as good as jon is at both programming as well as statistics, i really think it is silly for us to second guess his decisions in matters such as these. it is the way it is for a reason, as long as that reason still stands then so shall the programming based on those reasons.

second guessing? This thread is just asking if the current system can be improved at all... nothing wrong with that.

Dude,

How many "experienced" players miss 1 in 5 botchecks? 1 in 10? 1 in 20?

I think I have missed about 20 in the last year I was playing CB and those were mostly due to my cellphone not being able to download and respond during the 2 minute window.

With 8 botchecks in 160 battles, and I know it is more frequent then that for some people on some days, it would not take that long for someone to stand out as missing these checks.

Even at 1/4th the current rate, there would be enough date over a week or months time to see any standouts.

For me, these botchecks just get in the way of a nice flow of the game.

While I realize this is a text based game, I have seen no other game that has this many botchecks.

I'm think everyone was just lacking something to complain about. Botchecks are fine.

The problem for me is that I suck at reading cursive and the over lapping letter make it even worse for me. Plus all I wanna do is burn my BA not get botchecked every 5 seconds.

haha, I hate it too when you goof one of the letters and it is wrong... it's worse when you get a hard to read one twice in a row or you accidentally hit enter twice on the first one :)

"How many "experienced" players miss 1 in 5 botchecks? 1 in 10? 1 in 20?"

i have no idea, but i bet jon does. i also feel that he has set the system accordingly. why would he not?

the better question is how do you right any kind of monitoring equation that can distinguish between an experienced player and a noob? a sober player and one three sheets to the wind? one on pain meds and one not?

he likely has to have one system that works for all, including someone intentionally trying to cheat it. he also likely has a heckuva lot more experience with these types of statistics and programming than the rest of us. he has probably also researched these things more than most players.

Well, as I recall the admins also use changes in success rates in botchecks. Like the case with DAWG, he went from an average CB bot check player to a substantially worse one.

As in the multi detection, I believe that there are multiple variables that go into deciding whether or not someone is breaking the rules.

I'm not saying the botchecks are fine. But this definitely doesn't need to be a witch hunt. Jon knows players aren't fond of the checks. But I can't help but feel he's been doing this long enough for the players to grow at least a tiny amount of respect for these things. As players, we don't know how these things are done. Pretending that we understand every facet of the system (which would be needed to voice a respectable opinion on a change of said system) is silly.

Many players are unhappy with the number of bot checks. If Jon feels that he can decrease it, maybe he will. Maybe he won't. But let's not agonize over this.

I'd rather have a few extra bot checks a day than have to deal with just ONE thread about "XXXXX is obviously botting".

I'm not saying anything bad about Jon he's created a great game with a great community. It's just that I suck at reading cursive lol!

"I'd rather have a few extra bot checks a day than have to deal with just ONE thread about "XXXXX is obviously botting"."

Players cannot view other players' bot check success/failure rates. A thread like this hasn't happened in the past as far as I can remember, and it won't happen any time soon.

A decrease in botchecks does not mean an increase in botters. Simple as that.

I think us forgers get 2x as many bot checks, tbh.

"A decrease in botchecks does not mean an increase in botters. Simple as that. "

Awful logic. Totally wrong.

People will cheat. Not all people, but some will. And the easier it is, the more who will do it.

In prison, people don't make argument that "Just because we have fewer bars, less fences, less guards and less security in general doesn't mean people won't try to escape." They will.

If the door is opened, people are going to walk through it.

"A thread like this hasn't happened in the past as far as I can remember, and it won't happen any time soon. "

It has happened before, it will happen again. Botchecks are a necessary discomfort due to an annoying minority.

In the 4+ years I have been playing CB (1 and 2), I have seen about 3 such threads.

I would gladly subject myself to seeing 3 more if these botchecks were reduced in frequency.

Why? You do not have to read the threads to play CB, you have to do the persistent botchecks.

But I understand both parts of the discussion. Let us make the game more botproof at the expense of time of those playing it fairly.

I personally feel/felt the NUB was so much more an incentive to cheat then a bot ever was.

Ugh, I can heartily agree with you there, Ranger.

Yah, bots just let you be lazy, the nub lets you make money :P..

"I personally feel/felt the NUB was so much more an incentive to cheat then a bot ever was."

Agreed.

sadly though, the two can be used together for maximum effect. what a bot allows someone to do is miss no ba per day. if someone is willing to risk being caught as a multi, what would stop them then from maximizing the benefits of cheating once they are a cheater?

i miss very few ba per day, it is one advantage that you can get in this game for free. ranger, you rarely missed any either when you were hardcore. i am just against anything that might make it easier for someone to do that while still getting all of their sleep as well. ; )

I think I have recently missed a few more bot checks, due to this stupid public computer being so slow + the mouse isn't really that good. hope I am not flagged. If even I can programme a bot that guesses 80% or so with my COMSCI 101 skills, something is wrong. :P

I think I've missed like 2 bot checks in all of CB1 & CB2 combined.

I understand the desire to see less of them, but I'm not understanding this problem of failing bot checks...

Personally, I couldn't care less whether they are less frequent or not. It takes me all of 5 seconds for them to load and for me to type them out and move on. A minor hindrance... for me at least. Of course, I don't have dial-up.