A possible solution to the TF2 bots

#1

Etomb

0 Frags – +

Yes you will have to read.

I was thinking of emailing some Valve people, but first I want to throw the idea out there for discussion, feedback, proofreading, and possible signatures from people that support it.

'I' could be replaced with 'We' if people who sign want to be included. _______________________________________________________________________________________________Regarding the Team Fortress 2 Bot situation,

I believe Valve's focus in combating the issue should be on the bot accounts themselves and their creator(s), however patches that have been made to the game thus far address only their abilities.

I understand that legal action against their creator(s) is not necessarily feasible or worth the investment.

Probably the biggest issue with removing bots is distinguishing between a normal user's account and that of a bot.

Automating their identification and removal would be ideal.

I do not know what methods of identifying these accounts are in use currently, but I assume it is a difficult task to fully automate.

I suggest abandoning the idea of automation for now, and instead outsourcing the task to the player base. As your employees cannot be omnipresent, grant those who are (the players) the ability to resolve the issue.

My proposal for a solution is this:

Upon getting vote-kicked from a match, the account that got kicked is locked down until the completion of a captcha, (or some similar simple method of human verification.) Leaving before the vote is completed would count as it passing. Perhaps limited account locking can be added as a feature to Steam itself as a tool for developers to integrate with their games/software, as this would benefit the whole platform and justify the effort. (If a similar feature doesn't already exist.)

Once the account is locked for a period of time, you are no longer able to complete a captcha to unlock it, and it becomes flagged for manual review and possible deletion.

The specific amount of time could easily be adjusted to catch as high a ratio of bots to legitimate players as possible.

Obvious bots that have identical names or profiles could be scrubbed from the list of locked accounts en masse by a script, of course.

The concept can be infinitely modified; for example:

* It could be triggered only by a new vote kick reason called "non-human player"

* The account could specifically be locked out of TF2's matchmaking and nothing else.

* Instead of flagging the account for review, make the only possible way to free it be through submitting a support ticket.

Or even have an additional period of time between the captcha and flagging where this is the case.

* The system could be toggled on during periods of significant bot activity and off the rest of the time.

* Account locking could be based on 2 or 3 vote-kicks in sequence, or a pattern of kicks - a strike system. This would
prevent most abuse situations.

* The 'yes' requirement for a vote to pass should probably be increased to 7 to prevent parties of bots from abusing the
system.

Overall, a change like this would make maintaining active bots require an inconceivable amount of effort from their creator, assuming they get kicked from matches.

I personally do not doubt they will be kicked. This game's player base has demonstrated its dedication to improving the game countless times, in numerous contexts. They already get kicked from matches, and giving the players more power to deal with the issue will encourage them to call votes rather than leave the match.

An explanation as to why something similar to this has not been implemented, or more details concerning current efforts would be greatly appreciated. There are undeniably aspects of this I have overlooked.

You know what you're doing, but I thought I'd express my ideas on the matter anyway.

For your consideration, ___________________
Duplicate Steam forum post: https://steamcommunity.com/app/440/discussions/0/2577696996230023780/
Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/hgnkdk/a_possible_solution_to_the_tf2_bots_a_letter_to/

Yes you will have to read.

I was thinking of emailing some Valve people, but first I want to throw the idea out there for discussion, feedback, proofreading, and possible signatures from people that support it.

'I' could be replaced with 'We' if people who sign want to be included. _______________________________________________________________________________________________Regarding the Team Fortress 2 Bot situation,

I believe Valve's focus in combating the issue should be on the bot accounts themselves and their creator(s), however patches that have been made to the game thus far address only their abilities.

I understand that legal action against their creator(s) is not necessarily feasible or worth the investment.

Probably the biggest issue with removing bots is distinguishing between a normal user's account and that of a bot.

Automating their identification and removal would be ideal.

I do not know what methods of identifying these accounts are in use currently, but I assume it is a difficult task to fully automate.

I suggest abandoning the idea of automation for now, and instead outsourcing the task to the player base. As your employees cannot be omnipresent, grant those who are (the players) the ability to resolve the issue.

My proposal for a solution is this:

Upon getting vote-kicked from a match, the account that got kicked is locked down until the completion of a captcha, (or some similar simple method of human verification.) Leaving before the vote is completed would count as it passing. Perhaps limited account locking can be added as a feature to Steam itself as a tool for developers to integrate with their games/software, as this would benefit the whole platform and justify the effort. (If a similar feature doesn't already exist.)

Once the account is locked for a period of time, you are no longer able to complete a captcha to unlock it, and it becomes flagged for manual review and possible deletion.

The specific amount of time could easily be adjusted to catch as high a ratio of bots to legitimate players as possible.

Obvious bots that have identical names or profiles could be scrubbed from the list of locked accounts en masse by a script, of course.

The concept can be infinitely modified; for example:

* It could be triggered only by a new vote kick reason called "non-human player"

* The account could specifically be locked out of TF2's matchmaking and nothing else.

* Instead of flagging the account for review, make the only possible way to free it be through submitting a support ticket.

Or even have an additional period of time between the captcha and flagging where this is the case.

* The system could be toggled on during periods of significant bot activity and off the rest of the time.

* Account locking could be based on 2 or 3 vote-kicks in sequence, or a pattern of kicks - a strike system. This would
prevent most abuse situations.

* The 'yes' requirement for a vote to pass should probably be increased to 7 to prevent parties of bots from abusing the
system.

Overall, a change like this would make maintaining active bots require an inconceivable amount of effort from their creator, assuming they get kicked from matches.

I personally do not doubt they will be kicked. This game's player base has demonstrated its dedication to improving the game countless times, in numerous contexts. They already get kicked from matches, and giving the players more power to deal with the issue will encourage them to call votes rather than leave the match.

An explanation as to why something similar to this has not been implemented, or more details concerning current efforts would be greatly appreciated. There are undeniably aspects of this I have overlooked.

You know what you're doing, but I thought I'd express my ideas on the matter anyway.

For your consideration, ___________________
Duplicate Steam forum post: https://steamcommunity.com/app/440/discussions/0/2577696996230023780/
Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/hgnkdk/a_possible_solution_to_the_tf2_bots_a_letter_to/

#2

Sprite

29 Frags – +

just make it so all the hackers play each other

#3

Junk

10 Frags – +

Fuck captchas, especially Google's. They're everywhere now.

#4

delete_my_account

0 Frags – +

.

#5

Etomb

0 Frags – +

sourcewait how do you know if there aren't multiple people who are creating these bots?

I'll edit it to say creator(s)
ty

[quote=source]wait how do you know if there aren't multiple people who are creating these bots?[/quote]

I'll edit it to say creator(s)
ty

#6

Pum

11 Frags – +

You have to be very careful with systems like these, as bots can abuse them themselves to trouble regular players.

#7

Etomb

1 Frags – +

PumYou have to be very careful with systems like these, as bots can abuse them themselves to trouble regular players.

Even if 6 bots join matches together, they can't overpower the 6 other players on the team. When kicking them, one can't vote on their own kick, which gives the bots 5 votes, and the players 6. If the bots call a vote to kick someone, then maybe it'll pass? I'm not sure what the requirements for a vote passing are, I haven't paid close enough attention. I'll check the wiki.

---Ok, so 6 yes votes are required to pass something. Just increase the limit to 7 and parties of bots won't be able to abuse it. I'll add this.

[quote=Pum]You have to be very careful with systems like these, as bots can abuse them themselves to trouble regular players.[/quote]

Even if 6 bots join matches together, they can't overpower the 6 other players on the team. When kicking them, one can't vote on their own kick, which gives the bots 5 votes, and the players 6. If the bots call a vote to kick someone, then maybe it'll pass? I'm not sure what the requirements for a vote passing are, I haven't paid close enough attention. I'll check the wiki.

---Ok, so 6 yes votes are required to pass something. Just increase the limit to 7 and parties of bots won't be able to abuse it. I'll add this.

#8

toads_tf

1 Frags – +

nowadays people just mash f1, that kind of thing would definitely get abused

#9

sheaf

2 Frags – +

if an account is aiming with yaw_speed infinity just shadowban them to the bot ballpit. ez

#10

Zesty

2 Frags – +

I heard that the source code for the bots is open source and the bots have detection to find other bots ingame built in? That seems like its pretty easy to detect and ban tbh.

#11

vecc

0 Frags – +

cathook does detect other cathook users yes

#12

Bob_Marley

2 Frags – +

someone should make a mod of cathook that kills other cathook bots

#13

Brock

0 Frags – +

toads_tfnowadays people just mash f1, that kind of thing would definitely get abused

it already gets abused by non-hackers / party circle jerks who are just trolling. the entire vote kick system as a form of trust with the casual community is garbage, the fact that hackers also abuse it is icing on the cake. raising the vote amount for the captcha kick wont really do much to stop people from abusing the votekick system anyways, they will just select a different option and f1.

[quote=toads_tf]nowadays people just mash f1, that kind of thing would definitely get abused[/quote]

it already gets abused by non-hackers / party circle jerks who are just trolling. the entire vote kick system as a form of trust with the casual community is garbage, the fact that hackers also abuse it is icing on the cake. raising the vote amount for the captcha kick wont really do much to stop people from abusing the votekick system anyways, they will just select a different option and f1.

#14

torrit3

6 Frags – +

i mean even if we do read all this, no one at valve will

#15

gibus

0 Frags – +

Just give me pmod I'll handle it Valve

#16

Seinfeld

-1 Frags – +

ZestyI heard that the source code for the bots is open source and the bots have detection to find other bots ingame built in? That seems like its pretty easy to detect and ban tbh.

almost all modern cheats have this function built in (some choose to show it to customers and some only show it to cheat administrators) and it can't really be touched by anticheat easily. see: aimware "mod immunity", nullcore, etc

[quote=Zesty]I heard that the source code for the bots is open source and the bots have detection to find other bots ingame built in? That seems like its pretty easy to detect and ban tbh.[/quote]

almost all modern cheats have this function built in (some choose to show it to customers and some only show it to cheat administrators) and it can't really be touched by anticheat easily. see: aimware "mod immunity", nullcore, etc