Countermeasures against automatic play in naval battles

[[email protected] 23]

1 hour ago, Bruce_R1 said:

You've almost got it.

 

Anyway please stop reporting people who aren't actually breaking any rules. Helena is too cheap to run now cause naval was mostly missed in the last economics adjustment. That's all this is.

 

And as much as I'd love them too, changes to targeting that make an unpopular mode harder to play seem... Unlikely. Just avoid the Helena BRs until the AFK play is made economically unviable in a month or two. Or farm the AFK players yourself for easy kills.

Software instead of manual 24/7 automated operation absolutely violates the rules,The game mode full of zombies more no future.

[Bruce_R1 2,088]

23 minutes ago, CornealMag[email protected] said:

Software instead of manual 24/7 automated operation absolutely violates the rules,The game mode full of zombies more no future.

You can achieve everything people are talking about with a Helena running in windowed mode and entering a few keystrokes at the start of every game. Takes about as much effort as managing your playlist in Spotify. No 3rd-party automation required, so you can't assume from replays that's what they're doing. Since most AFKers seem to be established players who bought a Helena and are just using their purchase in the most efficient way to grind, they're doing nothing wrong. This is different from the zomboat issue, which involved farming operations using aimbotting. Those accounts, which have come back recently,  are distinguishable because they only play Naval, play 24/7, and often get very high scores because they are using assisted play to some degree.

[Monika_in_action 1,360]

If you suspect these players using forbidden modifications to boost their game progress automatically, please make proper report using replay report system.

Guideline:

 

[Monika_in_action 1,360]

On 04/05/2022 at 02:58, tangerine_flugel said:

Why would they be banned? Unlike lots of exploits, this is something the game seems to explicitly expect you to use on occasion, and if someone wants to use this for every game then so be it. If the game didn't want to allow you to do this then why would you be able to change weapon selection at all, or allow you to upgrade the AI to make it better when doing this. Playing the game like this probably isn't very fun, much like being a zomber in SB EC, but it's still a valid way to play. Good players will still perform better than them, and they won't learn much about playing the game "properly" so when they try to play their new top tier BB they'll fail helplessly by not being able to target enemies, so really I don't see a problem with this unless it gives someone a massive advantage against regular players manning their turrets without using the AI.

It's against the rules if players use forbidden modification to automate the game progress or exploit the profit mechanics of naval battles in passive way.

Quote

 

3.2.3. No malicious or deceiving use

 

exploit flaws in Game mechanics (exploits, bugs and etc.);

use software which automates the game process (bots, mods), changes gameplay or functionality of the Game, grants an advantage over other players not using such software or otherwise changes gaming experience, whether yours or any other player’s;

make available, offer, advertise, promote and otherwise distribute any of the aforementioned means of malicious or deceiving use;

 

 

[tangerine_flugel 457]

26 minutes ago, Monika_in_action said:

It's against the rules if players use forbidden modification to automate the game progress or exploit the profit mechanics of naval battles in passive way.

 

But from what I understand of OP's question, they are only using tools that exist in game to swap to secondary/tertiary guns and having the in game AI control the main batteries - i.e. no external modifications are used. I know that whether this feature should exist in game is contentious having read some of the replies to this thread, however using said feature should not result in a ban any more than exclusively piloting bombers in SB to get quick RP/SL should.

Edited May 5, 2022 by tangerine_flugel

[Tokusa 105]

39 minutes ago, Monika_in_action said:

If you suspect these players using forbidden modifications to boost their game progress automatically, please make proper report using replay report system.

Guideline:

 

Several people have reported this from the server replay.One player has played 80 matches in one day.Definitely against the rules for autoplay.
However, the player I reported was not banned and is still enjoying autoplay today.
Is gaijin not going to address this issue?
Can you please advise the management from game master?

[Tokusa 105]

3 hours ago, tangerine_flugel said:

But from what I understand of OP's question, they are only using tools that exist in game to swap to secondary/tertiary guns and having the in game AI control the main batteries - i.e. no external modifications are used. I know that whether this feature should exist in game is contentious having read some of the replies to this thread, however using said feature should not result in a ban any more than exclusively piloting bombers in SB to get quick RP/SL should.

Let's get this issue straight. I would consider this.

 

1. the player manually sets the main gun to auto-fire.
　It is not against the rules.

 

2. the player presses a key to set the main gun to auto-fire from the start of the game. The player does not do anything else.
　It is a very annoying behavior. I think it is against the rules, but I don't know how gaijin will judge it.

 

3. using external tools such as macros to join a match. The player uses an external tool to set the main gun to auto-fire. The player does nothing manually during the match. They are enjoying their real life, sleeping, eating, etc. lol
　This is clearly against the rules.

 

I believe that many of the current large number of auto-firing players fall into the category 3. This can be seen by looking at the player's history from the server replay.

[Monika_in_action 1,360]

4 hours ago, tangerine_flugel said:

But from what I understand of OP's question, they are only using tools that exist in game to swap to secondary/tertiary guns and having the in game AI control the main batteries - i.e. no external modifications are used. I know that whether this feature should exist in game is contentious having read some of the replies to this thread, however using said feature should not result in a ban any more than exclusively piloting bombers in SB to get quick RP/SL should.

Just playing in a passive way won't get you banned, but not if found violating the game rules. That's what report mechanics are designed for.

 

4 hours ago, Tokusa said:

Several people have reported this from the server replay.One player has played 80 matches in one day.Definitely against the rules for autoplay.
However, the player I reported was not banned and is still enjoying autoplay today.
Is gaijin not going to address this issue?
Can you please advise the management from game master?

Our dedicated Server Replay staff would find out if the player did violate the rules. If you find someone suspicious, please make a proper report via replay system.

[[email protected] 23]

10 hours ago, Tokusa said:

Let's get this issue straight. I would consider this.

 

1. the player manually sets the main gun to auto-fire.
　It is not against the rules.

 

2. the player presses a key to set the main gun to auto-fire from the start of the game. The player does not do anything else.
　It is a very annoying behavior. I think it is against the rules, but I don't know how gaijin will judge it.

 

3. using external tools such as macros to join a match. The player uses an external tool to set the main gun to auto-fire. The player does nothing manually during the match. They are enjoying their real life, sleeping, eating, etc. lol
　This is clearly against the rules.

 

I believe that many of the current large number of auto-firing players fall into the category 3. This can be seen by looking at the player's history from the server replay.

Yes, there is no problem with using the AI main gun. The problem is the 24/7 repetitive use of the AI main gun. This is obviously not something the average person can do.

As for your second point, if a player is only occasionally inactive in a game, that only means that he is playing negatively and not clearly violating the terms. If he plays so negatively every game, then it must be considered that it is software at work, not humans.

Edited May 6, 2022 by [email protected]

[[email protected] 23]

On 5/5/2022 at 2:26 AM, TheMightySardine said:

Gunship did a video regarding them and also trying few games in Helena,the average was between 5-10k SL. They will actually have to get multiple kills to get over 30k.

 

Helena with the Ace membership group gets no less than 20K SL per game, and by using the automation software inside the virtual machine, is able to automate 80 games per day, generating 200W SL per day.

[Bruce_R1 2,088]

22 hours ago, Monika_in_action said:

Several people have reported this from the server replay.One player has played 80 matches in one day.Definitely against the rules for autoplay.

I have frequently played 80 WT games in 1 day. I don't recommend it. Not a bot, though. That's 15-16 hours, a lot less if you ODL.

 

Reporting any people only because they play for 15 hours straight as possible bots is not something WT should probably be in the business of doing.

 

This is different from the zomboat behaviour, which normally these days starts with a Kerch on a fresh account, has never played anything but naval, starts playing day 1 of the account and never stops and is doing continuous 100+ matches a day, not stopping for days, which you can see from their service records.

That's not what we're seeing for the most part with the Helena AFKers, who are normally established players, with lots of time in other vehicles on their records, who paid real money for their Helena and are using the current effectively zero repair cost on that vehicle to grind in the most efficient way possible. I don't like it, cause it's P2W combined with a broken naval economic model that never got updated after the last BR decompression, but it's not a TOS violation.

 

Price up repair on the Helena even marginally, which they will likely do in a month or two, and the problem goes away.

 

The fact that high tier naval on open maps isn't particularly challenging, and the best way to play it right now it is just to leave it on in a window and do something else instead, is what's really bothering people I suspect.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Bruce_R1

[Monika_in_action 1,360]

18 minutes ago, Bruce_R1 said:

Price up repair on the Helena even marginally, which they will likely do in a month or two, and the problem goes away.

A rework on activity mechanics would be another approach. Personally I'm not glad to see another rise in repair fee.

[Bruce_R1 2,088]

6 minutes ago, Monika_in_action said:

A rework on activity mechanics would be another approach. Personally I'm not glad to see another rise in repair fee.

It's not across the board. Just certain ships have been missed in recent economics passes.

 

The AFK tactic works for any ship on an open map until its free repairs runs out. For tech tree however, you start dripping SL per match pretty fast compared to an active player after that. Helena is unique in that its store-premium adjusted repair cost of 2,440 SL is less than its average earnings from AI gunnery only, and only 8% of its tech tree equivalent (31,049 SL). It's an economics exploit, that's all. At the moment it would be crazy NOT to play the Helena that way, at that rate of return. There's a couple other ships like this. They just have to do what they said they were going to do and which we voted for, and raise repair costs up/lower them down to the average for that class/rank of vehicle. Naval just got mostly missed on that last economics pass.

[Pleskac 221]

I think some people should try to get into test drive and select AA and let the AI work to see how effective it is, it sucks so bad its ridiculous. I tried it with Japanese Isuzu, after 30-40min I didnt sink anything, shells were flying completely randomly in the general direction of the targeted ship, but half of them missed by 1km+ like the shells were not even fired in direction of the stationary ship. I tried to get into a normal game and went afk with AA selected, while other guns were free to shoot anything. Result was like 500rp and basically next to none sl. In normal games I get 5000-10000rp per game or more for same time.
On average a game takes 30min or more. I understand that people sometimes watch youtube or something else and let the game run with minimal attention, but you have to be watching what is going on second screen atleast little bit or you get the 500rp or even less. That is basically what is going on IMHO, doubt this mode is infested by bots with real hacks like aimbot and collision detection etc. its just normal players going afk durning match, and they get basically nothing after some of the economy changes that were implemented few months earlier. Its sad, but its still better than no players and even longer wait times and gaijin bots in their place instead.

[Magiaconatus 1,670]

5 minutes ago, Pleskac said:

I think some people should try to get into test drive and select AA and let the AI work to see how effective it is, it sucks so bad its ridiculous. I tried it with Japanese Isuzu, after 30-40min I didnt sink anything, shells were flying completely randomly in the general direction of the targeted ship, but half of them missed by 1km+ like the shells were not even fired in direction of the stationary ship. I tried to get into a normal game and went afk with AA selected, while other guns were free to shoot anything. Result was like 500rp and basically next to none sl. In normal games I get 5000-10000rp per game or more for same time.
On average a game takes 30min or more. I understand that people sometimes watch youtube or something else and let the game run with minimal attention, but you have to be watching what is going on second screen atleast little bit or you get the 500rp or even less. That is basically what is going on IMHO, doubt this mode is infested by bots with real hacks like aimbot and collision detection etc. its just normal players going afk durning match, and they get basically nothing after some of the economy changes that were implemented few months earlier. Its sad, but its still better than no players and even longer wait times and gaijin bots in their place instead.

You can buy these scripts on Chinese e-commerce websites. And this is why they are using premium ships.

[Tokusa 105]

2 hours ago, Bruce_R1 said:

It's not across the board. Just certain ships have been missed in recent economics passes.

 

The AFK tactic works for any ship on an open map until its free repairs runs out. For tech tree however, you start dripping SL per match pretty fast compared to an active player after that. Helena is unique in that its store-premium adjusted repair cost of 2,440 SL is less than its average earnings from AI gunnery only, and only 8% of its tech tree equivalent (31,049 SL). It's an economics exploit, that's all. At the moment it would be crazy NOT to play the Helena that way, at that rate of return. There's a couple other ships like this. They just have to do what they said they were going to do and which we voted for, and raise repair costs up/lower them down to the average for that class/rank of vehicle. Naval just got mostly missed on that last economics pass.

Playing 80 matches in a day is not a violation.
I know it is very difficult, but even if a player were to play 80 matches a day without using any external tools, and the player were to set the main gun to auto fire and leave it alone, that would be a violation of the rules.
The presence of such a player is a mockery of serious manual players and seriously detracts from their enjoyment of the game. If no measures are taken, the number of serious manual players will decrease. Then, if countermeasures are taken and there are no more BOT players, "there will be no one left in the WT naval battles".
I agree with raising the repair cost of premium ships. Certainly the current repair costs are too low. However, even if the repair cost is raised a little, BOT players will not become extinct.

[Pleskac 221]

What does the script do? If it just rejoin match and spawn you at start, it should yield minimal rewards, because you get stuck on island or get killed in first salvo of torpedoes and so on, not to mention that the AI gunners dont do anything unless you get lucky and manage to get really close to enemy while sailing straight. If its really just scripts, its worthless. If its a hack that can react based on what is going on in the game, then its big issue ofc. and EAC does not work.

[Bruce_R1 2,088]

53 minutes ago, Pleskac said:

What does the script do? If it just rejoin match and spawn you at start, it should yield minimal rewards, because you get stuck on island or get killed in first salvo of torpedoes and so on, not to mention that the AI gunners dont do anything unless you get lucky and manage to get really close to enemy while sailing straight. If its really just scripts, its worthless. If its a hack that can react based on what is going on in the game, then its big issue ofc. and EAC does not work.

It starts the game, sets the speed to 1/3 and main guns to autofire. You could probably do it with a mouse macro. When you die it restarts. Yes, on maps with islands you run into the islands a lot. There's a lot of single cap maps at 6.0 and you can increase that ratio by disliking the ones with islands. At 1/3 you don't go far from the cruiser spawn at all, as well.

 

It only works if you basically have zero repair costs, as the Helena does currently, because any hit you get something for. Normally your participation ends up below 50%. But you still profit every game. Then it's just a matter of repetition.

55 minutes ago, Tokusa said:

I know it is very difficult, but even if a player were to play 80 matches a day without using any external tools, and the player were to set the main gun to auto fire and leave it alone, that would be a violation of the rules.

Being a bad player isn't against the rules. That's essentially what you're asking to criminalize: ODL'ing, not paying attention, not caring about winning or caps.

 

The difference is, except for the Helena and a few other vessels, any other attempt in this game to pay deliberately badly like that doesn't tend to pay off. You can do it but you'll bleed SL due to repair costs.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Bruce_R1

[Tokusa 105]

48 minutes ago, Bruce_R1 said:

It starts the game, sets the speed to 1/3 and main guns to autofire. You could probably do it with a mouse macro. When you die it restarts. Yes, on maps with islands you run into the islands a lot. There's a lot of single cap maps at 6.0 and you can increase that ratio by disliking the ones with islands. At 1/3 you don't go far from the cruiser spawn at all, as well.

 

It only works if you basically have zero repair costs, as the Helena does currently, because any hit you get something for. Normally your participation ends up below 50%. But you still profit every game. Then it's just a matter of repetition.

Being a bad player isn't against the rules. That's essentially what you're asking to criminalize: ODL'ing, not paying attention, not caring about winning or caps.

 

The difference is, except for the Helena and a few other vessels, any other attempt in this game to pay deliberately badly like that doesn't tend to pay off. You can do it but you'll bleed SL due to repair costs.

Being a bad player is not against the rules, but the act of continuously getting rewarded for a method of usage not originally intended by the game. I believe it is against the following game rule "7.1.2 or 7.1.4" I don't know what gaijin thinks about it.

7. UNSPORTING CONDUCT

7.1. The following User’s behavior constitute unsporting conduct and is explicitly prohibited by virtue of these Game Rules:

7.1.1. Damaging your Game team:

a) Killing or damaging a team member;

b) Purposeful blocking of the team member's movements (propping up, pushing out, blocking the passage/driveways).

7.1.2. Exploiting Game bugs, errors and flaws.

7.1.3. Installation and/or usage of unauthorized modifications to the Game client, using cheats or another software and/or devices which modify in-game process and/or original images generated by the Game to obtain an advantage in the Game without clear authorization from Gaijin.

7.1.4. Other actions that violate the principle of fair play.

[Daffan 6,157]

8 hours ago, Bruce_R1 said:

It starts the game, sets the speed to 1/3 and main guns to autofire. You could probably do it with a mouse macro. When you die it restarts. Yes, on maps with islands you run into the islands a lot. There's a lot of single cap maps at 6.0 and you can increase that ratio by disliking the ones with islands. At 1/3 you don't go far from the cruiser spawn at all, as well.

Yes now you see how these Chinese exploiters ruin the game for us, they downvote all the good map and upvote the trash maps where they sail 40km into corner

 

Also in a game, this is how it looks when your team is full of bots

 

 

I get top dmg, do my cap  and nobody caps the other 2 flags even when there is only 1 enemy left because they aren't even at the keyboard to respond to commands.

 

Edited May 7, 2022 by Daffan

[Bruce_R1 2,088]

9 hours ago, Daffan said:

Yes now you see how these Chinese exploiters ruin the game for us, they downvote all the good map and upvote the trash maps where they sail 40km into corner

 

Also in a game, this is how it looks when your team is full of bots

 

 

I get top dmg, do my cap  and nobody caps the other 2 flags even when there is only 1 enemy left because they aren't even at the keyboard to respond to commands.

 

Again, I think there's a useful distinction between foreign farmed zomboat accounts, which work up from starter destroyers, playing only naval continuously for days on fresh accounts, and the AFKers, established players who buy a store Helena and run it in windowed mode cause an eco exploit makes it the smartest way to run a Helena right now. I don't think the farmed accounts are downvoting maps cause they're clearly trying to pay nothing at all so they don't have premium accounts. Regular players doing the AFK thing probably should do though, cause they'll run into islands less.

 

I on the other hand favour the maps with the most islands now through map selection to increase my relative advantage over both zomboats and AFKs.

 

I agree it often sucks to have more of either kind on your team because they're both ODLs who don't care about caps or winning.

[TheFoxInTheBox_ 217]

On 05/05/2022 at 13:03, Monika_in_action said:

If you suspect these players using forbidden modifications to boost their game progress automatically, please make proper report using replay report system.

Guideline:

 

 

If I was to report every player I saw using a zombie ship, I'll be forever reporting people 

[[email protected] 23]

17 hours ago, Daffan said:

Yes now you see how these Chinese exploiters ruin the game for us, they downvote all the good map and upvote the trash maps where they sail 40km into corner

 

Also in a game, this is how it looks when your team is full of bots

 

 

I get top dmg, do my cap  and nobody caps the other 2 flags even when there is only 1 enemy left because they aren't even at the keyboard to respond to commands.

 

Almost all users of automation software believe that using automation software is not against the rules of the game, and they advertise it heavily, bragging in front of normal players that he can get 1000W SL in a week without doing anything, leading a large number of normal players to join them.

[kkang2828 1,414]

On 07/05/2022 at 01:28, Bruce_R1 said:

 They just have to do what they said they were going to do and which we voted for, and raise repair costs up/lower them down to the average for that class/rank of vehicle. Naval just got mostly missed on that last economics pass.

Even under the new economy, premiums will still be cheaper to repair than similar rank normal vehicles, because their main purpose and selling point is their better rewards. Nerfing a premium vehicle’s economy to stop AFK farmers is unfair to the people who play them properly, and Gaijin will probably not do it.

 

I really think some kind of limitation on prolonged AI main gunnery for bluewater ships is necessary to stop the AFK farmers. Perhaps a time limit should be placed on AI main gunnery, after which you will be automatically kicked from battle and replaced with a Gaijin bot. If these people are really using scripts, they’ll counter by changing the script to periodically switch between armament groups, and then they’ll definitely be breaking the rules and can be reported and banned.

Edited May 8, 2022 by kkang2828

[Bruce_R1 2,088]

On 08/05/2022 at 02:09, kkang2828 said:

Even under the new economy, premiums will still be cheaper to repair than similar rank normal vehicles, because their main purpose and selling point is their better rewards. Nerfing a premium vehicle’s economy to stop AFK farmers is unfair to the people who play them properly, and Gaijin will probably not do it.

They're not going to make it equivalent to tech tree, no. Premiums will always be a better deal. This is a combination of a few things working together to make an absurd result they need to correct for only a couple premium ships:

1) For whatever reason, economics values for cruisers have not changed since before BR decompression when the chance of an AFK cruiser being anything more than BB food was much lower;
2) The changes to the rewards model of receiving points for death in place of points for damage

3) The presence of the Helena in the Gaijin store as a sellable premium, one of only 3 high-tier Bluewaters you can buy for "real money"

 

Basically right now with Helena, with the old, unadjusted modifiers and repair costs, which haven't kept up with their current earnings, when you DIE you make back almost ALL your repair cost (depending on how you die you can even make slightly more). Just from the death. You actually profit and research (at a slow rate, but if you just keep hitting a few keys it works out) by dying as quickly as possible and starting another game. The combination of factors above has led to this absurd result, and the current plague of Helena AFKers. Double the death cost to, say, 15% of what the same vehicle in the tech tree pays, and this problem disappears.