"If a rune is spawned and you leave it alone for more than 5 minutes, the rune will be cursed by an Elite Boss and will penalize the players hunting in that map. If you leave the rune alone for 5+ minutes, EXP and drop rate will be reduced by 50%. If you leave the rune alone for 10 minutes it goes up to -65%, 15 minutes -80%, 20 minutes -100% EXP and drop rate. When you activate the rune the curse will fade from the map." An update coming to KMS. It made me think of botters who are clogging even the level 200+ maps. Although American devs prefer to eat rather than hunt hackers, the Koreans, probably unknowingly, is giving us an automated anti-bot update. This is, an anti-bot measure for their own game. If a hacker leaves his character afk for the night, his/her EXP will end up being so bad that they will get less than 1% in the whole night after level 190/200. Hacking will more or less lose its main virtue, now that the hacker MUST activate a rune every 15 minutes at best to not get ridiculously horrid EXP, after 20 min the EXP will be reduced to almost 0. Captcha numbers on runes have cooldowns and the patterns will have one additional arrow in them after the update to make it nearly impossible for any tool to "auto" use a rune. In conclusion, after this update, Botting will be irrelevant as you must check your PC every 10 minutes not to get crap EXP, after 20 minutes crap exp turns into no exp. We have suggested implementing auto/manual lie detector tool to randomly pop up and ruin the life of macro botters. Seeing that there isn't much further reaction from staff, I guess there are unknown ways for botters to solve captcha while AFK. (although this doesn't sound like macro/keyboard botting anymore but rather manipulation of AI bot that comes with high expense and skill) A guildie of mine mentioned this idea, taken from KMS, while discussing ways to terminate botting in royals. Summoning of Elite boss won't be necessary but the reduction in exp/meso/equip drop rate seem like a fantastic way to make the life of botters so tedious that they won't bother doing it anymore. It wasn't mentioned in the quote but meso & item drop rate should be reduced with exp. A rune can be implemented in every non-town map with mobs in a random coordinate with random occurrence timer (/ few hours). Once the rune is summoned, there can be a big notice on the screen alerting the presence of the rune. An active character should be able to easily approach the rune and enter 4~5 arrow keys in the specific sequence set randomly in every occasion. This will only take few seconds of the player's time while grinding/leeching and if this is regarded too tedious, a tiny reward can be given upon unlocking of the rune so that the occurrence of the rune becomes a nightmare for botters but a gift for those who are playing actively. I'd say something like stackable +10 wep attack and + 15~20 magic attack buff for a short duration (~20minutes). This may not benefit funded, high level players but it will help low levels and even encourage party grinding than leeching. (Imagine if you paid for 1hour and seller was macro botting during the leech. You'd get less than 5% exp from that entire hour) A purple dot would appear in the mini map showing the location of the rune once it spawns Example of how it looks like in KMS. Rune refers to that [V] signed panel which requires a character to first press space bar (npc chat) next to it then type the right combination of arrows in order to unlock it. Open for trouble shooting and pro/con discussion.
while i'm not directly affected by botters themselves this seems like a fantastic way to deal with the menace
one question, what do you mean by "rune" is it just glorified in-game Captcha? if so im all for some kind of pop up that will stop botters at their tracks!
We are all affected by botters in the sense that they drive up prices of things. I also think this sounds like an interesting idea.
Can you at least link to a more reputable site like http://forums.maplestory.nexon.net/discussion/1036/runes-guide ? lol
@Matt that web page doesn't describe runes that are for anti-bot purpose, more of buff/benefit focused activation. I'm not sure if GMS implemented it as well after KMS but I couldn't find proper, reputable website with info regarding anti-bot purposed runes. If anyone has links to it, I'd appreciate it for reference's sake.
It does say pretty much the same quote: If a Rune is left unused for at least 5 minutes, it will be cursed by the Elite Bosses, reducing the EXP and Drop Rates of the map. Every 5 minutes, the curse gets stronger, reaching the maximum EXP/Drop Rate penalty after 20 minutes. I cannot allow you to link to a hacking website.
Oh damn I didn't realize the website was for hacking. I simply found the necessary info there, sorry for the inconvenience.
well, the concept is well explained and understood, the next step is to adjust it to fit this server and make it work.. is it possible to do it here?
We need to be using GMS client v.188 to use the same rune system. The closest thing we can get it is by using https://royals.ms/forum/threads/implement-lie-detector-to-address-botting.122891/ which could be coded to adjust EXP gain upon failure.
well then, sound good to me, lie detector v1.0 and make the system better over time! it's far better then nothing... botters effect to much and this system will remove the vast majority of the server issues (botters, RWT, economic/inflation etc..) i'd say implemnt this as soon as you can. i understand it might take some time to code and properly implement. but honestly i think for the long run it's gonna worth the time and energy!
Personally don't like the idea that every legit player is going to have to deal with something like this.
Yeah I can think of ways to implement it to make it less annoying. I haven't kept up with that thread so I don't know exactly what has been said.
then what or how you suggest to eliminate the botters that funds the core of RWT and over take the economy in a way that mesos sink can't keep up with? i don't know about you but the inflation here is in absolut dire need of a fix. and this "abomination" will prevent further damage while mesos sink will reduce the current damage.. imo few annoying messages appear from time to time are well worth the game return to it original from and the crazy prices back to somehow normal. about a year and a half ago ap reset were freaking 8,000,000. cs/ws were 380mil! and an hour leech was 30m/50m the concept of lie detector is still in no way perfect, but once the community and the staff figure out a better concept and its implications on or situations, that can really help!
Honestly, the economy doesn't concern me to the extent that sacrificing the enjoyable flow of the game to catch a few botters earlier seems worthwhile. Does anyone have any hard data about the extent to which botters are affecting the economy? This seems like speculation, to me.
I think we have reached a point where we need to choose between convenience vs security. We can ignore the crimes that are happening behind the scenes as it doesn't seem to affect us directly; that's if we are chilled players. However, it ruins the economy, destroys the motivation of many hard workers and ultimately accelerate the aging process of the server. Maplestory is a MMORPG where your effort become directly proportional to your achievements; except the few who get extremely lucky. I have seen many friends and people in acquaintance quitting so far and one of the major contributing factor was because things were simply not rewarding anymore. Competition is an inevitable driving force of this game. Some of the players have worked hard for years to reach the end game stage but when they looked around, end game stage was filled with RWTers who jumped there with no real effort but through cheating. In a good scenario, RWTers may (hopefully) get caught but the problem arise when their assets are passed on before they are banned. Some smart RWT buyers won't get caught and reach the end game (lvl200) but get bored of their effortless achivement and end up quitting rather quickly. Would they take down all their ingame assets with them? Sad reality is that they are mostly passed on in the form of "gift" to their "friends". Increasing number of these "friends" will occupy the end game with their gifted, op items. This cannot be seen as wrong in moral perspective and these friends are not the ones to be blamed but because they are not guilty, they can acquire these illegal, op items in an endless manner. There are too many of these op items floating around the server right now that shouldn't have existed in the first place. If we leave things to be the way they are, those items will increase in supply and circulation. Everyone will become too op and no one will be special anymore. This causes serious imbalance in the game which is how numerous MMORPGs perished in the past. Competitive players who worked their way up are seriously disheartened when they witness such scenes, that's becoming a norm as well. Look at top ranked players as an example. Would they be special and respected if an effortless friend of RWTer can easily outdps them? What's the point of reaching the top if the standard gets dragged down by cheaters? https://royals.ms/forum/threads/farewell-mapleroyals.109088/ RWT sellers make their income through botting and hacking from multiple clients/pcs; usually macro botting over night or through out the day. Current defence system of royals cannot detect macro botting and require a player or GM to manually report/ban the individual. Even if the botting character gets banned later, it barely tickles the owner because they can just remake another account using VPN and they have nothing to lose. With all their illegit source of income, they buy overpriced items in the market and cause general inflation in the economy because mesos hold no value to them (Guess how prevalent this was in early new source when royals was completely vulnerable. We witnessed the great depression of royals back then). They then proceed to mass produce end game items in an unrealistic quantity. In other words, simply banning them at the site of crime scene isn't enough to stop them. We need a defence system that can destroy their mechanism of action in order to stop their endless illegal activities. Whether it be auto lie detector, runes or hiring hundreds of patrol GMs, something has to be done. We can no longer stand by as a spectator and hope to bypass the consequences.
