#Prevent Botting by a large margin

7 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

valid idol
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Guest Character Feature
As not many know we currently have a feature in the game we you are not required to use an email or confirm you are a real person, you can instantly create a character and play the game.

This feature was inteded for new players to check out the game but this is most likely the biggest reason why botting is so strongly represented in this game.

So remove this feature OR prevent Guest Characters trading, send post and drop items on the ground.

Why would it prevent Botting so largely?
Creating a account for Flyff Universe takes a lot of time and requires an email, there are a lot of steps you have to do before you can even play.

  1. Create an account on their Website with an email
  2. Go to the Universe.flyff.com Website and go to your account settings (not Universe.flyff.com/play)
  3. Click on the confirm email button
  4. go to your email and confirm your email by clicking the link

And then you can play the game, this is very hard to automate, especially when you have to create a new email entirely. Additionally almost every email provider requires you to link your phone number to confirm your identity.

How to make this even harder to automate?
You can rather put a picture with random generated numbers and letters into the confirmation email, which can be hardly read by a screen reader, that the player has to type onto the website of Flyff Universe.

Why this wouldn't prevent Botting completely
This does not prevent bots from playing the game, BUT it makes automatic account creation nearly impossible which lowers the bot count on the server by so much it wouldn't be a problem for Moderators to ban all the bots on the server.

If I forgot something, please let me know in this thread, so maybe botting can be fixed.

flat talon
gray nymph
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Have any data that validates your assumption?

ornate carbon
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They would just make accounts and bot after kekl

valid idol
gray nymph
# valid idol the bots cant create a char 2 secs after they get banned tho

So, having created literally dozens of accounts in one sitting, it's really not that long or complicated, and at no point is the guest character feature involved. I honestly feel like this suggestion is a giant shot in the dark based on an assumption that has no bearing on how bots are actually made.

You have two assumptions, one definitely false, one almost certainly false, that are at work:

  1. You have to make a new email account.
  2. A bot owner wants to avoid that hassle and use guest characters.

Re 1: You don't. I have used the same email address for all of my accounts, and I have nearly 100 accounts. You just use your.email+whatever@domain.com. Everything after the + is irrelevant, they all go to your.email@domain.com. This is true for most major email providers.

Re 2: Bot owners almost certainly want to have control over the accounts and avoid the hassle that comes with using temporary accounts.

real wagon
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Unfortunately most extra steps added to account creation for combating bots will just be automated even if a hassle at first to create the tool.