#Bot players from bot guilds

1118 messages · Page 2 of 2 (latest)

willow scarab
#

The main Russian accounts aren't appearing the Kongregate top scores for today so either they have redone the API or the bots have redone their spoof API calls

hollow flume
blazing shard
cunning whale
#

They won’t chase the guild events if they are guileless, checkmate.

left elm
#

I prefer that they would stay in guilds, but be banned.

#

Actually Devs should create a guild with name: banned and move banned players to that guild.

scarlet mortar
blazing shard
#

He was a real player but Aleksey said he retired a year or two ago

#

The mastermind is test123321 I think? Greendia used to be in Pho3nix for many years

#

Then moved to the Russian guilds

#

Mario or Cloud probably know more

mystic sleet
#

Test and Red guild controlled by different people

cunning whale
#

3/3 in Arena be Russians. The % of Arena vs Russian guilds is almost 50% now, where it was 15-20% for an extremely long time.

blazing shard
#

They got around your new anti-bot measures in under 12 hours. This is why you need to ban the offenders. They are better coders than the devs.

indigo pilot
#

lmao

cunning whale
#

6/6 in Arena, with 2 being Guildless. I would assume they are just mocking everything you do right now.

limber silo
limber silo
willow scarab
#

Could just ban those accounts rather than giving them work for 8 hours to rewrite the API calls?

#

So ban first, mediate later is what Russian Dev companies do

#

E.g. Raid Heroes which you should be familiar with in Kongregate autobans accounts and then asks users to contact them to appeal bans

visual flame
#

What rules are you planning to enforce in actual reality?

limber silo
#

I think we're looking for a "litmus test" so we don't have to weigh-in on every ban and rely on community reports and investigations

willow scarab
#

Of course they are published by a Russian company so obviously are familiar with botting and hacking

limber silo
limber silo
willow scarab
#

So whatever the team did worked for about 12 hours

limber silo
#

Interesting to hear that!

willow scarab
#

This morning, none of the suspected botters appeared in Today's high scores

#

As of the last two or three hours they started appearing again meaning they've fixed their bots and are engaging with the API again

limber silo
#

Was there an approximate time the bots started reappearing? Thanks! We can check logs to see if there's anything useful

willow scarab
#

They still aren't logging into Kong though as last Kong activity still 2017

willow scarab
#

Usernames:
MistaAnders
Evgenium
KaJIuK
Ruler_Master
CuHbepIIoMugop

#

These are players with the litmus test of a top score reported to Kong achievements and high scores for Today BUT last Kong activity before 2022

#

They usually appear consistently on the Today top scores, definitely around 11am UTC but didn't appear today at that time and I noticed they were guildless so assumed something had happened

#

They are now in the today scores again

#

KaJIuK was in the Testing Test guild

limber silo
#

I'm not sure if I updated you before leaving for my vacation
Your "smoking gun" was REALLY close but it seems there are some ways the mobile/steam version can cause the same thing to happen. Or something like that

willow scarab
#

If it's 90% accurate, I would still run with it

#

Because it's a common feature to all the suspected bots

#

It's also telling that I could tell you guys did something from the top scores before even seeing them in game

#

I noticed the top scores for today looked empty before I saw the Testing accounts were now guildless

#

Anyway, I wait to see everyone's next move

visual flame
#

Have we identified any cheaters/rule breakers that are not part of any russian guilds?

#

or more accurately, cheaters that are not affiliated with being Russian?

blazing shard
#

There are some of these player accounts that join random guilds and score insanely high out of nowhere that we've shown before

quick trench
#

... As long as any cheaters / epxloiters / bots are left in game / not perma-banned, they'll just be in challenges / events in which they can participate !

#

🤢

#

Perma- bans incoming or not !?

#

You received a whole list, screenshots, data & more infos to just do that !

#

... Happy to see that something happened at least, which coudn't be said since years ... !

#

Better not the end though !

#

🫵 😡

blazing shard
#

Updates I see from my end:

#

While some of these accounts (lots) were still showing up in matchmaking, they might actually be banned.

#

Known Russian bot

#

I searched for this player in the invite function and he can't be found (I think that's what the 0 was in screenshots Cent showed)

#

It's still very early in the challenge but there are no known Russian bots above 133 so far

#

The first (and only?) bot I can see is lobster_fon_krab

blazing shard
#

They're starting to trickle in but in much lower numbers? I see linyx, greendia, test123321, and fifa2020 at 135 and two players at 133

quick trench
quick trench
#

🤢

blazing shard
#

There are 40 perfects so far. I can only see ~22 of the perfects and 8 are Russians

#

I can see all 20 of the 134s though... 11 Russians, including 4 "players"

quick trench
#

Russian-bots also have returned to arena for me today too ! 🤢

blazing shard
#

It seems like they have banned a bunch of accounts. I don't see katidesigner anywhere

quick trench
#

Also @ everyone of the playerbase : Keep reporting bots & such ! Anyone who wants them all gone for good, PLEASE DO SO !

#

❤️

pearl ingot
#

O k

quick trench
#

Sorry ... lol ...

hollow flume
#

Dogs of war and Flying penguins guilds also have bots

dry skiff
#

The rest is unchanged. At the moment, many bots have 135 stars, including those without guilds (((

blazing shard
#

Oof yeah 134 is about to get pushed out of top rewards again... and look at this totally normal cluster of players at 134

#

And the formerly banned red alert guild is now back up to 49/50 it seems

#

That might actually be full?

scarlet mortar
#

i think adrian said we should be reporting the suspicious players in support, too, but idk, i just woke up

cunning whale
#

I wouldn’t bother reporting a player who is named Player5355788542378 and do this for other similar names players.

willow scarab
# blazing shard

@limber silo Any Player called Player<Random Numbers> who is scoring 133+ in Clash Challenges but otherwise not doing anything else a normal player would do in the game (campaign map etc) should be instabanned. They aren't being played by a new player (which you would know the experience of) but being controlled by an experienced player as a bot

blazing shard
#

Also somewhat related, a few years ago there was a huge influx of new players named del<random numbers> and I don't think I've seen any in at least a couple years now. Anyone know what was happening there?

visual flame
#

@limber silo If someone gets banned in Spellstone, do their associated kongregate account also get banned? Or is it just a ban for Spellstone only?

limber silo
#

I'll let Player########## reports be a bit of a "grey area" for now since they have a less identity to them, but I would prefer in the long-run if we stopped them as well.

I'll be doing a short presentation tomorrow to help catch the team's recent additions up on the "big picture" of the current situation(s)

I'll be mentioning these names taking over the leaderboard in that presentation for sure

limber silo
visual flame
#

thanks

#

Is there an appeal process for those players banned from the game for botting?

#

It appears I look like a representative for the botters even though i am not 😦

limber silo
#

I was wondering lol

#

I mean we do not want to be banning players for botting when they aren't, so I would assume they can write into support to ask about their ban. I'll need to check though since I'm just assuming.

drifting path
mortal cedar
#

I'm getting a lot of the apparent bot ban stuff. Is there any way I can get on the "safe list?" 🙂

steel sky
#

^ i got the error 2 days ago about bot stuff. I need to be on the whitelist too.. lol

bitter lily
#

I bet we can drum up a safe list, will get that in the works

ruby lantern
# limber silo I'll let Player########## reports be a bit of a "grey area" for now since they h...

That's good to hear. Can you give any ETA for this issue to finally be over, though? Waiting another year for the next three bots to be banned would be frustrating and as you have just admitted, the situation is still quite unpleasant. And while I do understand your wariness about swinging the banhammer around a bit too carelessly, everyone would be happy if the bots were gone sooner rather than later.

bitter lily
#

Hey Niakra, this is my pet project for the week and I'm hoping to have it 95% wrapped up by the end of the week - including bans

#

Insights has given me a lot of data, now I take that data and sift for gold/nuggets and then I give the devs a list of players, and then we swing an axe

#

I'm unfortunately in meeting jail for another 45 min :/

ruby lantern
#

Ah, nice. We all have an axe to grind there, so swing it good.

bitter lily
#

I was sifting through this chat while "listening" 😉 and making sure my lists were matching up with what was reported

cunning whale
#

I’ve gotten the message couple of times when I am playing (arena mostly) and leave the game for some reason. On the return opening it shows it.

quick trench
#

Man ... as predicted ! Challenge wasn't over & bots go berserk (yet again ...) ! # PERMA-BAN THEM ALL !

#

🤢 ❗

#

Nice @M.oderators & @Devs too ! ❤️

bitter lily
#

I'm waiting on the thumbs up to my proposal 🤞

#

@steel sky and @mortal cedar - we've updated some settings. If you're still seeing those issues please let us know!

#

oh and @cunning whale

steel sky
#

Only happened 1 time so far at work (wifi). But i still lost a challenge fight. (Already sent a ticket and waiting an answer)

bitter lily
#

I'll do some poking and prodding!

bronze root
#

Mythic Mortagan unruned. L10 Umbu unruned. Nothing weird about that... Unless it is one of those rune bug exploiters who got their runes removed and can't put another one?
*The fact that I'm posting this in bot thread is purely coincidental. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased) is intended or should be inferred.

Screenshot_2023-06-01-22-27-07-300_com.kongregate.mobile.spellstone.google.jpg
limber silo
#

Except for the username in the corner but I do appreciate the effort laughingKong