My thoughts on bots and a plea to blanket ban all third party automation and develop the tools inhouse

[Mars]

[Krampus]

30 minutes ago, Mars said:

Granted, this is a cool website. But what's your point? This is not something new nor is it not allowed. Superior web pages (by that I'm mostly referring to BKnet and it's various copy pastes (re: rothschild, camelot) which are still around to this day) have been around since 2017. 

[Mars]

7 minutes ago, Krampus said:

Granted, this is a cool website. But what's your point? This is not something new nor is it not allowed. Superior web pages (by that I'm mostly referring to BKnet and it's various copy pastes (re: rothschild, camelot) which are still around to this day) have been around since 2017. 

i didnt say anything, first time i see anything like it so i figured maybe others find it interesting too and to be honest i meant to post it in the borg locutus thread since its a locutus admin panel screen shot (or at least i think thats what its called)

Edited February 11, 2022 by Mars

[Krampus]

1 minute ago, Mars said:

i didnt say anything, first time i see anything like it so i figured maybe others find it interesting too and to be honest i meant to post it in the borg locutus thread

oh okay. here are more screenshots of it then https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W-_Dhx34hWhy-Vo4CsZgriqKlqPGmXFCTdDgav34Juo/edit?usp=sharing

 

But if possible you should also find a way to get a look at BKnet. It's 2017 version was lightyears ahead of the locutus of today.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Krampus

[namukara]

I quite like them ngl. HoF has two active econ people, but I know how much of a pain it can be if your econ guy is inactive (or rubbish.) Bots make managing your holdings a whole lot easier rather than having to wait 12 hours for your econ guy to perhaps give you some of your own money.

Oh...and kt has used bots. I used bots in kt before, on our server. I think you were in kt at the time.

[Agent W]

20 hours ago, Charles Bolivar said:

Do tS even use bots? Or did they also switch off on the second day of the war? 

But like I said, I'm not advocating for the removal of bots so I'm not sure what your point is?

Sorry old buddy but I just had to have a dig 😂

We use bots, and based on my limited understanding of them, we have some of the finest bots in the game thanks to a good base of coders in our alliance.

I didn't imply you were in favor of removing bots, what I took issue with is the labeling of "overreliance". I think it's smart to use the tools at your disposal, not a weakness or personal failing.

[Joe Schmo]

On 2/9/2022 at 11:02 PM, Mars said:

im not sure what stuff you are referring to?

Maybe not directed at you, but for everyone with reading disability.

Im not saying remove everything bots do, i just said remove third party bots and have one main pnw one thats controlled by the owner of the game, remove bot commands that affect the meta and start adding the positive different quality of life changes bots bring into the actual game on the game website.

Again, there is a huge difference between 'delete bots and everything related' and what i just typed above.

If anything its elegant.

according to these posts, basically all useful parts of bots affect the meta. coincidence? I think not. Besides, I feel like even if there's a central bot someone's still gonna develop bot tools and stuff regardless.

[matt2004]

Banning all bots and all automation would be total overkill.

Placing some limits in the game's terms on what a bot can do, and limiting how often an individual can query the game API (which already happens) is reasonable however.

I agree on what some others have said about recruitment bots being overused. I think one of our most recent joiners got over 30 messages in the space of 10 minutes. The data I've seen from SmartURL for people clicking the links in our messages (as a percentage of messages sent) is very low. In fact the message read rate is low. I think most nations will click Select All -> Delete.

So what could replace mass-message recruitment spam? A combination of player ads and an improved alliance recruitment page ingame, but that page needs A LOT of work to be effective (Something for us to discuss or design as a community maybe and feed back on, I think we can all agree reducing the number of newbies deleting is good for the game)

I do think that bots being able to estimate spy counts is overpowered and should be prevented.

You don't absolutely have to be a coder to play the game or have an entire team of developers to run an alliance. There are some good bots which are open source and completely free for anyone to download. Some can just be invited to your Discord (hosted by others) and others have self-host options (where they run on your own box - ours are running on Oracle Cloud and MS Azure free tiers). Let's be real here, it can give you an advantage to have someone who knows a little about this sort of stuff on your team, but you don't have to start from scratch. The open source bots are great out of the box if you don't need customisability, and honestly once you're at the size where you need specific features adding in to suit your particular use case, the fantastic thing about open source is the building blocks are there for you.

 

From our view in UPN we've had a few tools over the years, including bots in Discord and web-based tools, but we've been less bot reliant than some other AAs. The API is great if you aren't a coder too. Some AAs heavily used Google Sheets back in the day that pulled from the game (I'm a heavy user of Power BI myself) - and tools like Microsoft's PowerAutomate can take in an input, and do something with it without you having to write a single line of code.

I'm against there being a single "official" P&W bot, but I would support if as a community we do have better documentation (that is in plain English) of what bots are, directions to some popular ones that are open source or widely seen as "safe" to use, and better support for getting started.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
TL;DR: Bot's aren't this evil all-automating game destroying issue. Minor limits would be welcome, and as a community we could come up with a quick-start guide for those that choose to use them. You don't have to use bots, but it makes your life a little easier for tedious / repetitive tasks. Plus Open Source = Good.

[matt2004]

On 2/10/2022 at 3:34 AM, Mars said:

taken

Exact quote is 'remove all third party automation and bots' and develop the game and inhouse bots that are not player controlled.

I would like to humbly point out there is a pretty big distinction between the two, since one keeps your quality of life changes, just makes it so they can only be handled by authorized, alex controlled discord bots, or incorporated into the actual website.

Also would you please tell me if you would be against it just because the function you use would now be on the website or alex bot and why?

And is going 'ingame' to play a game an actual inconvenience?

If not, dont you think its important not to misrepresent what i say if youre gonna go through the trouble of typing a response?

It would be near impossible to do this IMHO
- If the API (To oversimplify that's the feature that allows bots to get most of the raw information they need) was removed, there would be some degree of screen-scraping (that is getting information from the game pages directly).

- If screen-scraping was banned, I can almost guarantee that if someone was that determined to cheat to get an unfair advantage, they would find a way to do so.

 

I'm all for the actual website improving (Alliance recruitment for brand new players as the top priority). If there is an official bot developed which does integrate features of a third party bot, even slight changes to functionality can be infuriating. I'd support there being an "Official base-bot" which is open source, well documented and free for players to modify and self-host if they want to, but I'm against removing the functionality for people to tweak something to work the way they want it. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.

I can tell you going ingame can be an inconvenience for a couple of tasks (After all, we all have things IRL that come up, and if I'm at work and something comes up, I'd rather deal with it in 5 minutes than 10). Let's take counter raids as an example, our milcom can manually login X times a day, check the war page, then manually go through nations for a possible counter. That's easy to do on Desktop when you have a few minutes. With a bot they get automatically pinged on their phone a couple of minutes after the raid is started, and the bot could spit out a list of nations in range, and give a percentage of how militerised they are. That's a convenience factor, but it's not game breaking, and Milcom still need to check who is likely to be awake / available for it to make any difference to the raid war itself.

As long as there is some human input required, I don't see an issue (given that there are open source bots available for anyone to pick up), and the fact all of these tasks can be done by people in government who have the time to do so manually. Even with bots being a thing, we in UPN still do a lot of manual work by choice - and use bots for some other things other alliances might not.

 

There are issues with the way things are as they stand, but it would be overkill to turn around and nuke the tools the community have built. Some of the open source ones can be setup for your alliance in minutes (and if you're self-hosting you can tweak them, the foundations are there)

[Agent W]

Back in the old game, you used to have to recruit by hand. There were some really great recruiters back then too. Recruitment is the one area of automation I’d really love to see scaled back.

[Mayor]

16 hours ago, Agent W said:

Back in the old game, you used to have to recruit by hand. There were some really great recruiters back then too. Recruitment is the one area of automation I’d really love to see scaled back.

If your recruiting new, low city players why bother personalizing messages if you don't know people will stay? A template is much easier. Every person I have ever recruited for Rose/HoF/Ob was through directly talking to them since they were established players, and most good alliances have mandatory interviews anyways. Other than the mass spam when you leave an alliance I don't know why people would want automated recruitment reduced.

Anyways regarding the OP I don't see peoples problems with bots. Some alliances have good memes, some have good fighters, some have good tech support. As long as no cheating or shenanigans are going on then why should an alliance not use the tools at their disposal for an advantage like everyone else does.

[Spukey]

On 2/10/2022 at 12:52 PM, Charles Bolivar said:

Sorry, I still remember the days when you were low level gov in TKR learning how to manage effectively so you will always be a young pup to me 😂

Tell us embarrassing stories about Adrienne/Niz as a newb 🥺

BKnet rules!

 

[Charles Bolivar]

1 hour ago, Nukey6 said:

Tell us embarrassing stories about Adrienne/Niz as a newb 🥺

BKnet rules!

 

No.

[katashimon13]

I REMEMBER THE THING I FORGOT TO REPLY TO @Mars@Adrienne@Charles Bolivar

@OttoVonBisbark i totally acknowledged that thing that was said earlier by a certain someone that was deleted ....but this works better than wat i said b4:

(sorry i didnt feel like saving that persons image and cropping it)

rawr

Edited February 13, 2022 by katashimon13
rawr

[Grave]

On 2/9/2022 at 10:29 PM, Mars said:

This is will be even more unpopular then i thought haha, guess people really love bots.

I am wondering though, why does the time and effort that go to making bots not go to making the actual game better. 

And why not have an Alex owned discord bot he can get different people to help with.

 

 

In my opinion,  finding good raid targets doesn't take much skill, just a little bit of common-sense and some patience with the tedious task of checking loot quality.

 

Ultimately I feel the game is designed around needing low time commitment required and this helps with that. 

 

 

That being said I think it's the duty of any alliance using a bot to ensure their members, and alliance as a whole, wouldn't be useless in the event the bot(s) dissappeared

Edited February 15, 2022 by Grave

[Firwof Kromwell]

27 minutes ago, Grave said:

 

 

In my opinion,  finding good raid targets doesn't take much skill, just a little bit of common-sense and some patience with the tedious task of checking loot quality.

 

Ultimately I feel the game is designed around needing low time commitment required and this helps with that. 

 

 

That being said I think it's the duty of any alliance using a bot to ensure their members, and alliance as a whole, wouldn't be useless in the event the bot(s) dissappeared

Quite positive there's a big difference between taking a few seconds to a minute to type n process a bot command versus scrolling in game via one's war range search n city page(s) for several minutes to even up to an hour or so. The difference is the previous just takes shallow knowledge of how to use a bot while the latter actually takes trial and error overtime from evolving (a) skill set(s) from ever developing deeper knowledge n understanding. Both also depend on the type of influences one has around themselves for how they would like to conduct themselves dependent on there gathered thoughts, beliefs, values, interests, and opinions.

[Exar Kun -George]

I was going to make a long post about this but then i remembered this argument has been hashed out over and over again. The fact is bots help alliances run, when alliances run better it helps engage and keep new players. New players = good so that means bots=good

[katashimon13]

18 minutes ago, Azazel said:

I was going to make a long post

dewit

rawr

[Grave]

2 hours ago, Firwof Kromwell said:

Quite positive there's a big difference between taking a few seconds to a minute to type n process a bot command versus scrolling in game via one's war range search n city page(s) for several minutes to even up to an hour or so. The difference is the previous just takes shallow knowledge of how to use a bot while the latter actually takes trial and error overtime from evolving (a) skill set(s) from ever developing deeper knowledge n understanding. Both also depend on the type of influences one has around themselves for how they would like to conduct themselves dependent on there gathered thoughts, beliefs, values, interests, and opinions.

 

 

My point is that the manual search doesn't really require much skill, just a bit of knowledge and a lot of time spent. 

A bot just prevents most of the tedium of process. 

 

Overall just don't see what's so valued about people being able to go through a small checklist of things to determine cost /reward on nations with open slots . 

 

Because that's all the bot really does while presenting it in an easy to read format.

And let me be clear that I'm specifically referencing the lack of difficulty in finding a highly profitable target . If you are raiding for anything other then profit then i see no reason why you'd care about people using them for profit. 

[Yosodog]

I can't be bothered to read the whole thread but I'll give my opinion on it. BK Net was launched in early 2015, before the API was even a thing. It managed city grants, loans, entrance grants, and an member to alliance market. It has since been expanded to do... pretty much everything. We had a recruitment bot years before anyone else even thought of it. In BK, all of our tech is proprietary and built in-house by myself and a few other talented developers. We have a development group (which is underutilized) and encourage our members to learn programming to continue to build tools. We make an attempt to foster skill growth within our programming community. However, we do not automate certain things. We do not give automated recommended builds or automated recommended war paths (we have sims though). I personally feel like relying on a bot too much does not allow your individual members to be competent on their own. But that is the choice your alliance has to make.

That being said, the barrier to entry to create automation tools is extremely low. Back in 2015, it was next to impossible to create tools that do what they do today because there was no API. With the improvements to v1 API, the limited scope of v2 API, and especially with v3 API, it is super easy to watch a few videos on YouTube and build yourself a bot and learn a valuable skill in real life. Shit, I basically learned web programming due to BK Net. Additionally, as mentioned above, there are plenty of open source or free-to-use bots and tools out there. You don't even have to learn how to code. Pull Loctutus in your sever and have at it. Personally, I don't like using foreign bots but that's a decision your alliance has to make.

Bottom line, banning bots is stupid. I think the rules surrounding automation is sufficient. Additionally, the barrier to entry to pull bots into your sever or consume the API is pretty low and will only get easier as they improve the v3 API. The skill gap has changed. Adapt or lose. 

[Firwof Kromwell]

On 2/15/2022 at 7:31 AM, Grave said:

 

 

My point is that the manual search doesn't really require much skill, just a bit of knowledge and a lot of time spent. 

A bot just prevents most of the tedium of process. 

 

Overall just don't see what's so valued about people being able to go through a small checklist of things to determine cost /reward on nations with open slots . 

 

Because that's all the bot really does while presenting it in an easy to read format.

And let me be clear that I'm specifically referencing the lack of difficulty in finding a highly profitable target . If you are raiding for anything other then profit then i see no reason why you'd care about people using them for profit. 

All is understood althou...

Time + Effort + Good Influence = Skill(s) Increase via Experience = Applicable Knowledge for Further Development/Use                                                                                                                            

            ^                                                                                                                                          /

              \----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

Its a cycle of learning, understanding, & applying. Again, it still takes a lot less effort to enter in a few memorized commands w/in a few minutes, even seconds, to get what one usually is lookin for in up to a minute of time. The other hand actually requires one to mentally remember that supposed checklist you mentioned as well more awareness to apply how n why for what should be applied based on a gathered mental data base from experience & influence (Thus repeat). Its like using a nail gun, circular saw, level, tape measure, carpenters square, & pencil vs a hammer, crosscut saw, tape measure, carpenters square, & pencil to build a dog house. The nail gun selection may be able to put a nail n cut faster, & measure more accurately w/ the construction tools given. But over time w/ great effort & influence given, knowledge from experience n influence will ending up teaching one how to build much better even faster w/o the use of more clunky equipment. 

Edited February 17, 2022 by Firwof Kromwell
meep meep

[startube]

On 2/10/2022 at 6:58 PM, katashimon13 said:

how about open source public bots would that be a good compromise???
i have been informed these would have to be hosted by admin for this to matter

I would love to work on something like this personally. Sadly the PnW botting community is someone against collaboration unless it's inside an alliance or occasionally bloc.

[startube]

On 2/10/2022 at 11:59 PM, Mars said:

What i would like to point out though is there seems to be a consensus on changing things at least a bit, and it seems something like an open source bot  or a bot overseen by alex seems to be common ground and a good place to start.

Not sure about it being overseen by Alex... Maybe as a dispute resolution measure but in general Alex is rather distant from the botting community so I would hope that we could manage an open source bot almost completely without him.

On 2/11/2022 at 1:23 AM, Sweeeeet Ronny D said:

Bots that calculate spy odds to determine how many spies you have should be banned.  Totally defeats the purpose of the spy game. 

100% agree... the spy attack interface needs to present partially randomised information or none at all. it is simply a sad reality that if you give a "likelihood scale" on the page then scripters will figure out how to abuse it.

[startube]

On 2/11/2022 at 4:52 AM, Mars said:

Name me one ingame activity right now that knowledge and time investment cant be matched or surpassed by a bot command in discord.

Baseball. If you want the money you have to grind the ball.

[startube]

On 2/11/2022 at 7:19 AM, Mars said:

 

my idea is that instead of having your experience depend more on your access to tools and less on your actions ingame, to flip that on its head and i honestly feel thats common sense.

There are always going to be hermits that don't engage with the community and community made third party software but I 100% agree that the tools available should be equally accessible for all, though the knowledge of how to use those tools is going to vary.