Guys, let’s charge blizzard to insert an anti bot, like captcha when creating game and leaving the game!
I’m a developer and I know this is a 5 Hour job to do!
You have to pick on them, create topics about it until they get to them, the bots end the game, with the game economy, I see people complaining to nerf the enigma, but it doesn’t have to, because to have a enigma, you need to of a Jah and a Ber and to achieve this in playing it is very difficult.
I remember well in the old days, before 2008, that you could count the amount of enigmas on the server!
Nowadays for the sake of bots, anyone has items, 95% of online players are bots!
Well guys, let’s charge blizzard to create CAPTCHA and the problem is solved!
Captcha works if it’s a newer AI version but the old CAPTCHA systems are all easily cracked.
Anyway short version is that they look at all kinds of behavioral inputs with newer CAPTCHA systems including mouse speed, movement, timings between clicks, resting cursor over things, etc. They build profiles off of humans and bots and use for comparison etc.
For example if you look at your mouse cursor right now, try to move it in a perfect straight line for a while - you can’t, it’ll be off a few pixels here and there. They look at stuff like that and a million other things as you move around.
The more input they have the better which is why older CAPTCHA dialogs on their own aren’t actually great because they don’t gather a ton of input and behavior.
With a game, Blizzard has an absolute massive metric ton of inputs as you play so in a sense the game can be kind of a giant CAPTCHA system on it’s own - CAPTCHA meaning ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’.
They can embed roughly the same CAPTCHA code in the game as you play looking at inputs and behavior, timings, how random it is, human-like, etc. But to not be defeated they need to use machine learning or reinforcement learning AI that adapts and improves as it goes so it doesn’t get defeated.
It’s an arms race but it’s an arms race that ends up being very costly for hackers and I don’t know if hackers are going to go to the trouble of dealing with AI on their side.
Summary is that the newer AI CAPTCHA systems are invisible to the user and are non-invasive but I doubt Blizzard will go to the expense but who knows.
Ah yes, the good old days of public dupe methods a-la bonewall+meteor spam you mean, when every bum had several mules full of hrs, duping contributed to destruction of economy much much more than bots ever could. And there is no point in ruining the game trying to fight them like that.
There are advanced captchas, which are not easy to dribble, I also work in test automation (BOTS) to test applications and use various tools and I guarantee you that there are impossible captchas to dribble!
If you are a little smart, you stop to think, that nowadays, anyone puts bot to run! Game BUG (DUPS, BUGS) it is the duty of blizzard to fix it, even because the value of the game is not cheap
Nothing goes, 30 sec of your life, you will not die, I got tired of seeing the server making me a legitimate player having to wait 1700 seconds to create games! why? because 95% of the players were bots and were creating non-stop games, you have to wake up for life and for what happens with the game!
Mercury? The deal is that academic researchers use CAPTCHA systems as test beds for AI research and often crack them - along with others in IT Sec, the amount of expertise going against CAPTCHAs is very high on the academic side. When they publish, the script kiddies just run with it and there are occasionally decent black hats that just saved a bunch of time and effort by lifting that work into their botnets etc. It’s a multi-million dollar industry on the web side to botnet and put “fake” users, likes, comments what have you all over web sites etc. You can just pay money if you have an insta or FB or google acct or Yelp company or whatever and these botnet services will shower you with likes, new subs, new comments, the whole nine yards and they will bypass CAPTCHAs while doing so etc.
Anyway- google did recaptcha v3 and it was cracked to some extent.
“Indeed, there’s plenty of other ways to crack these systems, Li notes. While this particular attack may be limited, the fact that reCAPTCHA would continue to fall prey to artificial intelligence systems isn’t a surprise. “It is not news that CAPTCHAs are crackable. Recent AI advances have significantly improved success rates of automated attacks,” Li added. “In principle, CAPTCHA as a technology has proved unable to resist advanced attacks.” This particular research may not crack reCAPTCHA v3, but it’s a start.”
Anyway - there two or three other systems that are one-offs all using AI that haven’t been cracked but I don’t know what kind of expertise has been thrown at them.
When I think Captcha i thinking of typing in a word or something when creating a game is that what people mean by applying it to game? Cause if that is the case you can still open game manually then have bot kill all bosses and lvl 85 areas and repeat no?
Yes friend, but with a detail, the player who uses bot, will not sleep and the bot is running games and more games! and yes it will run a single game and it is over, having the player interact with the captcha for the bot to go to the next game!
LOL. I know exactly what I’m talking about, unlike you.
I’m paying for this game. I do not want to solve captcha. If I wanted to solve captcha to play the game I paid for, I would go play a crappy korean grinder MMO instead of D2R.
And it’s called consideration. There are players with various types of disabilities for whom captcha are problematic.
Botting will always be a problem with games unless of course we allow Blizzard and other gaming companies to scan our computer while we’re playing. Of course that won’t happen due to both privacy concerns and a system like that being used to steal information if compromised.
Here’s a thought:
The game requires a webcam so it can see if a human face is present, and also can watch your eye movement. Games will periodically throw a ‘look at me!’ target that blends seamlessly with the game, getting you to look at it just to make sure you’re playing it. If you fail the test so many times in a row, the game throws you into AFK mode.
Silly, I know.
If I have to click on traffic lights, refund. However, as the second post mentions there are incredibly advanced CAPTCHA systems that are invisible to the user.
Edit: To properly combat botting Blizzard will have to take a multi-approach. Many more barriers past an advanced CAPTCHA. Timers won’t do, auto ban on report won’t do. A combination of everything, with server moderation seems to be the only way to properly stop botting, and I’d say that’s still only 95%. I’m happy with that.
Some games have tried that and it just makes cheaters get more inventive and find ways to circumvent the scan, or to make their bot appear as a legitimate program instead.
You’re completely missing the point and don’t know what you’re talking about with the newer tech.
The new AI CAPTCHA systems are not invasive and do not present you with a frontend dialog.
They use AI technology that works behind the scenes to record behavior and compare it to profiles of human and bot behaviors. They use machine learning and reinforcement learning to improve and adapt.
Using a newer system similar to Google’s recaptcha v3 would most likely defeat all current D2 bots easily because none of them use AI.
The issue is that Google’s recaptcha v3 isn’t packaged well for embedded game code - it’s server side with web servers etc.
But there are other similar libs and toolkits - it just depends on what Blizzard is williing to do and how much they are willing to spend etc.
Players would notice literally nothing with these newer systems.
Well I opened the topic to try to open the eyes of the guys and charges on the topic with blizzard!
I have been playing diablo for 22 years and I am well aware of the serious problem that this has generated for each ladder’s useful life.
I recommend people who want an easy RPG, addicted to bots, who are going to play ARPGs(DOTA, LOL and Others) there, you can farm quickly and do everything you want in 30min to 1hour.
