User talk:Johnsonic

Move to botwatch

I hope it was ok that I moved your post from Talk:Bot to Gaile Gray's Botwatch page. Gaile is known to read the latter page (but I don't expect that any ANet staffers read the former). Please revert if you think it was inappropriate (or let me know here...and I can revert). — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 00:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

good call, had no idea there even WAS that page, tyvm.

Cool. I am hoping that reports like yours will help. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 02:07, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm cautiously optimistic (because I've reported at least a dozen of those names repeatedly over the last month or so), but regardless of the outcome, thank you for making the effort. I'm half-hoping that they're waiting to ban them all at once, though I do wish they'd do something sooner, rather than later. -- FreedomBound 12:36, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I'm not holding my breath, but I at least want to track bot metas and names. If nothing else so that people can quickly dispatch them or sidestep them completely with minimal effort.Johnsonic 05:53, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

D'OH! Gaile updated the page. Basically it is a cease and desist order on naming names. I guess I need to name the builds the bots are using and post numbers at this point. I'm gonna need a huge calculator. Seemed like naming names was more efficient, offered more playtime, and heaven forbid... logical.Johnsonic 05:53, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry to see this isn't as easy as you had hoped.

I guess that ANet is afraid that someone will get accused and/or banned...and turn out to be lagging rather than botting...and they want to avoid the distraction of such issues. I also guess that Gaile meant the page to report locations and times (rather than accounts).

Did you use the ask a question tool to report the same stuff that you posted on the botwatch page? I couldn't tell from the response you quoted whether Support was saying that they would (or would not) investigate specific accounts based on such reports. If they do, you could create a spreadsheet with columns for location, time, suspected bot, skills seen...and then 1x/week or 1x/month, create a new ticket with the tab or comma delimited data. That would allow you to continue to be diligent without taking so much of your time. (Mostly just copy/paste instead of lots of wiki editing.)

Also: the thing that Gaile would probably act upon is if you could narrow down the timing, e.g. if 6-7 pm Pacific has 10x as many bots as 1-2 pm, that would help ANet in deploying their limited resources. (Not sure if you have that data, tho.)

In any case, I appreciate that you are continuing your efforts despite this (I hope) minor setback in information transfer protocols. Thanks. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 06:11, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, at least we know that someone in support knows about the reports (otherwise they wouldn't have been able to complain about the names being present). Unfortunately, it still seems that they're doing nothing about it. Anyway, to answer your last question, TEF, it's hard to tell, because you don't always get the same players on your team, and the number of players (actual players) fluctuates over time as well. So, you might have the same number of bots over time, but they could be a lower percentage of the total, which, from a single player's perspective, would seem like fewer bots. You'd have to have a larger collection size (more players tracking the statistics), given the random and transient nature of Jade Quarry. Kind of like what the report system is supposed to be.... -- FreedomBound 12:56, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Basically, I have no credibility with these people, what they have said is tantamount to that. AB weekend, there were so many bots, the humans congregated to the lux side since it had fewer bots. Even then, teams consisted of minimum 4 bots each side. Cataloging by name made this painfully apparent. The last JQ day a few days ago, was no different. Kurz side consistently had more bots, minimum 4 (my games at least) and as high as 6. One game, I come in to see my side (lux) has 2 bots and I point them out. People start resigning. I tell them "No! kurz side has 6 known (to me) bots." I tell people to avoid the middle, since our bots will keep theirs busy. After we cap EVERYTHING, I tell people to gather @ kurz green and purple spawn points so we are the first thing the bots target from inside their base. The ones that didn't consistently go out the green portal, used no portals and did the standard bot practice of running at the first thing targeted from spawn in base. They came single file to the corner of purple and attacked from inside their base. They'd all pile up on the closest target and stand on top of each other to make aoe'ing them easy... even standing in wells of suffering and silence. It was entirely predictable and sad. There is no possible way those were humans... unless they had no short term memory at all nor any ability to learn from mistakes. I do JQ on average 8-10 hours a day. I've earned both kurz and lux max titles exclusively in JQ. I've done this for years. But I guess I don't know what I'm talking about and don't learn from my mistakes to make adjustments. To Anet, I'm a bot. I did what I could by MY standards to "draw attention" to the issue. But apparently I should have just said "there are bots in JQ" with colored text... according to a few of the users standards here. I have concluded there is a significant "standards gap". I will stick to mine and by that means, I can't really conclude my critics actually have any of their own, other than reactionary quips.Johnsonic 02:42, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Johnsonic 02:42, 3 August 2011 (UTC)