bugs

I've been seeing this message more frequently. The image isn't from bots, but it is the same one that shows up here.

https://imgur.com/a/tGA1a

Thanks for the heads up, I got an email about this too. I'll be changing out the captcha in the coming weeks.

so the message is changing Ender now this is what we get https://i.imgur.com/oVsDs7t.png

Thanks for the heads up. I assume it still lets you pass the captcha eventually?

I'd spent some time researching replacements. For better or worse (good for the Internet, bad for the game), there actually doesn't seem to be a very good replacement available that satisfies the game's use case. funcaptcha.com looks perfect, but it's not free. I'm a little afraid of rolling my own captcha...

Ideas welcome. :)

2 small ideas that don't involve a new captcha:

1) Remove the captcha altogether. I know it's an anti-cheating thing, but it's more of an inconvenience rather than a stoppage I think.

2) Add that math question code you have on the bot creation page. That would work well but it'd be fairly easy to make a script for that too I believe, so who knows. Maybe combine it with a randomizer that adds other questions like multiple choice questions, english questions, etc., who knows.

As for free captchas, I don't know of many for games. This one comes to mind but don't ask me how it works :P I'd just look through captcha.com and find something.

Remove the captcha altogether. I know it's an anti-cheating thing, but it's more of an inconvenience rather than a stoppage I think.

Precisely. Never in the history of bots has a captcha stoped anyone from auto clicking.

And never had anyone ever been punished for “idling on captcha†- the whole point of using a captcha system to begin with.

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/267214/images-with-street-signs-captcha-impossible-to-solve

something like this maybe?

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. Responses inline:

Remove the captcha altogether. I know it's an anti-cheating thing, but it's more of an inconvenience rather than a stoppage I think.

I kind of like this idea. It's actually long been my intention to do this eventually, once anti-cheating/detection mechanisms are strong enough for me to be comfortable with this approach. It's kind of an annoying player experience to have to fill these out every ~15 minutes.

Precisely. Never in the history of bots has a captcha stoped anyone from auto clicking.

I don't really agree with this. I think it's certainly raised the level of difficulty. "Captcha hasn't made auto-clicking impossible" would be a fair statement, but I don't think it's fair to say it's a completely useless prevention mechanism. There have been players that have literally paid people in poor countries to solve captchas for them.

And never had anyone ever been punished for “idling on captcha†- the whole point of using a captcha system to begin with.

Also disagree. There have been players that have been reported as suspicious due to constantly idling on captcha, which were then later proven to have been cheating.

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/267214/images-with-street-signs-captcha-impossible-to-solve

This looks like the new Google captcha. My understanding is that it's only available as a fallback if it decides it doesn't have enough of a signal from you clicking the "I'm not a robot" checkbox. I'm unfortunately not aware of a way to force it into the "I'm going to test you further with these street signs" mode.

I don't really agree with this. I think it's certainly raised the level of difficulty. "Captcha hasn't made auto-clicking impossible" would be a fair statement, but I don't think it's fair to say it's a completely useless prevention mechanism. There have been players that have literally paid people in poor countries to solve captchas for them.

Made it difficult? How? Ville cheated for years and got around your Captcha? Tintin cheated, Skipper cheated, everyone cheated in the bots2 day. The captcha does nothing to stop cheaters other than make them have to check their computer every 15 minutes.

And as far as idling on captcha.. can you give ONE example from bots4 when you have punished a player for such? I've seen multiple threads about how Lyrad idled on captcha all the time (for hours) and you did nothing.. a ton of players have actually.

It would make sense just to get rid of captcha and actually figure out a way to tell if a user has a script running.. captcha's have stopped nothing.

Certain clans cheated in Bots2 for sure, but not everyone.

The captcha does nothing to stop cheaters other than make them have to check their computer every 15 minutes.

That's pretty big in itself.

I've personally reported people that idled on captcha suspiciously (though this is not always reliable) and seen action taken. Captcha doesn't do much, but it does do something, so I don't see the point removing it without a replacement system.

Dyna I can 100% say none of rapture ever cheated lol

Yea it's abit harsh saying everybody cheated I don't believe one bit that rose or ender cheated.

Alternate idea: make the captcha a copy-pasta multiple choice driver's test so that everyone who plays this game will have to learn road safety xD

But yeah, nothing concrete yet. At this point though the captcha has about as much use as a input field where the answer is always V1 Unsupported lol.

@New Horizons - I still disagree with your claim that captchas are 100% useless. Your argument is that because there are examples of players that have gotten past captcha, that it is useless. I don't think this is sound reasoning. I also never claimed that idling on captcha is a bannable offense. It's a signal and that's it.

All that said, I don't think we need to debate this further. I'm already in favor of the idea of removing captcha, just not for the reasons you state. It's a crap player experience to have to fill these out. And as Fishwick mentioned, it's important that there be other mitigations in place.

Is this getting fixed anytime soon? It's starting to fuck me off big time it's bad enough that I play off a mobile.. but to refresh the cunt 15 times and work on the 16th is getting beyond the joke!

Yes, it seems like the number of refreshes required to get out of the message is increasing. There's still about 3 weeks till it actually happens, but I agree, it's getting quite annoying.

:(

Not sure if it's the same way on mobile, but you can literally type anything when that message comes up. No refreshing needed :)

Everyone whinging over having to type a few darn words.

Bit strange, if you're able to complain about it and type out a bloody paragraph then I'm sure you are competent enough to type 2 fucking words. Fuuuck. :')

Huh my problem is actually solved! I had no idea you could type v1 support and it actually works.. I just always refreshed it until a normal capcha came up. My bad :P

i just type v

Me too now bro haha cheers :P

I've gone ahead and disabled all captchas in the game...for now. See the announcement post for more details.