Combating bots and alts with a verification code

[Sickness]

Bots can auto solve captchas, A verification code would be no different. Play a different game if you don't like evony's current condition. People have been crying for the last 2 years and nothing has changed except a new gamebreaking item and inconsistent/targeted banning.

[Alliendre]

I agree with Sickness

[MegaMandthe2nd]

I'm glad novabomb and sickness already pointed out how a verification code wont work and why. Yes I have seen games which use this but they are mostly games that cant be abused to this extent and they are not real time games. The only way to kill feeders and fix most problems in the game has been said on the forums before, STOP RES MOVEMENT. That will instantly kill feeders lowering the amount of accounts each person will run from 100s each to a handful. it will eliminate hubs stop lag. Stop stupid size armies. No more trebbing, abusing item drops. No more speed hero leveling wasting troops and res everything you do will have to count. Up side the game will be playable and fun relying more on skill and team work than throwing the kitchen sink trying to over power everyone. People can say all they want that taking away the ability to plunder res and keep it is taking away a big part of the game but that is bs since the only time now anyone gets res is if they hit someone offline very few people will sit there get wiped and let you take their res. lets be real most people wont attack an online account unless its tiny. And anyone for a fix but wanting to keep res plundering should understand that no feeders means the person wont have much res to plunder anyway. It will also benefit evonys profits more people will coins more because they cant get the heros they used to as fast with no feeders back to old days of onwaring smaller guys will coin more to since they have a chance pretty much the game will go back to how it was 6 years ago. anyone that says they will quit if this is implemented is part of the problem not the solution so if they are to go then good leave.

[novabomb]

No take colonizing away lol. Honestly who colonizes anything but inactive/alts. Colonize also allows sellers to sell troops. You can have all the res you want, but little good that will do you when you only can make a certain amount of troops a day lol

Keep cap drafts course

[MegaMandthe2nd]

No take colonizing away lol. Honestly who colonizes anything but inactive/alts. Colonize also allows sellers to sell troops. You can have all the res you want, but little good that will do you when you only can make a certain amount of troops a day lol

Keep cap drafts course

I probably should have said for age 1 lol

[Ailuros]

@OP

If evony wanted to stop bots from working, they could. It wouldn't even be difficult for them. While your ideas are admirable, but they're not practical for the most part.

1. Bots for the most part run 24/7 but if you require this verification on re-logging back in they should be stopped cold every 24 hours when you do the maintenance upkeep, and they will have to wait for a manual login by the registered email of the owner of the account.

Have you ever tried to request a forgotten password from evony? Sometimes you get the mail to reset it, sometimes you don't. Ever gotten suspended or banned? Sometimes you get the mail saying why or how long, sometimes you don't. Ever coined? Sometimes you get the mail thanking you for your purchase, sometimes you don't. Their mail service is worse than their servers. Do you want to rely on that to be able to log in? I sure don't.

2. Forcing a verification code to be entered for each account will force players to use a legitimate Email address, something they do not have to do now. This should help control the number of alts a player may want to use/create. (I do not believe it will stop it, but it should cut back on the numbers) and again will stop the auto re-logging in of bot alts.

So you're just gonna basically erase 90% of the current playerbase, legit or otherwise, that don't have valid emails or don't have access to those emails any more? My 1st account I ever made was using my ISP given email address. I moved 800 miles away, that ISP doesn't exist here. If I still had that 7 year old account, you're saying I should lose it because I no longer have access to that email? Do you have any inkling of the sheer number of VALID chargebacks that would cause? I'll give you a hint: enough to shut Evony down.

3. Bots are the main reasons for lag on all the servers, again forcing a verification code will force players to manually login, the purpose of bots is to do the things players simply don’t want waste time doing. They are not going to be happy if they will now need to manually login however many Alt accounts they may be using. This should cut back on that lag.

Anything a player can do manually, a bot can do faster automatically. Keep that in mind.

4. Cutting back on the many Alt accounts, will cut back on the almost unlimited resources players can draw on to build their instant mega armies.

True, but since I don't think the alts will be cut back, this point is moot.

5. Having a verification code is going to slow down on team players sitting on other player’s accounts while those players are offline.

It'll slow you down too, while you're waiting on Evony's mail server to get around to sending. I can just see that scenario now... you're sitting around watching TV and your alliance mate shoots you a skype saying "hey you're under attack!" and you try to log on real quick to save yourself. Oops, no verification code in the inbox. Wait awhile. Try to login again for another code. Wait awhile. Try to login again for another code. Curse at Evony, wait awhile more. Send in a support ticket, ask your buddy how your account is holding up, hear some bad news, curse at Evony some more. Check your spam folder on your mail client a few more times even though you already did. Try to login again for another code. HOORAY! It showed up. Just in time to truce because you already got wiped. But hey, at least you didn't lag while trying to log on

6. A verification code should limit, or scare people from buying accounts as as the one creating the account will still have access to that email account and when the buyer changes their password the registered email holder would be notified, and they could steal back the account.

Many sold accounts already have a real email. People buy from trusted sellers.

[hareth]

I'm glad novabomb and sickness already pointed out how a verification code wont work and why. Yes I have seen games which use this but they are mostly games that cant be abused to this extent and they are not real time games. The only way to kill feeders and fix most problems in the game has been said on the forums before, STOP RES MOVEMENT. That will instantly kill feeders lowering the amount of accounts each person will run from 100s each to a handful. it will eliminate hubs stop lag. Stop stupid size armies. No more trebbing, abusing item drops. No more speed hero leveling wasting troops and res everything you do will have to count. Up side the game will be playable and fun relying more on skill and team work than throwing the kitchen sink trying to over power everyone. People can say all they want that taking away the ability to plunder res and keep it is taking away a big part of the game but that is bs since the only time now anyone gets res is if they hit someone offline very few people will sit there get wiped and let you take their res. lets be real most people wont attack an online account unless its tiny. And anyone for a fix but wanting to keep res plundering should understand that no feeders means the person wont have much res to plunder anyway. It will also benefit evonys profits more people will coins more because they cant get the heros they used to as fast with no feeders back to old days of onwaring smaller guys will coin more to since they have a chance pretty much the game will go back to how it was 6 years ago. anyone that says they will quit if this is implemented is part of the problem not the solution so if they are to go then good leave.

I like your idea of stopping any "player" sending resources to another "player". That would significantly reduce the benefit of having so many alts. As you say, without resources being sent to a dump, plundering dumps would not result in much. I would still allow plundering of all "players" though. Some people may say that a dump city bot can still be set to attack alts but this will take a lot of time to carry out. I have used the word "players" to mean alts as well as genuine real players.

[MegaMandthe2nd]

I like your idea of stopping any "player" sending resources to another "player". That would significantly reduce the benefit of having so many alts. As you say, without resources being sent to a dump, plundering dumps would not result in much. I would still allow plundering of all "players" though. Some people may say that a dump city bot can still be set to attack alts but this will take a lot of time to carry out. I have used the word "players" to mean alts as well as genuine real players.

being able to plunder and keep the res would not stop people from having feeders. People would simply
make a hub of dozens of citys from different accounts have 1 account plunder them all 1 mile from the main account and be farmed by the main account so practically nothing will have changed. The only real way to fix the game is to completely stop res movement.

[hareth]

being able to plunder and keep the res would not stop people from having feeders. People would simply
make a hub of dozens of citys from different accounts have 1 account plunder them all 1 mile from the main account and be farmed by the main account so practically nothing will have changed. The only real way to fix the game is to completely stop res movement.

The problem I see of completely stopping res movement is that attacking becomes very expensive if the resources plundered don't compensate for troop loss. The risk being that the game becomes composed of npc farmers. If there is no plundering and gates are closed, there is no risk to troops at all as long as enough food is in the city - the bot will take care of comforting. However, I see what you mean, and your idea is better than how the game is played at the moment. Perhaps a little tweaking is needed to your idea,

[MegaMandthe2nd]

The problem I see of completely stopping res movement is that attacking becomes very expensive if the resources plundered don't compensate for troop loss. The risk being that the game becomes composed of npc farmers. If there is no plundering and gates are closed, there is no risk to troops at all as long as enough food is in the city - the bot will take care of comforting. However, I see what you mean, and your idea is better than how the game is played at the moment. Perhaps a little tweaking is needed to your idea,

No you're missing the point if you attack someone and they lose the battle they also lose as much res as your troops can carry you just dont get it. if they dont defend they lose res and their troops starve. as for the game becoming composed of npc farmers.... what the actual..... is it composed of now? as far as tweaking goes iv already considered every reasonable possibility ie a new stat "resources plundered" of something completely useless just like prestige but might make the whinging noobs happier. or for the people that say what about helping ally members well i dont think it matters either way but they could possibly set a limit of how much an account can send per day and how much an account can receive ie 1billion of each res total per 24 hours. id rather that not be part of the solution since it would mean every account could have 1 feeder and id rather it be 0 feeders. stopping res movement will fix 90% of the games problems. but there is a few other issues that should be addressed ie no more coin resetting. change the cents system to a 2 tier coin system gold coins (coins paid for with real money) for premium items like broken gates fleet feet ect war ports and silver coins for everything else. that will stop the abuse of alts for items. and heroes should have a % chance to be completely lost if there is an empty spot in the fh of the defending city which wouldnt bother me as I don't lose heroes but would kill people who try to sell heros and stop people from running heroes around alts to pick up items that are meant to be paid for onwars excals ect. all of this might not be a perfect fix but its 99% better than what we have now or have ever had and there is no way around it. as for res plundered to compensate for troop losses lets be real 9 times out of 10 once a city is wiped the person is either online and will truce port or holiday or the bot will truce so you never really get to plunder res anyway and if the game is to be played with out feeders even if you could plunder res there wouldnt be much to plunder anyway.