Anti-Bot Features: Community Feedback
[Update] — Scroll down to read about the community feedback we got since posting the article and survey
Over the past few weeks, many players have shared their thoughts on adjusting the configuration of several anti-bot measures in Alien Worlds. We’d like to summarize the discussion so far and present a proposal that reflects the middle ground of the community’s feedback.
(This article is only about small adaptions to existing measures. Which can be accomplished e.g. by changing a configuration and do not require development of new features from Alien Worlds.)
Rank Gated Tools:
One of the key points raised is that it’s currently too easy for players to reach higher ranks and use high-rarity tools. At present, it only takes about 4 hours of mining to unlock rare tools and around 12 hours to use epic tools, which doesn’t do much to prevent bots from reaching these levels before being detected. Based on community feedback, the following adjustments seem to be about the middle ground to address this:
Abundant: No change
Common: No change
Rare: Moved from rank 3 to rank 6
Epic: Moved from rank 4 to rank 7
Legendary: Moved from rank 5 to rank 8
Mythical: Moved from rank 6 to rank 8
Since some players with high-rarity tools may not be able to mine with them for quite some time if the changes are implemented all at once, it might make sense to introduce these changes in at least two steps to avoid leaving too many miners unable to use their current tools.
Rarity Pools
These updated Rank Gate levels, combined with ongoing flagging efforts, should make it harder for bots to access the Rare pools and higher. Currently, 40% of all mined Trilium (Abundant + Common) isn’t affected by Ranked Tool Gating, as these tools can be used instantly with fresh accounts. Based on your feedback, we’ve concluded that the community wants more of this Trilium moved to higher rarity pools.
Here’s what the about average proposed distribution looks like so far:
Abundant: 5% -> 4%
Common: 35% -> 15%
Rare: 21.5% -> 27%
Epic: 18% -> 24.5%
Legendary: 10% -> 14.5%
Mythical: 10.5% -> 15%
The Abundant Pool serves as a tutorial mode. It’s not necessary for players to earn a lot here, but it allows them to get a feel for the game and participate in Community Events like Treasure Hunts to gain additional TLM by actively engaging.
The Common Pool is where things start to get serious. Players can now earn shards, experience, and more Trilium compared to the Abundant pool. With these resources, they can set themselves on the path to reach higher rarity pools and acquire better tools from the outpost by spending their shards. Since most of the value that players extract with common tools comes from the shards they gain, the adjustment should not significantly impact the actual value earned per mine with common tools.
Rare and higher is where the TLM really starts to flow. Under the proposed changes, 81% of all mining TLM would be distributed here, up from just 60%. This allows the community and Dacoco to focus on keeping these pools as clean as possible, ensuring that real players benefit the most and attracting more genuine players to Alien Worlds.
Additionally, some players have previously suggested increasing the Epic pool, as it sometimes felt less rewarding than the Rare pool. While the Rank Gating adjustment could already influence this, the proposed changes to the rarity pools also address that concern.
Mining Rewards Claim-Cooldown
Another point of discussion has been the Mining Reward Cooldown, which currently stands at 3 days. Many players suggested extending this cooldown to anywhere from 7 days to a month, while the majority seems to agree on 14 days. It could make sense to adjust this in multiple steps.
Next Steps
Please remember that this is just an initial summary from a few days of discussion. We’re eager to gather as much feedback as possible before formulating a concrete change request to Dacoco. We plan to pass this request through as many planetary DAOs as possible to give it an official character and make it public. Let’s take some time until August 24th to gather more feedback. We’ll update this article based on the input we receive and then add another 7-day period for everyone to comment on the updates.
To share your thoughts, please post in the #general chat on the Alien Worlds Discord or fill out the survey linked below. Once again, thank you all so much for your participation, and a special thanks to those actively working to keep the pools clean.
Update: Reflecting on the additional community feedback we received during the past week
Over the past week, we’ve gotten plenty of extra feedback on the proposed changes to Alien Worlds’ anti-bot measures. Both by survey, as well as through the AW Discord and Telegram channels.
So the following ideas are based on what the community has shared with us, and we’re still open to hearing more thoughts from everyone. This isn’t being based on any single group. Everyone’s input is important and valued.
As you might expect, we got a wide range of responses, and also received some ideas on how mining or bot detection and flagging could be improved by additional features. However, this article is focused on quick wins in anti-bot measures that would not require new development. We definitely encourage everyone to push for the changes they want to see, but our time is too limited to go for those as well. However, it would be awesome if someone would start summarizing those community’s development requests, prioritizing them and adding more details before sending them to the Alien Worlds Team for discussions.
Update: Rank Gating
Many players agreed with the suggested numbers, but there were also those who felt the values might be too strict and could potentially scare off new players. While seasoned veterans, who have already reached a high rank, are more likely to push for higher requirements. A possible solution could be to update the Rank Gating in multiple steps and then monitor whether the next step is even necessary once the first is live. This approach would also give those who already have high-rarity tools a chance to rank up to the required level before an even stricter ruleset kicks in.
Level 6 can be reached in about four days by mining 24/7 with three Certified Kol Diggers, so a real player could probably get to Rank 6 in about a week of heavy playing. This would give the Yeomen Team four days to spot and flag any potential black sheep before they even reach high rarity pools.
Update: Rarity Pools
The suggested values for the rarity pools nearly got unanimous approval. Almost! It’s only fair to mention that there were some differing opinions. A few players thought the rare pool should get more, while others felt it should get less than what was suggested. However, the decision to give the epic pool the biggest boost, with an additional 30,500 TLM output per day, seems to be popular.
One player expressed concern about the common pool getting a lot less than before. As we’ve mentioned, miners in the common pool mostly get their value from the shards they mine, thanks to the high number of automated miners there. Shards aren’t impacted by the number of bots in the pool, unlike the TLM income. Even with a setup that’s more focused on TLM than shards (like 3x Gasrigged Extractor), the value of shards easily outweighs the TLM by at least 20:1. So, reducing the TLM by 60% would only lower the overall value a common pool miner extracts per mine by about 2% or even less if the setup is already more focused on Shards.
Dropping the common pool’s share from 35% to 15% wouldn’t significantly affect individual miners. However, it would have a huge impact on someone running thousands or even tens of thousands of wallets just to extract TLM.
Update: Reward Claim Cooldown
Feedback on this topic was pretty mixed. While the most common suggestion during the initial feedback was 14 days, we’ve now seen a lot of players who think the cooldown shouldn’t be increased beyond the current 3 days, or not at least not by much. Some players noted that the effectiveness of a longer cooldown depends on how quickly Dacoco can flag bots.
Many players also supported a 7-day cooldown, and 14 days came up frequently as well. Going beyond 14 days was mentioned only a few times. As for Rank Gating, it seems like a reasonable to start with a smaller step, most likely to 7 days, to give people time to adjust, look out for potential side effects and gather data on whether another step is still needed.
Update: Other feedback
The received feedback also included some from some bot networks themselves who seem to have joined Discord just to get their voice out there as well. Not surprisingly, they’re not on board with all of the community’s proposed changes. The criticized measures were different depending on the scope of the specific bot network, changes not affecting their specific network were appreciated. Overall, their main concern is that without bots, the number of daily active wallets could drop significantly, which has been a strong marketing point for Alien Worlds. They are even suggesting Alien Worlds should just allow botting.
They also raised concerns that NFTs might lose value and AW might become less interesting for new players to join. While we see a point in bots selling NFTs if they couldn’t use them anymore… in our view this could potentially attract new real players who seize the opportunity to enjoy cheaper tools in greater pools. In turn, this could lead to new players actively participating in the community and enriching the Alien Worlds Metaverse.
To summarize, the feedback by bot networks was that they see the measures as effective and they would earn less if they would be implemented.
Update: Conclusion and Outlook
It looks like the community is on the right track if bots are already getting worried about these changes. So the request towards the Alien Worlds team is to do the Rarity Pool change as written. But for Rank Gating and Claim timer go for a smaller adaption than initially suggested to allow for some further analysis of the effects.
However, these updates will only work as long as bots are consistently flagged. So, a big thanks to everyone who’s been putting in the effort to detect and report bots to Dacoco. And while these measure suggest to work to some degree, the long-term success will depend on a better flagging process that quite likely the community, as the main beneficiary of such improvements, will have to come up with.
We’ll keep the survey open for another 7 days, but you can also always share your thoughts on this topic in the official Alien Worlds channels.
