Ban statistics August 2015 and discussion

[Lobster]

Average player numbers, Apr 2015,
EOC: 32,751
OSRS: 35,236
Total: 67,987

Source: http://www.misplaceditems.com/rs_too...=month&total=1



Source: http://services.runescape.com/m=foru...5,342,65673761

Interesting statistics given from the Runescape team. I thought the ban numbers were very high, so I compared them to player numbers over the same month. Now since I can't really get "unique" player numbers, I think the average per day over the entire month should be close enough.

On average there is almost one bot to every legit player in EOC and two bots for every legit player in OSRC. Now this is really, really inaccurate, but I think this will correlate pretty strongly with player experiences.

Now as this doesn't seem to negatively impact player numbers (infact, player numbers have risen from 49,227 same time last year to 67,987 this year) seems to suggest that a majority of these banned bots are simply recreated and re-banned in a cycle, as banning upward of 100,000 bots a month without a blip in the graph means they must be being replenished somehow. It would be great if there was a way to see free to play numbers vs members...

The good news for us is, since we are such a small community with nowhere near the member levels required (as of this post we have 938 active members (does this include guests?)) Even if we all had 10 bots running simultaneously (which considering our ban rate from the forums is unlikely) we would still be only 10% of the botting traffic of runescape, a huge minority. As it's been established Jagex can already detect simba, but from the evidence they have much larger fish to worry about then us. Also since usually we edit scripts/recreate them when they get banned, they can't update their botwatch systems regularly enough to catch them.

tl;dr You are more then twice as likely to be banned botting on OSRC as manual bans are the only reliable way to catch us as we're too small a community as a whole to dedicate and develop anti-ban systems against us.

We almost always apply a permanent ban when we find someone who's cheating, but on rare occasions, depending on a number of circumstances, we'll instead opt to issue a temporary ban with trade & game restrictions to act as a very firm warning, as well as removing anything gained through cheating. These are extremely rare cases though, and the main message is: cheating won't go unpunished!

[iAmaGz]

Pretty interesting statistics. Most of those rs3 bots are most likely green drag bots and other gold farming bots that are obvious.. I still feel pretty safe botting my main considering I do it safely and make sure I play the game normal just as much as I bot.

[Lobster]

Just a quick follow up:



As we see here, there was an estimated increase of 5% in the number of bans in RS3 and a decrease of 25% in the number of bans in OSRC in September.

Not sure if it really means anything, but numbers are fun.

[Lobster]

A crazy 38% increase in bans in osrs in the last month, with a decrease of 42% in rs3. Only 25% of all bans last month came from rs3.

I'll probably just keep updating this thread when I remember, it'll be nice to make a large graph once we have more data and it'll be handy to have them all in one place.

Sauce

[kiwikiwi]

Thanks for the graphics. Could you explain what you mean that they can detect Simba?

[Lobster]

Jagex knows what browser/client people log onto their game with, it's how they ban powerbot users so quickly. The fact that it hasn't happened with us yet suggests they don't particularly mind.

[Roman]

Jagex knows what browser/client people log onto their game with, it's how they ban powerbot users so quickly. The fact that it hasn't happened with us yet suggests they don't particularly mind.

It makes sense. Compared to PowerBan and EpicFail users, we who use SMART are only a tiny fraction of the macro population, as you said. Figuratively speaking, Mod Mark has bigger fish to fry than a small community like this. Also, the fact that Simba can run in the RS3 client means that those of us who like to do that with mains / accounts we care about are even more hidden from the macro detection systems. I have yet to be banned using Simba at all, either on a SMART client or using the RS3 client itself. I suppose that practicing "safe" botting and being a part of this small, nice community add up to mean that Simba users get lower ban rates.

[kiwikiwi]

Yeah I never really took much notice of safe botting until I spammed six clients with the same IP address.

[Roman]

Yeah I never really took much notice of safe botting until I spammed six clients with the same IP address.

SIX CLIENTS ONE IP? That was ballsy man. Did you get a ban for that? And was it a VPN IP? I believe (not entirely sure...) that Jagex' botwatch takes more notice of clients on more "public" IPs like those of a VPN server, especially a public/free VPN. You're probably better off botting on your own IP if you want to avoid bans, although an IP ban for your home address would be rather obnoxious for when / if you want to legit.

And let me just say thanks again to Lobster for the graphs! I wish we knew more about the IP / account status (member or not) of accounts so that we could see better what their automated systems are picking up. Then again if they released that, it would make our job easier, eh?

As a side note, for fun, I've been making a small little anti-ban script does a variety of things to make a script seem a little more human. Is there any interest on a release for this? It's very basic but should get the job done for those who want a little anti ban without having to write one.

EDIT: I went ahead and posted it anyway in the "First Scripts" section Feel free to take a look!

[kiwikiwi]

It was not a VPN haha, just me pushing Jagex to their limits, but they also banned a lot of my VPS servers on the same day. All good though - live and learn Just makes me spam more bots though, so I can see how the problem can quickly escalate.

[meep152]

A couple of days ago, Jagex released the Ban statistics for November 2015, and honestly I'm shocked at the increase in bans in RS3... I personally find it more and more difficult to bot in RS3 - with 3 bans in November, whereas previously I could run scripts for 4+ hours per day without being banned.

The new data

Permanent Ban RS Main: 73850
Temporary Ban RS Main: 2787
Permanent Ban OSRS: 90654
Temporary Ban OSRS: 7732
Permanent Ban DarkScape: 12456
Temporary Ban DarkScape: 366


(http://services.runescape.com/m=foru...5,849,65714980)

If I remember correctly, Jagex recently hired a mod to manually ban bots on RS3 (the equivalent of Mod Weath on OSRS) - I think this mod is Mod Tyran, but don't quote me on that. Maybe that explains the large jump in bans. Or maybe this is just another "ban wave" - we can never know for sure.

Anyway, my point is to bot responsibility, as it seems to be increasingly more risky to macro on RS3.
Stay safe!

[Citrus]

Wow, that's a major increase. I can't even play RS3 anymore because of the bans. Darkscape has been good so far though.

[Lobster]

Huge amount of RS3 bans! In line with community sentiment however, as lots of other botting sites also had a high amount of bans. Might have to lay low for awhile and see how the next few months go for botting.

[anth_]

Might as well move over to OSRS guys

Doing alright in OSRS, Only had 2 accounts out of 12 banned in the past 6 months (a number of them have 99s)

[Blak Fishy]

Would be nice to see banrate in deadman mode too, but I guess those are in with osrs.

[Lobster]

Annoying Runescape doesn't really save a backlog of these. Anyway, I've been away for awhile so here are the stats for February and March:


Permanent Ban RS Main: 125,242
Temporary Ban RS Main: 4,129
Permanent Ban OSRS: 138,533
Temporary Ban OSRS: 6,161

Total: 274,065


Permanent Ban RS Main: 177,426
Temporary Ban RS Main: 4,290
Permanent Ban OSRS: 168,647
Temporary Ban OSRS: 6,256

Total: 356,619

Whatever's happened within the last few months, the number of bans has skyrocketed compared to August last year. Shame they don't have December and January's on the site anymore, if I have time I might dig around for them in the future.

[Clarity]

Wouldn't really worry about this. If you bot intelligently, nothing happens to you.

I would also love to know the criteria for classifying an account as a "main." I seriously doubt they are banning close to 180,000 accounts a month that approach 2000+ total. This would be financial suicide.

[meep152]

I think they mean the "main" RS, as in Runescape 3 - not necessarily that they are banning accounts with a "main" build.

[Lobster]

I think they mean the "main" RS, as in Runescape 3 - not necessarily that they are banning accounts with a "main" build.

Yeah this, main = RS3 internally.

[Clarity]

Yeah this, main = RS3 internally.

Oh, duh. Misread the chart. Thanks!

[Okea]

That's a serious amount of account banned...

[3zx]

Now I'm starting to wonder if they'll ever ban me



Stats for april 2016 btw

Permanent Ban RS Main: 109,898
Temporary Ban RS Main: 5,326
Permanent Ban OSRS: 164,624
Temporary Ban OSRS: 2,328

Total: 282,176

[Okea]

Now I'm starting to wonder if they'll ever ban me



Stats for april 2016 btw

Permanent Ban RS Main: 109,898
Temporary Ban RS Main: 5,326
Permanent Ban OSRS: 164,624
Temporary Ban OSRS: 2,328

Total: 282,176

That's a hell of a lot of accounts banned. I wonder how many of those are farming bots.