The problem with scripts and what to do about them.

[himarry 124]

Saw a off topic complaint in another thread so thought I would go ahead and make it for them

What should we do about the scripting what's the best way to fix it?

[Clayflower.]

saw this mentioned - but having the pound as more of a "raffle" system is a way to combat the scripts. the pound has a timer to open just like it does now.

a button could appear saying "Adopt from the Pound now!"

no more loading in late, pages not loading, lag, etc.

after clicking the button you're assigned a random pet from the pool.

edit to add: chicken smoothie only has one coder, Nick, and they do not plan on getting anymore coders. these changes would probably not be added for a long time if ever. this was confirmed by other staff members here.

[Anafrix]

it could possibly be a workaround to let the pound give users a pet at random, so it’s be harder for a script to detect a valuable pet?

i’m not knowledgeable with scripts, but i feel like this would help give people who aren’t cheating a better chance at getting something valuable for once

edit: basically what the above reply says!

[himarry 124]

saw this mentioned - but having the pound as more of a "raffle" system is a way to combat the scripts. the pound has a timer to open just like it does now.

a button could appear saying "Adopt from the Pound now!"

no more loading in late, pages not loading, lag, etc.

after clicking the button you're assigned a random pet from the pool.

edit to add: chicken smoothie only has one coder, Nick, and they do not plan on getting anymore coders. these changes would probably not be added for a long time if ever. this was confirmed by other staff members here.

It's a good idea but at the same time what will stop them scripting still to click as soon as it's open

For example if people continued to script and it was a significant issue you would see the pound empty in less then 15 seconds I mean even without scripting so it might cause more issues then it solves. Do you know what I mean? It would more then likely lower the number by a good chunk though

[BlueEyedKite]

My programming partner said the way the pound works has to "fundamentally change."

Randomizing won't help. No longer displaying the pets that are going into the pound would help but is only a bandaid.

At this point. Times have changed and it's clear the pound was not equipped for this level of tampering. I am for discussions surrounding drastic measures.

[Darkcloud!]

The best solution I have seen is someone suggested that a much smaller amount of pets be shown to one person at a time, meaning only that person can see those pets and gets the time to choose from them.

However, the flaws with this idea is that at times like Halloween, there are too many people at the Pound and too few pets to show each person their own set of pets.

The ideas of a random pet are not going to go over well with most of the users because people like to choose from their wishlist or look for pets to trade away.

There are ways to script-proof your website, such as using Content Security Policy (CSP). This however would probably break popular things such as the Chicken Smoothie Assistant or the script that someone posted that shows the value of your pets in C$.

[Anafrix]

saw this mentioned - but having the pound as more of a "raffle" system is a way to combat the scripts. the pound has a timer to open just like it does now.

a button could appear saying "Adopt from the Pound now!"

no more loading in late, pages not loading, lag, etc.

after clicking the button you're assigned a random pet from the pool.

edit to add: chicken smoothie only has one coder, Nick, and they do not plan on getting anymore coders. these changes would probably not be added for a long time if ever. this was confirmed by other staff members here.

It's a good idea but at the same time what will stop them scripting still to click as soon as it's open

For example if people continued to script and it was a significant issue you would see the pound empty in less then 15 seconds I mean even without scripting so it might cause more issues then it solves. Do you know what I mean? It would more then likely lower the number by a good chunk though

good point, maybe everyone can be assigned a random duration for a timer upon visiting the pound page until they can click the button to claim a pound pet, like one person will be given 3 seconds on the timer until they can click the button, another person will be given 7, (can be a random number from 1-10 seconds? doesn’t even have to be this bracket of numbers, just as long as there is a timer in place at random to make things fair)

[stellasaurus]

My programming partner said the way the pound works has to "fundamentally change."

Randomizing won't help. No longer displaying the pets that are going into the pound would help but is only a bandaid.

At this point. Times have changed and it's clear the pound was not equipped for this level of tampering. I am for discussions surrounding drastic measures.

how would randomizing not help? just curious btw
if the pound just had a button to adopt a random pet from the batch, there would be no reason to have scripts and people with slower wifi would still have a chance at getting something good. makes it fair for everyone ^^

[BlueEyedKite]

My partner explained to me. Scrambling will only hurt humans. A person is going to take a beat to locate the most valuable pet on a page. A script will snipe the oldest pet in seconds, regardless of where it is on a page.

They did agree a raffle would cut down on the bot cheating but "it wouldn't be a pound anymore." 🤷‍♀️

[stellasaurus]

My partner explained to me. Scrambling will only hurt humans. A person is going to take a beat to locate the most valuable pet on a page. A script will snipe the oldest pet in seconds, regardless of where it is on a page.

They did agree a raffle would cut down on the bot cheating but "it wouldn't be a pound anymore." 🤷‍♀️

a yeah thats fair! yeah no i agree scrambling wouldnt make it better at all
personally i think the raffle idea is great, it would make it fair for everybody and wouldnt make the pound "a race to get the most valuable pet". i honestly just dont know how to fix the scripting and lag otherwise, its really the only solution i can think of that would make sense