Future of OSBot - candid feedback from a longtime user

[Nifty]

Let me start off by saying OSBot has been my favorite bot client since starting with kbot and rsbots.net in 2010/2011.

I appreciate greatly the immense amount of effort that Patrick, Maxi, Zach, and all of the other devs put into keeping things running through countless updates, game changes, and curveballs that Jagex has thrown your way.

I've bought scripts from Token, Khal, Project, Czar, and Explv - who I know are all dedicated to providing quality scripts using OSBot's API. I don't expect OSBot 3.0 in its entirety to be released as described; quite frankly I don't think the majority of the community needs some of the features advertised. The point of this post is to ask you (staff, devs, etc.) to prioritize the features that will actually make OSBot competitive in the bot client market and motivate us to continue to use this platform to bot instead of the more recent options we have available.

AI is not needed and I'd argue it's counterproductive to introduce such a complex option for most botting. There are many more fundamental issues that OSBot's community experiences that, if fixed, would revitalize the enthusiasm around the client.

If I wrote this four months ago, I would've called out mirror mode CLI launching as something that OSBot lacks, but I want to recognize that this feature is truly appreciated. For the longest time, mirror mode has been an incredible aspect to OSBot that I believe has made a big impact in the success of my own botting and has made me not ever regret the money I spent on lifetime sponsor. OSBot does a lot of things that are very customer friendly such as no limit on instances and lifetime script authorizations. I feel there is a significant gap between the OSBot devs and their users, and what I want most is for OSBot to actually engage their community and take feedback on the most pressing issues with the client.

Below is a list of things I've noticed in the past 3+ years I've used OSBot, and I encourage anyone else to actually post candid feedback on what needs improvement. Please avoid talking about individual scripts made using the API.

- Mirror mode memory leak (assumed to be WebWalker-related); server-sided WebWalker would be incredible
- Mirror mode onMessage errors
- Lack of Runelite support
- Recently, mirror mode has clearly been a source of issues despite being the paid option

Finally wanted to call out the general lack of transparency. Don't want to speak for everyone, but I think a lot of us are understanding. Obviously botting is not a full time job for me, and I'd bet that that's the case for most of the OSBot devs. If there are legitimate issues that pop up during development, that's not something I'd hold against anyone. I think a lot of the community would appreciate candid updates even if it's just a subset of users. The radio silence we've seen since October 2020 with the OSbot 3.0 announcement just leaves us all in the dark and it's difficult to continue to stay faithful to this community without more updates.

[Zackaery]

Totally agree with the statements made here...

I've been a longtime OSBot user, and my time here has been nothing more than successful. Despite all of the success, I've grown to be despondent due to the lackluster updates to the long awaited 3.0. 

Patrick, you've been knocking out many updates, and from the outside looking in, it seems, you're the only one developing this whole client, which is sad to see. A community that once had hundreds of active users on at all times, has slowly grown to a community that is lucky to see more than 50 online. 

This client has always been the best, which is why I'm sticking around... But the future isn't looking bright, and I'm scared to see where the client may go if things don't change. So many of us love this client, and will support it, but it's hard to put the blinders on while so many others are successful elsewhere. 

[Patrick]

I'd be happy to give a quick update on the stuff in 3.0 that I've been working on:

- The server webwalker code is done, we started analysing how much server capacity etc we'd need but then the latest ban waves hit and all the focus is back on that.

- The AI bot manager is also functional, but needs a more user-friendly interface/implementation for scripters to add support to their scripts. Implementing that has been pushed back due to the server webwalker taking priority 

As you can see, other issues always arise that take priority, which is why there is not much news on this.

Eventhough I understand where you're coming from, I disagree with the statement that OSBot in general doesn't engage with the community or take feedback. I am online on the discord at least 12 hours every single day and whenever someone sends me a good suggestion that I can implement, I always take a look at it and often those make it into the client the very next release.

[Gunman]

@Nifty @Zackaery

Frankly, I'm not happy with the Stealth Mirror split. I asked for injection to be pushed harder with more hooks and improved farming features, but they always said they didn't want to split client features. Features that would work on Stealth, but not Mirror. Some of the features, as new interaction methods, their worry was detection, which you can give the user the option to use a "risker" interaction method or not.

Packets/Invokes in action
https://i.gyazo.com/4d1ceede7e5b180aecdcd3122a0f0e95.mp4

Implementing such features would cut into OSBot 3.0 time to implement. But I've been asking for improvements like this even before the 3.0 announcement.

TL;DR  Lack of meta farming features.

 

 

4 hours ago, Patrick said:

I disagree with the statement that OSBot in general doesn't engage with the community or take feedback.

In regards to the Developer role only, YOU take feed back. Frankly most the community probably doesn't even know the other Developers even exist let alone what they do. I remember after being on the site for several months I only noticed the other Developers because I looked at the staff list way back when I first joined.
https://osbot.org/forum/staff/

[Maldesto]

Just to be clear, @Patrick and I both take feedback to Maxi, MGI, and Zach. They respond on our group conversation. They are not "faces" of the community, they hired Patrick and I to be that. We deliver their message and try to get the issues fixed that we can. We are all adults on the staff team and have full time jobs outside of OSBot. I can tell you the private chats with the developer team is usually full of development for Webwalking, OSBot 3.0. Of course the delays are embarrassing for the team, and I agree Maxi made a mistake even posting about 3.0 2 years ago and for  that I am sorry for the entire staff.

 

I also agree that Mirror mode does not run like it used to and wish it would be fixed to where it was. Runelite support, I don't care about runelite support. Runelite is made to make legit options easier, you aren't playing legit you are botting. You are asking to use a third party client in runelite to use a third party client in osbot, so you want a 6th party client LOL.

[FushigiBot]

I'd thought I'd chip in on the Runelite suggestion. I'd argue that being able to hook into Runelite would help a lot in general for a couple reasons.

-The (not so) recent implementation of 3pc bans makes it clear that Jagex can see which client you're playing on. Nobody I know uses the vanilla client, so being able to hook to Runelite could help with profiling.

-The other is that, for some reason, the vanilla client has a soft cap as to how many clients you can have open. Even if you aren't using all PC resources (cpu, ram, disk, etc.) it still slows down the pcs after *insert arbitrary amount depending on pc specs* vanilla clients are open. I haven't seen this on runelite nor OSBot's injection. You can open as many clients as your pc resources allow.

I do agree that communication channels could be playing a role in the dwindling of userbase. More importantly, OSBot needs to become more competitive by prioritizing issues that focuses on detection/banrates. I have personally seen people move away from it and because they are having more success with other options.