Why Does Torn Allow Aimbots?

Hello General Discussion LTCRYBABY back again to cry about how Torn staff don't seem to notice a problem with people abusing API bots.

Incase your first question is "what is a aimbot?" it's a bot that in shooters aims for you at targets, kinda like how a API bot is filtering targets for some players to mug.

I might be misremembering but I believe their reasoning is they cant actually tell the difference between someone using scripts to stalk item market and bazaars or regular players who buy mug, the fear of "well other people will just use multis to create these services and then export it to legal players." and lastly they don't want players to be handicapped from the cool things they can do to abuse API. 

The reason I the biggest cry baby in torn decided now to bring this up is I saw on reddit this week this post

Load image

I'm surprised this got posted to "reddit" while this probably should have been posted in the forums, likely people scared of posting something stupid on torn with their true torn name/profile and wanted anonymity. I thought it should actually be a general discussion to see how the community feels on these types of tools being exploited for personal gains and bring awareness to new players. I'd take a random guess and say only .11% of active torn users have access to one of these types of scripts, ill quickly explain what it is for people who don't know in the next paragraph. 

These types of API bots/Scripts do about 20 calls a minute per API key which is why the above person is asking green leafs for a public API key, if they can store 1k API keys that's 20,000 market listings /bazaar they can have a bot track per minute. They need these bots to ping in a discord channel whenever an item sells and a person has money on hand without an updated last action. So they can get a attack loader to then do the clicks themselves to mug a target before they bank and or other users of these scripts get the mug first.

I first learned about these types of bots in 2022, when I joined in because of the "I cant let others do this without some sort of competition, the better me than them fallacy" When the new Item market came out (fuck the 5% tax that shit needs to get halved but ched/bogie needed another money sink and still needs to fuck with the economy #release the 2025 econ report)  I had been lead to believe that the new item market was meant to get rid of these bots, I was thoroughly surprised that they were still working and when I went to bogie asking how this is legal he told me off, I went to a friend who told me how it worked. I later found out it was the illegal websockets but only a year and 3 days after I went to bogie asking how this was legal he finally unjustly fedded some people and not all who used it. From what I understand this is only legal API usage if people use websockets to get the API listing number add it to a bot that then tracks when this listing gets removed, the bots have to manually check each market listing for item market while to track bazaars it just checks "bazaar value" and sees if it goes down while a user hasn't made a last action. The reason the websockets became illegal is instead of API keys being used to check the item market, websockets were scraping the item market page to get item market listings faster than API keys. allegedly from what i understand its still legal as long as you're on 1 tab/page on item market to abuse websockets scraping the page. 

I'm not sure how any of it is fair, or not ethically wrong enough for staff to want to stop it being a thing.

Load image

What newer players are missing out on these days are the very things that got me hooked into torn, such as stalking the market for hours  to see whenever someone lists worth buymugging, or stalking traders to wait out their med timers to mug them myself. this is all taken away from the majority of players by this idea that its fair and competitive to allow .11% of players to automate the finding of targets for mugging. 

Something that takes time and skill can be filtered down to what is essentially having an Aimbot that never "misses".  How is it fair?

Load image

I think that mugging shouldn't be allowed to have any exploits. Abusing API tools rewards the players who arent even putting in the effort compared to players relying on skill & time alone to get the same gains. Torn isn't about skill anymore its just about the bottom dollar. If people don't remember, they had to remove the bazaar income personal stat when a well known mugger realized that it updated live and used API to track that stat. They then also removed the casino refill stat from updating live to also get rid of these types of mug bots, why are staff still okay with people abusing API keys to track the entire market and why does no one actually care?

Excuses I'm sure the mongs will be saying 

1. Just self hosp
2. skill issue
3. without bots I cant compete
4. Don't take away my coding skills to make money
5. its not a aimbot it just finds all the targets for me
6. but if i don't do it others will
7. but its legal to do
8. Lastly, but they're doing the clicks themselves so its fine

Load image

TLDR: why are API bots that track markets fair to abuse?

just ban people that exploit the game, seems simple.. 

THE LIBERAL ELITES AND BIG API HAVE DECLARED WAR ON THE WORKING CLASS MANUAL BUY MUGGER

 Load image

In b4 they start protecting wallets in torn for 10 seconds like they do abroad and the new tactic is just having a friend sat buying something off you every 10 seconds 

But bogie already fixed this problem when he banned ALL of the websocket abusers. 

Oh wait...

Great thread jello fella

i cant physically observe 20,000 market listings at once using my eyeballs. Maybe if I had 10,000 friends we could all look at two at once? Unfortunately I do not shower often enough to enjoy such a reality.

Bulk market watch and player status watch scripts absolutely provide an unfair advantage and staff should have banned those who use them when they banned the websocketards.

I would be curious to know what percentage of hourly/daily api requests are made by these no skill slags.

tbh is there any reason that an API for current market listings even needs to exist?

not sure what benefit it actually provides to the playerbase

people could still compare market and bazaar prices via w3b bazaars in item market

13:20:34 - 22/03/26 You anonymously sold 1x BT MP9 on the Item Market to NLFearless for $850,000,000 after $150,000,000 in fees.

13:21:14 - 22/03/26 XXXX and XXXX mugged you and stole $112,030,050 [view]

Muggers can now see who bought a RW weapon at the Auction months earlier. That with a script that notify them once it sales anonymously on the market. Easy money i guess.

Mug bot discussion heck yeah! Still have ptsd from the month long discussion earlier this year.

Comparing the websocket ones and the legal API bots, the difference is the time to mug. API bots usually take ~30+ seconds to detect a sale, so technically it is already more "fair" since 

1. it gives a regular buy mugger more time to buy mug (websocket ones usually mug within 10s and sometimes <5s)
2. trader can self hosp/move money at the exact time they get an API ping themselves (the websocket ones they are mugged before their pda/torntools get a ping)
3. traders/sellers have the same advantage using api linked tools like weav3r and regularly make decisions based on those tools 

Still, it's a significant unfair advantage. The price of these bots reflects that. I know someone selling them for 1b per 5-10 quota... you can't get that in any sort of scripts. 

It's completely bullshit someone can know you sold something without stalking your bazaar/market listing. 

The most active script muggers are getting about 2-3b/month. Even if it's very competitive and probably less than what you get from looking for targets yourself, it still pays VERY well for something you spent zero effort on (Does asking for keys count?).

It is also very unfair these bots are concentrated on HOF factions (since they can afford these shit), like 39th and CR. It's way harder to build your own unless 1. you know a bit coding 2. you have a lot of public api keys (established mug bots already have 100+ keys stacked up. You aren't in one? Yeh out of luck. 

(Disclaimer: This post is not a comment on anyone who's punished during the websocket drama, my stance on this is absolutely neutral at the moment. But yes, I still hate mug bots in general)

https://www.reddit.com/r/torncity/comments/1ws2l3t/scam/ (Uncensored version and link to reddit post)

Load image

Only read the tldr

Yes, we should all just be clicking buttons like humans 

actually, even if the API was removed, people would still make mugbots by having a ton of script users constantly upload the data of whatever page they manually open to their bot which then compares the difference, like w3b's active auction listings page.

there is perhaps no cure for the mugbot rot that consumes this game.

My bazaar never closes. That maybe be related to the fact that i do in fact have rabies.

I can see the robots at work. i beat some of them because i have some stature.

It is disturbing and distressing to me and most other players in the game that some of you have a robot which tells you when anyone in the game sells anything.

What is wrong with playing games fairly?

This is fundamentally unfair and cowardice of the worst kind.

There have been many other threads about this before and i have posted in some of them.

The magic script eye is unfair. it is awful .

We want things to be fair. NOBODY in the game should know you have sold stuff only you and the person you sold it to.

The script farming is pathetic and should be stopped. PERMANENTLY.

• LTJELLOMAN [1161626]

i appreciate you making this thread mr jellowman as do many others

many others are too scared to voice their opinions in public keep up the great works!

unfortunately, i gaming these days no one and i mean NO ONE has integrity anymore. This applies to everything multiplayer and not just torn though. 95% of people feel like they NEED to get the 1 up on someone somehow as 'within TOS' as much as possible, and often out of TOS. at work i ban more people for scripts and exploit abuse more than actual aimbots and wall hacks these days

Oh boy here we go again.

Load image

Other issue, same API:

Load image

This unfair advantage with API bots is wild in Torn, and still not fixed, so maybe it is on purpose after all?

Load image

Get rid of scripts, and all automation, its the only way.

Solve QOL issues with the suggestions board (like the only thing I actually use Torn PDA for - finding city items because its fucking miserable trying to squint around the map for them)

Company/job perks arent undermined by servers and bots

The amount of people who would actually do a Monaco Micky and pack their bags is so small the breeze wouldnt even snuff a candle (and that goes for Monaco Mickies too)

And buff the science gym, make us pilgrims of the tortoise life vindicated for our weird and anti-competitive ways. I dont even know how but I felt a SSL plug was needed

So yes - kill skynet 

Load image

I think any script that relies on farming API Keys to get a competitive advantage verges past unethical, and in my opinion should be banned. 

The combo of Auction House scraping + tying it to anonymous listings surely goes against the point of the item market 

I help manage a trader's discord.

Every mug that is reported is unanimously declared a skill issue.

Bot or not. 

That said, the skills aren't easy to learn.

And you have to have someone willing to teach you the skills (I ain't giving that shit out publicly, sorry. If I do that I stop being told all the secrets.)

That's why trader's take a cut. They take on the risk and spend all the time learning all the skills needed to prevent mugs, so you don't have to. 

Mugging is a vital part of Torn society. It's the glue that builds trader-seller relationships (and many, many other relationships). 

Without those relationships, Torn is dead. 

I call out scriptmuggers when they hit me. Some are actually cool. Others, not so much…

Load image

All the ones that reported themselves for review