People just don’t care these days. I highly doubt that the majority of botters would follow your little rules. If they did care then the players here would never be able to tell who is and who isn’t botting. When the cheaters care as much as your friends do about not getting caught and adjust their playing accordingly then it becomes harder to catch them. Till then though they will still get caught and when Blizz decides to ban them they will be banned.
Those little rules your friends follow are meaningless to the majority of botters who imo don’t follow most of or all of them.
Also those that do follow the rules you mentioned might in time care enough to stop botting forever.
In this game, the best exp/hour is 4man meta lon mage necro. you can close 110+ in 3 minutes, depending in your level. lets suppose you are just 1000 paragon, you can do 105 in 3 minutes in the right setup team. this is the best way to get more exp/h, because more players in the same room increase the exp/h than playing solo. so even botters lose for any chinese guy who spend 24/7 in this game doing lon mage speeds, thats why there are some people with huge paragon at end of the season
Thanks for letting me know about bots. Didn’t know they were a thing (though I know every v-game has cheaters). After reading a 12 or so responses and ways to stop bots, it seems there is one common denominator as to why people bot: to increase game playing efficiency that a real human can’t do. Here are some suggestions to make a bot less efficient (I know there have been tons of suggestions so here are mine). (1) Stop spamming by not allowing you to get XP or paragon if you finish the rift/bounty too quickly (depending on your lvl). Blizzard can know the mean-time finishing the rift/bounty (with 100s of thous of players) at a certain diff-lvl. If you finish it more than X% faster than that, no gem upgrade at the end, no XP, no paragon (2) if you lower the game difficulty in order to race through rifts (or bounties), everything you have equipped also lowers to that lvl or items that you got at a certain diff-lvl will not equip if you go to a lower diff-lvl, (3) Kanye’s cube will only upgrade items based on your lvl when you got the item (below a certain lvl, no upgrade). (4) Kanye powers only work on the diff-lvl you earned them on (e.g. if you extract a leg power you got on T-10, it will only work when you play on T-10 or higher), (4) you can only play the game X # consecutive (or total) hours a day. If you play longer, you can still play but no XP, no paragon, no ancient/primal/set loot. The “Lore” could be that the Gods only have so much paragon/ancient loot to give out each day. You will still get blue/yellow loot and gold (4) leaderboards are leveled depending on your level. (e.g. if you have paragon 5000, you can only be on boards with other paragon 5000 players. If everyone has a 10 incher, no whoop if you show yours).
There are disadvantage to all this: (1) everyone will lvl at the same average rate (much slower) so there will be no “star” players, This is what NASCAR does making sure all cars have same equip and HP, but someone still wins, (2) farming for mats will be more boring (that is a game design issue that needs to be fixed), (3) it will be basically useless to play at a lower level once you have played at a higher level for any length of time. I agree that this cannot prevent bots, but it will make using a bot no more efficient to climb the leaderboards/lvls than actually playing.
IMHO, if you wanna use a bot to play that is no more efficient than actual playing, so what. No different than cars that drive themselves so you can relax in the back seat and text. You still have to go the same speed as actually driving the car, so you are still in the car the same # of hours, you are just more relaxed getting there and were able to multitask (text, take selfies, gram,. post to Pinterest). Some people love getting behind the wheel, some people love to be chauffeured.
Please respond if you think I missed something. I very well could have. I am sure others have great ideas also.
I give you kudos for trying, but some of this will kill the game even faster than botting currently does. Here’s some counters to your solutions:
(1) This will kill power boosting and/or helping friends permanently. Bye bye seasons and new players.
(2) So you will need one set of items for each tier? Yes, I can see that will be super popular – especially with all the stash space we don’t have. But that won’t matter, since nobody will help lower tier players anyway, yes?
(3) Same here. Basically you will need to find every cube boost you want to use again when progressing through the tiers.
(4) Botters will only adjust playtime to current max limit. No difference to now. Botters can do whatever while botting, while normal players can’t. This will also reduce the amount of available players, since no-one will want to play the game with no rewards. Blue/yellow gear & gold becomes useless at a certain point, simply because you have more than you will ever need.
(5)( … or 4 again) This will also be status quo. The leaderboards would still be the same, just more fractured.
Khoro, You are misunderstanding my list or making assumption about what would happen. Let me add to what you said;
(1) That is an assumption, but even so, that is not what the game is about anyway ( it is a side effect to how the game was designed) and I put item #1 for the express purpose that it was being used for power boosting and fast farming. You can still power boost and help friends, just slower.
(2) No, you will not need a set of items for each tier. The idea is that your upper tier items will work, they will just be downgraded back to the lvl you are on. Alternately, the game could unequip items you received at higher levels but doing that WOULD require different items in order to go backward. My idea is to discourage downgrading just to fast farm.
(3) No, you will not need every cube boost (sic) when you progress. If you extracted a power from an item received while on T-10 then go back to T-4, that power will not work, but it will STILL work at T-10, which is the lvl you got it at. However, your power you extracted at T-4 will still work at T-4 or higher. This will lead some to do their extracting while at lower levels, but you dont get the good stuff until higher lvls.
(4) Agreed but that is the idea, so that they don’t play any longer than human players. That is just an assumption that this will reduce avail players. If the max hours is set to, say 6 hours, and 95% of players (Blizzard will know the %) play 6 or less hours, everyone will still be happy. Only that 5% (4% of which will be bots) will be unhappy. You can even say 4 hours M-F, 7 hours Sat-Sun.
(5) Agreed but that is the idea. It will disincentivize the botter’s braggin rights because only players who are, most likely, also bots, will appear on the top leaderboards, so at least the bots are segregated into their own leaderboard.
I will agree that it will make the game slower to level and more of a grind to farm, which, for some players, may make the game more boring. Would have to see if that affects # of players.
Penalizing players for being good/efficient at the game? That will never go over well with the player base lol.
There are already mechanics in place to prevent this from being abused. Not sure what you are getting at since lowering the difficulty also lowers the exp you gain from the mobs. The game does not snapshot mobs and rewards based on what you entered the game at.
This would literally break the game for people. You can get legendaries at level 1. Your idea could land up hard locking that player from ever upgrading certain items then because they got lucky at low levels. That is incredibly stupid.
This kind of idea isn’t too terrible but would need to be approached in a manner that does not make obtaining certain legendaries an utter chore. Drop rates on certain things are already terrible enough, having to continuously get the same rare item due to this kind of lock would be fairly annoying.
Other issue here is the ability to abuse parties to get items faster/early on just by having someone else get it and give it to you.
Lock-outs like this don’t work when the games main focus is the thing you are locking out. Major titles have tried these kinds of things before with nothing but massive negative backlash.
While I disagree with this specific suggestion, I do agree there are things that could be done for leader boards that are a bit more “fair” in the sense of being on a equal playing field. This comes down to them adding more game modes, game mode limits, etc. such as a game mode where the max paragon is capped at a certain limit (say 1500) and the rest of the focus is just farming for the best gear etc.
In non-season, the leader boards is basically useless because of the huge gaps in paragon of players. Having various types of boards, opt-in limits/caps, etc. could greatly increase people focused on competing and so on.
Still, the bottom line is that this will only make it more inconvenient for all players, and not remove the problem of botting at all. If you have ideas that will actually remove botting, I’m all ears.
Im actually curious if you can act like that banning someone based entirely on the time spent playing without exposing yourself to any kind of legal action.
Keep in mind that that something that we subjectively perceive as evident might not be enough to constitute 100% proof in the eyes of a multi million dollar company, and if you have to have a systemic way of verifying someone is botting, the entire thing becomes alot more complex.
Oh silly me people can play legit 24/7 standing on their head right. Oh wait they can’t because someone died after playing this game for 40 hours straight. Someone playing that long non stop for more than a month’s time has got to be a botter. Then flag the account for further investigation. Sooner or later they are likely to find the other piece of evidence. That is unless he is account sharing and we both know what that gets the same as botting.
Also since it is so important for more evidence. Like a player can be playing 24/7 for an entire week straight without any ill effects. Have the hack team download all bot programs. Then have them look through the programs for ways of identifying them. Since it is super important that you get 100% proof like a court of law. Sorry but botting is not a crime in any normal judicial system that I know of except for probably South Korea, I have heard some rumors.
Even though it has been proven that binge playing video games for hours non stop can kill a person. So anyone that is playing for more than the time I mentioned is botting. I don’t see how they can take enough rest breaks and still get everything they need done. In fact it might even be lower than 16 hours a day.
Khoro, as I stated, this will not stop someone from botting if they still want to. And Yes, it will make it more inconvenient for the honest players. BTW: my suggestions don’t ALL have to be used, the max hour suggestion might be enough.
When you say, “remove botting”, it sounds like you mean somehow prevent the bot from actually connecting to the Diablo server. That is impossible because the bot the NOT actually connecting to the server, the player’s account is. All the bot is doing is hitting the keystrokes and moving the mouse to automate playing. It is a keyboard automaton so there is nothing to ban from connecting. Referring to the example I used, some people like to get behind the wheel to drive, someone people would rather be chauffeured. I know most die-hard players would disagree with me, but as long as the chauffeured person isn’t in a Ferrari while everyone else is in a VW Bug, I don’t have a prob with someone automating the boring parts of the game. IMO, the major prob people have is a bot is seen as a Ferrari while everyone else is driving the Bug. My suggestions are only to make sure the bot is not a Ferrari, not to actually take the engine out of the Ferrari. When Blizzard has their ban event, they are banning based on indirect evidence that someone is using a bot, is it impossible for Blizzard to obtain direct evidence because the bot is not actually connecting to the servers. The bot is working on the client side. (disclaimer: this is my novice understanding of how the bots work).
I think I can safely say that no-one here want to be inconvenienced by your suggestions. That includes the limit to playtime. Thankfully, Blizzard would never implement such a suggestion, simply because of the huge backlash.
And no, I did not mean preventing the bot from connecting to the server(s).
I think something needs to be cleared up right away. You have NO, none, nada, constitutional rights to play a video game. Therefore, Blizzard can ban you just because they don’t like your username or the country you are from. They do not need any evidence of anything. It is foolish to even entertain any notion of rights, or evidence you have or Blizzard needs. It is crazy talk to think they cannot ban you for any reason, or no reason, they want. You may have a veeeerrrry weak case if they ban you for something that is not in their terms of service, but the TOS are written by Harvard lawyers who know how to write something so vague that no court will give you their ear.
Khoro, you are right that Blizzard is not going to take any suggestions we have to try to stop bots. That is why we can all have this crazy talk bout what we would do if we wuz da bossman. It makes us feel good, though, doesn’t it? That’s why there are over 100 posts to this OP. I think Blizzard feels the same way I do about bots - they don’t GAF. BTW: Blizzard don’t GAF about our petty backlash. They already have your money. They know with players still playn after 10 years, they got us hardcore playas BTBs so we ain’t going anywhere.
You know it’s allowed by Blizzard for a parent to share account with a minor right? Your 24/7 just got cut to 12/7. It’s not impossible anymore right? Ooh they don’t even have to be in the same household. Their timezone can be 12 hours apart.
Chetanji, you are right but at least the bot will be on an equal footing with human players playing 4-6 hours per day. The bot still has to play the game like a human player. The bot can’t force all loot to be ancient, or drop 1million gold each time, or magically kill the Boss with one hit or turn on a God mode. The bot still has to follow the rules of the game. So the only real advant is being able to play 18 hours/day.
It’s also hard to tell by time played. I’ve sat on a map to hold a game open for 3-4 days straight, waiting for a friend to show up for an achieve. This was back when some events were rare. I would dance or accidentally put a rock on a key to keep a skill going. So now you’re talking 24 hr/day playtime.