Let's unite against botting!

Diablo gamers from all around the world - let’s unite against botting and get rid of it in D4!

36 Likes

It’s not up to us. We need blizzard to support Diablo 3 until Diablo 4 is ready. However, it looks like (activision) has decided the damage is done; D3 left a too sour taste in too many mouths, and to wipe the slate clean and start anew. It’s hard to blame them for this. The development team for D3 has been…infamous. Don’t get me wrong, D3 is worth the buy. It’s just a 6.5 when it should have been an easy 8/10.
Bottom line is they have decided no longer to support the anti-cheating team or any more full time developers. What we get from this point is stuff easy to code and whatever intern gets D3 can figure out.

9 Likes

I really don’t think that is true. The D3 team is not the one who controls the anti-cheat software. That is the Hacks team, for lack of a better word. Blizz is not going to just drop anti-cheat support for D3 and let the bots over run it. Not sure when, but they will eventually do updates and ban waves. They always get around to it. Just not as fast as we would like.

They have not even abandoned anti cheat/hack bans on D2, so that gives me hope.

16 Likes

Anti-cheating, and the Hacks team is the same thing. I think it’s more accurate to call it the anti-cheating team, in the case of Diablo. It’s clearly however not the priority we all wish it was.

1 Like

Yes, they are the same team. Botting, third party software, game exploits, etc. They have all the games to cover so you are not wrong, that it does come down to priorities. D3 is likely not at the top of the list. I just also think that it is not going to be totally ignored forever either. We are due for a ban wave to be honest.

7 Likes

Of course it is! We are the customers and we should send clear message to them that we won’t tolerate botting in D4!

Botting ruined D2 and D3 completely. Let’s not allow this to repeat again in D4.

2 Likes

Stopping cheating in any game is a really really hard thing to do. I don’t know of any company that has totally defeated it, despite trying hard. If the Devs, Hacks team, or players could just wave a wand, I am sure they would 100% eliminate all cheating. Anyone ethical agrees with that.

No matter what game companies do though, they will always be playing cat and mouse with security/anti cheat. They combat it then the bad guys find a way around that. Rinse and repeat.

If you know of a fool proof way to stop cheating for all time in video games though, you can be very rich. Every gaming company will pay for that kind of solution.

7 Likes

I know one to prevent cheating interfering with the competition - it’s called smart game design.

5 Likes

As much as I hate bots, they are the only thing that keeps the game alive. Ban all botters and there will be almost no active players left, and rest will drop soon because they won’t be finding groups.
Banning few notorious cheaters every few months seems the most reasonable way to go. Going for every single one of them will hurt more than do good in general.

3 Likes

This is hyperbole and gross exaggeration. I counter your assertion by supposing that a game with less cheaters would bring in more legit players that will not play otherwise due to the rampant bot problem.

19 Likes

I don’t often agree with DonMartin, but in this case I think I do. However…those players will not come back without a content update.

5 Likes

Maybe I’m crazy but honestly I don’t notice much in the way of bot-problems. Then again I rarely group with others on account of some losing their mind if a person tags along with them into a boss bounty.

Even though I don’t like botting like you, but I know that no one can actually get rid of it. The most any game developer can do is to find ways of lowering the bot population to where it is so rarely seen that it appears that botting has been solved.

It would take an overhaul of this game in order to get rid of it in D3. A big change where botters wouldn’t prosper for using a bot. Where it would be better to play the game instead of botting.

D4 would have to be created in a way that discourages botting and encourages playing the game. It will be based on how well D4 is designed. How well of a job that the dev team does at making everything in the game, yes including the grind fun. As long as it isn’t one big grind fest with only one thing to do at end game like this one we should be fine.

2 Likes

I have to agree with DonMartin. In my opinion, a major deterrent to me purchasing a game with multiplayer features is how cheaters are handled. I’m sure there are a lot of other people that feel the same. I don’t like playing the game with people that are obviously using cheats, it ruins the game for me and the more cheaters I run across that ruin the game for me, the less likely I’ll play that game multiplayer. They can cheat in a single player game all they want, I couldn’t care less. But I want to play with others that are following the same rules and playing fairly with others.

It’s happened to me in Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, where eventually I just play single player only. At least, for a while. I find the Diablo games are more fun playing with others though, so my interest is only truly held in singleplayer based on how many creative, viable builds I can design that are fun to play.

7 Likes

they should at least improve vote kick
if U get 2 bounty bots you cant kick them out

vote kick Should be timed or smthg bots often dont respond i guess

2 Likes

“If we outlaw X then only criminals will have X”
Without an economy I see little problems regarding what other people do. They can get caught and banned, but either way it won’t effect the player base on the whole.

The smarter solution would be to remove trading from the Diablo franchise. Self found only, and muling between all characters is simple compared to removing bots.

Someone here can correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think anyone bots for trading and economy reasons in D3. They killed that pretty well with the restrictions on Account Bound items, removal of the Auction House, etc. Almost nothing in D3 can be traded.

I think what people bot for is Greater Rift keys and Paragon levels. Boring collection sort of stuff that they have the bot do when they are not at the PC.

I am not sure how to remove all progress from the game in such a way people would not be tempted to somehow cheat. Some people really just don’t care and will want a shortcut no matter how small.

Getting rid of cheating is not a single approach answer.

-Gameplay needs to not reward cheating/botting, especially things that can result in real life monetary rewards.
-Game needs to not have elements that are so grindy that some people feel forced to automate those portions (some will anyway no mater what a Dev does).
-Game needs hacking protections to prevent items and chars from being created, duped, or changed.
-Game needs cheat detection software.
-Game needs to communicate and ban offenders regularly.

All those things contribute to a low cheating environment. I just don’t know if there is ever going to be a game, or anti-cheat software that totally removes the motivation and ability to bot/cheat.

6 Likes

I don’t understand why it bothers other people that bots exist if they don’t interfere with their game. If people want to play with others then join a lobby and organize a game. Open games are a weird idea.

1 Like

It does interfere with my game if a cheater joins the game. If the cheater used a bot to grind up an extra 3000 paragon, that’s roughly 15000 more mainstat which can be a significant boost. That’s not bringing up how they could use that to brute force their way to ideal rolled equipment in a relatively short amount of time in comparison with legitimate players that can’t run 24/7. Most cheaters that do that tend to rush ahead solo, away from the group and begin butchering everything in their path, leaving very little for anyone else. I play the game to slay demons with other players, not trail behind like a puppy.

This time type solo play in a group game affects the entire group, that are joining a multiplayer game to play with others. This isn’t teamwork happening, this is one player rushing ahead and ruining the concept of the game, slaughtering monsters as a team, on the other three players in the game.

8 Likes

As long as they are not showing they do more about the botting problem in D3 I have no confidence they will address it in D4, so why would I buy D4?

1 Like