No, such game won’t exist as long as we have advanced facial recognition stopping completely botting/account sharing. Until then however we could have a competitive environment free of botting/account sharing if the game design is smart and the competition takes time invested into consideration.
As long as botting exists it damages the customer experience even if the said customer never plays multiplayer at all. The reason is pretty simple: More botting means less legit player base equals less profit for the company equals less new content for the single player customer.
I agree, cheating will never go away in any game, there will always be cheat codes and cheaters for games, maybe another ban wave would thin out some of the bots though, it seems like the past few weeks there has been at least 1 bot in every public bounty I’ve been in, 90% of the time
I solo gr’s 100% of the time, but I do pub groups for bounties and rifts and I’m on the leaderboard, I’ve never botted and never will, so only people that bot should be on the leaderboards and group up? I’m sure a lot of people still play the game without bots but there still is a lot of people botting
Cheating always affects everyone in more ways than you can imagine. Resources in the form of time and money are needed to fight those that cheat. Resources that might’ve been used to make the game even better.
Next the more cheaters that are in a game can encourage others to cheat as well. More so if they see the cheaters prospering without ever getting banned for cheating.
Players want to play a game where the majority of the players don’t cheat in a game. That makes for a better community overall. It also makes the experience of playing with others even better knowing that everyone with you is not cheating.
That still doesn’t change the fact that time and money has to be spent fighting botters. Time and money that could’ve been better spent making this game even better than what it is now.
I get that for a multiplayer only game. I am not understanding the resources used to combat cheaters that only effect their own game. If they are able to mess with the game and cause problems to the system or something, yeah, I get that is a huge no no. But from what I see, it’s like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
All I am trying to convey is Blizzard can pick their battles. And if it isn’t hurting other players, or their game, then it’s a waste of manpower. There are dozens of other things they could focus on.
Oh so your solution is don’t do anything unless it affects others. That is basically saying that it is okay for you to cheat as long as you don’t affect others. News flash allowing people to cheat under those conditions would mean more players would be cheating.
That is like saying that because there is no criminal on your street that the cops should not spend resources to stop crime overall. You may play solo, but the game is not single player only. The game has multiplayer and competitive aspects and Blizzard wants to keep those clean.
For games with any form of competition, like D3 leaderboards, the ability to bot or cheat makes people very upset that there is no fair game.
The reputation of a company, and game, is in part determined by their ability (or willingness) to provide a fair and clean environment for everyone. Inability to do that can impact further development and funding for a game. If few people want to play, then the game ends up dead. That impacts everyone.
You also play D3 online - on the same servers that bots and cheaters play on. In order to reduce server load they want those cheaters/botters gone. That keeps a better server environment for solo players as well. You are all on the same servers after all.
There is no reason at all Blizzard should ever permit cheaters if they can help it.
Competitive? I highly doubt that. This game would require balance to be competitive. As it stands all I see are people finding something to complain about. First balance the game, make it fun, then ban the botters. Priorities. Botting hasn’t caused the game to fall flat on it’s face, but ignoring bugs, or QoL changes for years on end have hurt this game. If you all think botting is the biggest problem with this game I am glad you only see the tip of the iceberg.
Even smart game design won’t solve that. Humans, as a general rule, tend to take the path of least resistance, much like electricity does. To that end, cheaters will always exist in some form. It’s how they’re dealt with that matters.
Of course they will. They just won’t be able to influence the top of the LB, just as in HS atm, where it is full of climb to legend bots, but you can’t see a single one in top 100.
Handling botters is not the job of the developers. That is a different team altogether. So botting can still take a high priority with the team that is assigned to handle botting as well as other forms of cheating. As long as there are some form of competition even though it isn’t perfectly balance, which no game is perfectly balanced. Then you want to make sure that the players feel like they are playing in a fair environment. When players are allowed to cheat with impunity then those honest players will feel compelled to cheat as well. The words are only a paper tiger without any real power or teeth. When the rules are applied to all fairly then players see that cheaters never win. That lowers the cheaters thus the quality of the game goes up.
This is while the developers handle their end of making this game better with the resources they are given.
If botters never existed in this game then threads like this wouldn’t exist. Heck we would even take it where it appears like there are no botters. Where the population of bots is lowered to where players rarely if ever see one. Because that is the best that can happen in game.
You keep repeating this phrase yet I haven’t seen you actually give any examples/alternatives. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what “Smart game design” is?
Botters and account sharers have to stopped by design. Just as you stop with the item/skill numbers somewhere by design. It makes no difference - you have to create meaningful game and fair competition. Otherwise it all turns to pAr0Dy.
Such that makes it not profitable for the botter to do it. Simple example is a LB which takes into consideration hours put into the game. People will still use bots then, but the top spots won’t be influenced by these.