Unpopular Opinion: Bots aren't a problem

Diablo II (2000) General Discussion
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I don’t think bots are a problem at all in Diablo 2. In fact, bots are probably the only thing that have kept the game alive for this long. The truth is, if you have a problem with bots then more than likely you’re just a scam artist.

Bots help the community of players get access to items that would otherwise be impossible for a casual player to attain. Not only that but they help to improve the number of games available to choose from and provide opportunities for new players to get exp quickly and start farming end game content faster.

I don’t believe bots are harmful at all and instead create a thriving economy where items are not over priced and easier for casual players to enjoy. Not everyone has 18 hours a day to sink into a video game just to hope to find that Ber, Jah or IK set armor.

If you quit diablo 2 because of bots then you are just not a fan of the game and are a fan of scamming people out of their hard earned items.

If you only care about having your name on a leaderboard, then you really aren’t a fan of the game and only believe that you will get some sort of fame and recognition to having your name on a public list. You want your name on a list? There are easier ways to do it.

I have been playing Diablo 2 since 2000. I never had a problem with dupes, mh, or spammers. Just put on /dnd and ignore the rest. I enjoy the game.

I played Diablo 1 and had to get hacks just to patch out griefers trying to auto-kill and crash me every single game. Still played the hell out of it and enjoyed it.

MH isn’t even a problem since in single player you keep the same map and it stays revealed! The problem with single player is that you don’t have access to items found on other characters; and ladder (aside from using mods like plug-Y)

The biggest problem with diablo 2 has been griefers and scammers, not bots. Since it seems that griefers have pretty much all left the game since they gain nothing from griefing and scamming because of bots. It’s a good place to be. I get to play online with friends and get access to “Ladder Only” content.

I get to meet new people and games are almost never empty because bots actually provide those extra players needed to improve legit mf runs.

So, really, no, bots aren’t a problem.

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Spoken like a true scam artist.

You should never consider your narrow minded opinion as the truth.

For two decades botters have consistently pushed legit players away form bnet, only to play SP, LAN and eventually on privately run bot free servers. In fact, just prior to the D2:R announcement the overwhelming number of bots on ladder drove home what could have been considered the final nails in the bnet coffin.

Everyone knows, including yourself, that if you need bots to play or to obtain gear, you suck at the game. A perfect example of someone sucking at the game is someone implying you need a Jah, Ber or IK armour to be successful. The only other reason someone needs bots is for financial gain, which is likely why you’re making this ridiculously contrived post in the first place.

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Do you have an argument to make to support your idea that bots push legit players away from bnet? I am a legit player and bots don’t effect me. I can farm all my own gear and level through a slow grind and enjoy all the benefits of playing on ladder and bots have no effect on my enjoyment of the game.

There is nothing wrong with “sucking at the game”. To assume that there is a problem makes you an elitist and you are the one who is driving people away from the game. It’s a game. I would prefer more people play and be able to enjoy it without elitists telling them that they cannot or should not play just because they can’t invest 1000s of hours doing mf runs to get decent gear just to play the game.

Many people bot without selling items for cash just for their own personal use so they can enjoy end game content, such as: helping friends advance to end game content, dueling, and many other reasons. It’s literally just a means to get access to content that you already paid for…

If your goal is to get enigma, full IK set, or other runewords… then you kind of need those high runes to makes those… I mean your argument is terrible. Bots make it easier to get those runes and make those rune words and giving you access to that content that you already paid for.

Also, the only reason you wouldn’t want bots is because you want to sell your items for a higher cash value.

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I gave you my argument.

A player claiming to be legit after promoting bot use while attacking anti-botters is not worthy of belief.

People who require bots suck at the game, which is not the same thing as being new or an amateur. Choosing to bypass the skill development process and use bots and or buy gear from botters means you suck.

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No, you didn’t give an argument. You made a statement but providing nothing to explain your position.

I never attacked anti-botters. I said what I think that the majority of anti-botters most-likely are based on how people have said they have quit playing and the amount of griefing has lessened. Also, based on just their arguments of that bots drive down the value of items expresses to me that they care more about item value than player enjoyment.

I never mentioned buying gear from botters, I don’t care either way, but that really shows where your mind is at and seems to give evidence to my point that you are trying to make money off of the game.

Also, bots allow players to do automated mf runs when they don’t have time to do it themselves. You are trying to make an argument that people who “suck at the game” shouldn’t be allowed to have access to content that they paid for even though it literally doesn’t effect you and shouldn’t effect your enjoyment of the game unless of course you are trying to profit from the game.

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Yes I did, you just don’t like what I have say on the matter.

You’ve made many statements that are simply founded in your opinionated ignorance. Here is a perfect example as to how ignorant and contrived you are. :point_down:

Seriously, you say this about legit players while pretending to be one yourself? Legits spend months grinding toward 99 and are rewarded with an awesome sense of accomplishment and a screenshot for nostalgia, and you say they are not a fan of the game? You are clearly suffering from an extreme case of envy when you think whatever it is you do with the game trumps what legit 99s do. People who grind to 99, the TING! at 99 is their ultimate reward, the leader board is secondary to the actual experience.

You’re a joke, and everything you say is a joke.

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You, yourself leave the game.
Noone makes you do a thing, only you make yourself do things!

It’s your choice!

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Bots tend to be the solution to a problem. In d2, there is a big problem for casual players who want to pvp. Hence, bots.

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I like the idea that Minecraft devs had developed. They had a separate realm for coders who create bots to explore and to experiment with. There is a huge and healthy machine learning community that uses Minecraft as a vehicle for building better algorithms.

I would not be against something like that for Diablo 2. Where zero bots and zero imported/hacked items and exploits are allowed in the main server. Just gamers playing games. And, a separate realm which is for the coders.

:alien: :dolphin:

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IMO, it would be fine if non-ladder had bots but you could make and use ladder exclusive items. I think making certain items ladder only incentivizes bot use especially because they are important items.

I am not sure how many other things are ladder exclusive but ladder should only be for people who want to try to compete for leaderboard status and end in a shorter term.

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Yep, and double yep for the online gamestate.

The rest I dont agree much with.
If you are looking for a point about the confluence between d2 and botting you should take a harder look at the game design, the core of D2.

The game is not designed for people. Its designed, and balanced around automation.

Patches were released that directly catered to automation (dclone, rune cubing).
No one who actually farmed up SOJ’s is dumb enough to think selling a couple of hundred is gonna help them.
There is a big argument here about gambling, psych motivations, intermittent rewards and time/cost reward.

Cubing up high runes?! serious? Who the hell would do that? Especially after the cognitive experience of a couple of THOUSAND hours ‘farming’ them.

Bots, are tacit approval by Blizzard of the real money trading environment, and 3rd parties.
They make the game work, because the game was designed with them in mind.

Simply doubling the drop rates of high runes, enabling all hell chests to drop all runes, and perhaps even enabling all hell mobs.
Changing the Dclone spawn mechanic to far less obnoxious method so far has been ‘beyond the pale’.
Changing the enigma runeword without changing drop-rates so everyone has easier access to teleport has also been ‘a bridge too far’.

Thus bots are only banned, they repurchase - or use cracked key generators, and return.
While fixing the motivation to have them in open games, and the motivation that sees players acceptance of their use, has no place in this system designed specifically for bots.

Bots are required in D2 to make it work.

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I would argue the fact that the lobby is flooded with bot games means the small community is more spread out and it’s harder to find a nice 8p game (especially with real players), since it’s so common to have 1 or 2 people following a bot around in multiple games. I took about 10 years off though, so maybe it’s rose colored glasses at play and it hasn’t gotten that much worse as I remember. I think the shear fact that fewer people are playing probably comes into it, but I definitely have fond memories of being able to jump into an 8 player game a lot easier to do runs, and it was common to have an actual person leading them (although bot led Baal runs were also super common).

I agree it can be convenient to get wps and enchants from bots when starting out, but that’s typically content that isn’t exactly hard anyway, and other players always step up and help out as well, so I’m not sure I’d say it’s a good thing, neutral at best.

yes you can avoid bots if you want, but the shear number of them filling the lobby with games does make it limiting to the point where if you refuse to play with bots, SP/LAN with trusted friends starts to make a lot of sense.

:upside_down_face:

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These Points and others like space, muling, some Runewords, Dropchances,… should be changed somehow… so “normal” Players can achive it after a while.

I just startet D2-LOD 2 weeks ago (Ladder), now I have an Dream RW, Torch etc. because there is so a huge oversupply… even an Anni I got.

I like to play and trade but it’s somehow meaningless.
I will try D2R and see if it’s a better option.

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Game is considered alive when played by humans. So, more humans in game = game is more “alive”. Right?

Some time ago there was a message displayed when you entered battle.net chat room. It sayed how many accounts are logged in the game.

The highest amount of connected accounts in last few years was in ladder started december 2017. This ladder started bot free a stayed that for next 4 months. After 4 months first bots appear. Ingeneral, the number of connected accounts for first 4 months was around 15.000. Humans only.

Next ladder started not a bot free and numbers dropped to around 10.000. So there were bots + humans, both around 10.000. I could see a significant less open public games, so i even did not need to look how many accounts were connected to see drop in playerbase.

In truth, bots push out humans out of the game. Reasons?
You cannot compete with bots for race to top of ladder.

It ruins economy. How is that? Just imagine that you as legit player. You are making a chair in your garage. The botter is making the same chair … in manufacturing plant. How you gonna compete with him?

It removes social interaction. Interacting with other humans via trading, questing , baaling, mfing or even doing small talk is a important part of the game.

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yes bots pushed my out of the battle net

first they pushed me into a community that only played amongst themselves
then i went into single player and have been there for 12+ years

reasons for it

your own finds are devalued, as bots create more supply in items, dropping prices for rare gear
simple example from pre 1,14 days:
was any kind of high rune at creation cost? aka did you pay 64 guls for a ber (or whatever the cube cost was)? do you really think anybody who had found a HR on their own would trade it in for, say a griffons? nope. fat chance in hell.
or if we look at rarer items like tc87 uniques like a DW or DF or maybe gris set parts etc…would you really ever have gotten the real value of them?

or should we go for sth else, the total removal of your own personal achievement obtaining rare items or achieving a goal like, say, building a grief or fortitude from HFQ rushed characters. This item that you put in so much effort to obtain, it becomes devalued because of bots.
because haha, you fool wasted hours on that, I just went to the random website and spent a few dollars…

the community became filled with people who had no fethin idea of game basics but were running around with gear, which would normally have mandated weeks of playtime, as in hundreds of hours, in which time you normally would have amassed knowledge about game mechanics, which would then have told you why, for example botd, phoenix, last wish etc are crap or why a hoto zaka eni harle hammerdin is suboptimal to put it mildly

or the whole wanna be gozu kiddies that were like: yo check my gear, I am gozu and you look at them and be like:
poorly built, no clue of breakpoints etc, but hey at least yer here in a bit of online ocirclej erk with the other brainamputated cheaters, who like you, have not the faintest idea about game mechanics and the likes.

this also goes into the “help the community” attempt you’re trying to pull, as they remove the demand to the player to improve, to find solutions for his problems, to make a more well-rounded character, to figure out how map design works, to figure out where to farm what, how to itemize etc.
bots are not helping anybody, they are objectively making players worse.

and nope, you do not need a grief, enigma or fortitude to kill baal hell, heck you can do uber tristram with stuff found in normal, as the mighty grimbeorn proved 13+years ago.
the game offers no challenge if you know how the game works and what the demands are.

it is a dungeon crawler, a grind game, the whole point is to put in time to obtain the means to build your characters.

as if you need equipment to PVP, ever heard of things like bearblasts etc?
or you mean to say: whiny babies having a moan because they do not want to put in the time to grind for the equipment that puts them on the same playing field as the rest of the cheating scum?

bots and dupes led to server time outs et cetera, blizzard had to step up ways which negatively impacted everybody’s experience of the game

basiccally:
ruin economy
devalue own achievements and finds
prevent growth as player (acquiring knowledge of the game)
prevent interaction of players (come together to play, trade, do quests etc)
create item losses, xp losses, char losses,
create frustration because blizzard has to come in with measures to counter server load

the legit players will not cry one bit over no bot presence
nobody will mourn the loss of cheating scum

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I saw one of the 3rd party sites selling Enigmas for 3 dollars.
Is that the oversupply you are talking about? I played this season too.

I would of called you cow poo if you had said any of those things 3 seasons ago.
Cause there were not even bot runs in hell. There were less than 12 public games in hell.

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I can understand your point of view. You are definitely correct that the players who quit this game because of bots would not mind the lack of bots.

One thing you may not know is that pvp is d2 is really fun and unique. You need around 40 high runes worth of gear to do it though.

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Someone on the Fool’s Gold site is selling 500 Ber and 500 Jah for 10k fool’s gold, which is about $400 US which translates to less than $1 US per Enigma.

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I wonder why you insist on showing everybody that you do not have the faintest idea of a clue of what you’re talking about.

wanna tell us what high runes you need for lvl 9 or 29 or 49 pvp
or is that level and league system something you never experienced
I know why I brought up thinks like bearblasts et cetera

or you mean to say that you do not know that the stuff that is actually expensive for high level duelling, is generally the stuff that cannot be botted or duped
the near perfect rares, crafts, the 3 202020s etc

and all you are really trying to tell us is:
pvp is just a bunch of cheating refuse with more runes than knowledge
which does not want to put in the effort to obtain what they wanna have…

pay 2 win instead of play 2 win

as always, thanks for reminding us what a pathetic bunch of losers the bot supporting vermin are

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I would congratulate you on being the first person to ever self gear a fpk character on a botless realm.