Season of the Bot - what should follow?

PC General Discussion
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Almost wrote this post for season 4, but it didn’t take long before seeing season 5 has become a mention worthy contender.

What do you think?

Season 4 for bringing trade and pits? More full MW botted chars than normal player and bots regularly seen running around Cerrigar among other places. And hello to inflation and talk in trade of gold capped players and ott rmt spam.

Or season 5? for the bots being able to run out of sight in hordes … not so much for helltide/world bosses. More bots than player at times, least until talk of season-over ramped up. Seems many botting operators are opting out of neath this season, but maybe not all. Rmt spam getting more creative to grab attention.

Earlier seasons it was there but I think most thought why would you even bother and who cares.

What should follow?

Blizz getting proactive on ways to enforce their policies? Its the haves and the have nots, with Eula compliance at odds with play reward.

Or Blizz relaxing the Eula so folks doing that stuff and running other software like mentioned in the pinned post aren’t putting their accounts at risk? Open it up for all and level the playing field.

The middle ground doesn’t seem to work from what people say to me and apparently those reports aren’t being acted on in a particularly timely manner.

How should it be going forward?

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Legion events are Bot Central. the other day there were 6 people in one. 1 was me, the other was my party homie, the other 4 were chinese bots. all of them were using the same Elements build.

instead of attacking the monsters, they were running around on their horses from one side of the area to the other. props to my party homie for doing most of the carrying while I spent most of the time hunting the bots down and reporting them.

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I play hardcore so I never see anybody

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bots are everywhere in this game but i believe the devs are already aware of it, it would be impossible not to notice it unless you dont play the game.

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I can surely say Ive never seen what could be a bot running around in the open world, but at the same time I really dont care what others do in game so I really dont pay attention like some community watch Karen. If it is full of bots, just a continuation of bot infested d3 (which also had zero affect on my gaming)

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When I was leveling my second account with a separate D4 license (not second alt), at various times, I can see myself acting like a bot.

But to my credit, there were two world boss events where I was contributing by mashing the attack buttons on both accounts lol. I can only attack simultaneously but can’t move at the same time (that would require me at least 3 hands)

Gladly I never died on both accounts doing WB. I was using a controller on the 2nd account and mouse/kb on the 1st one.

My point is I have observed other players showing the same action that i have observed on my accounts. My conclusion is:

  • They are like me leveling two accounts
  • Or they are being power leveled
  • Or they are bots
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9

Bots works only if u buy from them what they provide. Ie: gold, items, etc.

You can play by no using any trade and problem solved. It is called solo self found.

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in D4 they’re not as obvious because there’s no show-up coop events other than Legions and world bosses.

in D3 it was easier because of public bounty runs, there was a dozen different telltale signs of a bot.

in Legions:

  • chinese toon name, usually clanless
  • they barely move during the wait of Legion start, and they definitely don’t “emote”
  • once event starts, they start running around like headless chickens from one side of the area to the other and rarely engaging in fights. while you are fighting monsters, they are running away or galloping around on their mounts towards areas that don’t have any enemies.
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Think you are describing console kiddies

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I almost said the same thing but… shocker… I ran into another player at a WT4 legion event this morning. My level 95 WW barb and their 85 Landslide druid had fun wiping the place clean. Of course nothing worth it the 3 chests at the end but still. I was shocked to see another player in HC.

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great feature, until u realize bots can abuse this aswell. Bot army marking regualr players, so they drop their items. Wouldnt that be great?

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Hardcore is the game.
SC is the bot developers laundry house.
What’s your question?

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Eh … trade was a good move imo. I don’t trade (or at least on extremely rare occasions. Mostly near the vry end of a season to try and deck out 1 char before it’s over. Though I didn’t even do that this season). But most people benefited greatly from it.

I have a love hate relationship with the Pit. I’m a grinder. I like repeating the same content ad-nauseam. Though in S4 it did get to be a bit much. The addition of hordes meant I could pop back and forth between the two. Plus I could make different builds that excel at each. Small group/boss killer vs. huge AoE.

This is pure speculation. It may or may not be true. Even if it’s likely true, it’s unverifiable. This is not the D2 chat rooms where you could literally see the # of bots vs. people. You can see a suspicious character running around and say “that’s a bot”. But you rly have no idea. I’ve had people think I use a bot because I repeat pits/hordes over and over with the same routine for extended periods.

I don’t understand. Are you saying people invite bots to hordes? How would you know what a bot does in hordes?

Again, pure speculation.

I don’t want you to think I’m fine with bots. Or that they aren’t a real problem. Cause, if you play in any fashion other than SSF (the majority of the players engage with the community in some way) than they definitely affect you. I’m just saying your statements are presented as fact without anything but anecdotal evidence.

This!! There is absolutely no reason Blizz can’t find better ways to deal with this.

I find that Blizz is acting on my reports extremely well. I get daily notices that my reports lead to account actions.

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I absolutely love this idea!

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How do you unwillingly get into hordes together with bots?

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I would guess given that he said they run “out of sight” means he nor anyone else sees them, hence he has not said anything about being added unwillingly to IH with bots, but iono maybe I’m misreading it?

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I had a read through the responses earlier and wanted to engage with a few of the earlier ones with the time I have, but I need to address some of your points first. I also wanted to think about your position, as you’ve laid it out.

I get where you’re coming from. I would say ive

  • presented my assertions based on careful consideration and opened it to discussion
  • considered while writing that I could be more thorough to communicate qualifications, assumptions etc - if I was writing a science journal I would, however I’m in a discussion forum and also mindful to not crit readers for a wall of text (and lose many of them in the process)

I read others comments in this topic area and I can see the varying degree of confidence in assessing if they’re looking at a bot or not.

This degree of confidence would be based on a variety of reasons which would make a fair bit of text volume to enumerate.

For myself, I know when I know and I also recognise when I have doubts. Each have their own identifying characteristics on both sides of certainty and suspicion. I’ve addressed each in the appropriate manner when writing.

I’ve taken care to test and validate assumptions before forming a clear understanding and that came well before writing.

There are some questions I see in yours and another’s writing which I could respond to further. At this time I’m also mindful that while we have, what is clear to me and to others as, a non level playing field I’m confident that being too specific on some details would further that divide. For now, I note the interest and anticipated it while writing initially. I’d be willing to discuss detail further with Blizz if they wished.

Players are welcome to take a closer look at the environment they’re playing in and communicate what they’re finding and thinking about.

I agree.

With its introduction comes the burden to mitigate the balances we’re talking about.

I acknowledge this and others have mentioned similar to me.

Have your reports included botting and if so, how have you gone with being able to assess if that profile’s botting continued to “collect” from the system, when that stopped, and what happened to the “proceeds”?

I appreciate your feedback and that of others that have engaged. Blizz will have greater ability to assess and monitor players concerns, but may not know about them or have them in sufficient focus if they’re not clearly voiced.

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I had the same. 6 people with me being the only one not a bot. They would hang out in the starting area, keep running up against the same walls, make attack animations when no mobs were around. All had Asian characters for names. I ported out. Completely ruined it for me. Open trade needs to go, period.

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Long experience with Diablo bots…

Oh dear…in that case they’re not bots lol, they’re self-designated freeloaders. and the party leader was simply too busy killing to kick him.

in the one time I asked for a carry in a T8 horde, I asked for permission first from the dude offering a T8 run and he was fine with it.

the funnier thing to do is not do any killing at all and let THEM deal with it. so that the event fails.

unfortunately open trade is not the only incentive for botting. D3 has had BOA for years and yet there’s still plenty of bots running around. it’s gearing and getting all primals to prepare for selling the entire account later.

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Exactly how does a “bot” work? There is no way to have a non-human controller of the software.