Botting could be killed dead tomorrow with a simple hotfix. I would not be at all surprised if Blizzard already have a number of technical solutions almost ready to go if they ever decided to pull the trigger on it.
Botting could be killed dead tomorrow with a simple hotfix. I would not be at all surprised if Blizzard already have a number of technical solutions almost ready to go if they ever decided to pull the trigger on it.
They have yet to do anything but random ban waves over 6-7 months apart and if you weren't botting at the time of the wave you didn't get banned anyway.
They have never tried to do anything but random waves.
Back when RMAH was out I made 25k dollars off running 8 bots 24/7 until they got banned and bought 8 more and did it again and one more time before it wasn't worth it anymore because shit got too cheap near the end of RMAH.
Now there is just no point to bot unless you are like trying to get every advantage for R1 leaderboard by getting rift keys when you are asleep or hellfire mats or w/e meh.
As much as this season is great I still just can't get myself to play for more than 3-4 weeks and just stop because of the paragon grind. The only issue I have. I would def like a cap on it inside seasons, but that is just me idk.
I agree that Blizzard are very unlikely to actually do anything about Botting, I'm just saying that if they wanted to they could, and I don't mean banning, I mean making it technically impossible for bots to play the game would be very easy, if they genuinely wanted to get rid of the botting issue once and for all. I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that the use of botting is quite widespread and/or has been used by high profile players for a long time. If that is the case, getting rid of botting may have significant negative financial repercussions for Blizzard, and it *may be* one reason why they act like it isn't there. I sure would love it if a player who got invited to one of their tavern talk videos actually rasied questions about it what their response would be. I suspect they would sweep it under the carpet and try to act like it is a non issue.
I agree that Blizzard are very unlikely to actually do anything about Botting, I'm just saying that if they wanted to they could, and I don't mean banning, I mean making it technically impossible for bots to play the game would be very easy, if they genuinely wanted to get rid of the botting issue once and for all. I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that the use of botting is quite widespread and/or has been used by high profile players for a long time. If that is the case, getting rid of botting may have significant negative financial repercussions for Blizzard, and it *may be* one reason why they act like it isn't there. I sure would love it if a player who got invited to one of their tavern talk videos actually rasied questions about it what their response would be. I suspect they would sweep it under the carpet and try to act like it is a non issue.
The best way to get rid of bots is to make it unprofitable or difficult to bot. The removal of AH was probably the single biggest hit to botting, but it's still prevalent for things like GR keys, HF mats, mats in general, and low-mid xp farming (bots can farm GR, just not very high). Hopefully Blizzard can put in some code to confuse them enough to make them ineffective. I'm not a programmer (I've taken some classes and written some small scale programs in college, but that was long ago), but I'm sure there are SOME things they can do.
I agree that Blizzard are very unlikely to actually do anything about Botting, I'm just saying that if they wanted to they could, and I don't mean banning, I mean making it technically impossible for bots to play the game would be very easy, if they genuinely wanted to get rid of the botting issue once and for all. I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that the use of botting is quite widespread and/or has been used by high profile players for a long time. If that is the case, getting rid of botting may have significant negative financial repercussions for Blizzard, and it *may be* one reason why they act like it isn't there. I sure would love it if a player who got invited to one of their tavern talk videos actually rasied questions about it what their response would be. I suspect they would sweep it under the carpet and try to act like it is a non issue.
The best way to get rid of bots is to make it unprofitable or difficult to bot. The removal of AH was probably the single biggest hit to botting, but it's still prevalent for things like GR keys, HF mats, mats in general, and low-mid xp farming (bots can farm GR, just not very high). Hopefully Blizzard can put in some code to confuse them enough to make them ineffective. I'm not a programmer (I've taken some classes and written some small scale programs in college, but that was long ago), but I'm sure there are SOME things they can do.
The thing about Bots is they are extremely good at some things, but completely incompetent at others. An occasional random event that simulates a required interaction with the user that a bot cannot replicate is all that is needed to defeat the software. I imagine some care would be needed to implement this "anti bot" behviour in a way that seemlessly integrates itself into the game such that it causes minimal disturbance to the rest of the game. In my view it could easily be themed in such a way that people might not even perceive it as an anti-bot feature, but rather a new game mechanic. Off the top of my head I can imagine a sceanrio where the reward is a random opportunity to upgrade a gem (with low % chance of success). The mechanics of the interaction would be such that a bot could not simulate it, and enough repeated failures would, at the very least, send an alert to Blizzard so they could investigate.
I agree that Blizzard are very unlikely to actually do anything about Botting, I'm just saying that if they wanted to they could, and I don't mean banning, I mean making it technically impossible for bots to play the game would be very easy, if they genuinely wanted to get rid of the botting issue once and for all. I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that the use of botting is quite widespread and/or has been used by high profile players for a long time. If that is the case, getting rid of botting may have significant negative financial repercussions for Blizzard, and it *may be* one reason why they act like it isn't there. I sure would love it if a player who got invited to one of their tavern talk videos actually rasied questions about it what their response would be. I suspect they would sweep it under the carpet and try to act like it is a non issue.
The best way to get rid of bots is to make it unprofitable or difficult to bot. The removal of AH was probably the single biggest hit to botting, but it's still prevalent for things like GR keys, HF mats, mats in general, and low-mid xp farming (bots can farm GR, just not very high). Hopefully Blizzard can put in some code to confuse them enough to make them ineffective. I'm not a programmer (I've taken some classes and written some small scale programs in college, but that was long ago), but I'm sure there are SOME things they can do.
The thing about Bots is they are extremely good at some things, but completely incompetent at others. An occasional random event that simulates a required interaction with the user that a bot cannot replicate is all that is needed to defeat the software. I imagine some care would be needed to implement this "anti bot" behviour in a way that seemlessly integrates itself into the game such that it causes minimal disturbance to the rest of the game. In my view it could easily be themed in such a way that people might not even perceive it as an anti-bot feature, but rather a new game mechanic. Off the top of my head I can imagine a sceanrio where the reward is a random opportunity to upgrade a gem (with low % chance of success). The mechanics of the interaction would be such that a bot could not simulate it, and enough repeated failures would, at the very least, send an alert to Blizzard so they could investigate.
Again, don't know how it works but from what I know there are basically 2 types of bots - memory readers and screen (pixel) readers. Screen readers will always work as long as the environment is static, and completely fall apart if it's not. D2 had several screen readers that were impossible to detect, even featuring randomization so they couldn't be flagged for patterns. Memory readers are more advanced, but (I assume) can be confused with encrypted memory injections by Blizz, kind of like hashIDs.
The third (honorable mention) type is code injection, but that doesn't really exist anymore as it gets shut down immediately by warden.
I agree that Blizzard are very unlikely to actually do anything about Botting, I'm just saying that if they wanted to they could, and I don't mean banning, I mean making it technically impossible for bots to play the game would be very easy, if they genuinely wanted to get rid of the botting issue once and for all. I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that the use of botting is quite widespread and/or has been used by high profile players for a long time. If that is the case, getting rid of botting may have significant negative financial repercussions for Blizzard, and it *may be* one reason why they act like it isn't there. I sure would love it if a player who got invited to one of their tavern talk videos actually rasied questions about it what their response would be. I suspect they would sweep it under the carpet and try to act like it is a non issue.
The best way to get rid of bots is to make it unprofitable or difficult to bot. The removal of AH was probably the single biggest hit to botting, but it's still prevalent for things like GR keys, HF mats, mats in general, and low-mid xp farming (bots can farm GR, just not very high). Hopefully Blizzard can put in some code to confuse them enough to make them ineffective. I'm not a programmer (I've taken some classes and written some small scale programs in college, but that was long ago), but I'm sure there are SOME things they can do.
The thing about Bots is they are extremely good at some things, but completely incompetent at others. An occasional random event that simulates a required interaction with the user that a bot cannot replicate is all that is needed to defeat the software. I imagine some care would be needed to implement this "anti bot" behviour in a way that seemlessly integrates itself into the game such that it causes minimal disturbance to the rest of the game. In my view it could easily be themed in such a way that people might not even perceive it as an anti-bot feature, but rather a new game mechanic. Off the top of my head I can imagine a sceanrio where the reward is a random opportunity to upgrade a gem (with low % chance of success). The mechanics of the interaction would be such that a bot could not simulate it, and enough repeated failures would, at the very least, send an alert to Blizzard so they could investigate.
Again, don't know how it works but from what I know there are basically 2 types of bots - memory readers and screen (pixel) readers. Screen readers will always work as long as the environment is static, and completely fall apart if it's not. D2 had several screen readers that were impossible to detect, even featuring randomization so they couldn't be flagged for patterns. Memory readers are more advanced, but (I assume) can be confused with encrypted memory injections by Blizz, kind of like hashIDs.
The third (honorable mention) type is code injection, but that doesn't really exist anymore as it gets shut down immediately by warden.
I guess we could compare the war against bots as being somewhat similar to virus and antivirus software. Neither is static, and each will be required to dynamically evolve with the other. No doubt if Blizzard did introduce bot detection the bot developers would quickly go to work on ways to circumvent it. I'd have to give the advantage to the D3 developers if a serious technology war between the two was to occur, as it is their software, so they set the rules with the bot developers being tasked with finding loopholes in them. The thing is, it appears Blizzard has a long history of doing absolutely nothing about Botters, essentially acting like they don't even know they exist, which is pretty laughable.
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Botting could be killed dead tomorrow with a simple hotfix. I would not be at all surprised if Blizzard already have a number of technical solutions almost ready to go if they ever decided to pull the trigger on it.
They have yet to do anything but random ban waves over 6-7 months apart and if you weren't botting at the time of the wave you didn't get banned anyway.
They have never tried to do anything but random waves.
Back when RMAH was out I made 25k dollars off running 8 bots 24/7 until they got banned and bought 8 more and did it again and one more time before it wasn't worth it anymore because shit got too cheap near the end of RMAH.
Now there is just no point to bot unless you are like trying to get every advantage for R1 leaderboard by getting rift keys when you are asleep or hellfire mats or w/e meh.
As much as this season is great I still just can't get myself to play for more than 3-4 weeks and just stop because of the paragon grind. The only issue I have. I would def like a cap on it inside seasons, but that is just me idk.
I agree that Blizzard are very unlikely to actually do anything about Botting, I'm just saying that if they wanted to they could, and I don't mean banning, I mean making it technically impossible for bots to play the game would be very easy, if they genuinely wanted to get rid of the botting issue once and for all. I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that the use of botting is quite widespread and/or has been used by high profile players for a long time. If that is the case, getting rid of botting may have significant negative financial repercussions for Blizzard, and it *may be* one reason why they act like it isn't there. I sure would love it if a player who got invited to one of their tavern talk videos actually rasied questions about it what their response would be. I suspect they would sweep it under the carpet and try to act like it is a non issue.
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web
The thing about Bots is they are extremely good at some things, but completely incompetent at others. An occasional random event that simulates a required interaction with the user that a bot cannot replicate is all that is needed to defeat the software. I imagine some care would be needed to implement this "anti bot" behviour in a way that seemlessly integrates itself into the game such that it causes minimal disturbance to the rest of the game. In my view it could easily be themed in such a way that people might not even perceive it as an anti-bot feature, but rather a new game mechanic. Off the top of my head I can imagine a sceanrio where the reward is a random opportunity to upgrade a gem (with low % chance of success). The mechanics of the interaction would be such that a bot could not simulate it, and enough repeated failures would, at the very least, send an alert to Blizzard so they could investigate.
The third (honorable mention) type is code injection, but that doesn't really exist anymore as it gets shut down immediately by warden.
MeatHeadGaming - YouTube - Twitch - Facebook - Web