All the diablo games has been about the loot or gear (and slaying monsters for it).
This grind is what seperates the ARPG from MMOs (like any casual could grind mobs anywhere for the best (Mythic) gear in a MMO.)
Botting has been a problem before paragon levels and isn't tied to those directly, but the Paragon-level do give somewhat of an indication of whom may be using such cheats.
The odd part is why those who sign this want other cheats to be treated differently.
"Please punish the obvious cheaters (botters), but don't punish the other cheaters (thuddders)."
The Warden software can and should flag any who use those well known cheat programs.
And Blizzard should ban them all, there is no good reason to let some cheaters go unpunished.
TurboHUD and bots are two different issues, and they're treated differently by Blizzard. This includes about how they respond to those issues on the forums, and the history of account actions taken. Our letter and this thread is about botting. I don't think there are two different opinions about bots (unless you're a botter), something you cannot say about other issues. Therefore, please keep TurboHUD and other things out of this message, as it makes the issue more blurry and might result in a vague response. If we put the spotlight on one very specific issue and the community speaks as a whole, chances are significantly higher to get a strong response (i.e., hopefully *action* and not just *words*).
Well, I agree that botting is bad and botters should be banned. And I also think that removing one offender is better than no action at all.
However, please don't pretend that the competition would be clean if only there were no botters. And please don't try to shut up the people, who claim the opposite.
I haven't used THUD, but as a long time WoW-player, I agree that many of its functions should be in the legit game client. But as of now it is plain and simple a cheat, mostly due to its map hack function. About this, there should also be no two opinions.
So, how about you start an open letter against that, too? Two separate letters for two separate cheats that each deny leaderboard access to the legitimate players? (for the record: I have no ambitions at all to rank outside of my f-list)
Otherwise you won't get rid of the smell of lobbying.
edit:
And btw, both issues could be adressed with changes to the game:
1) Bots would be a lesser factor, if there was a plvl cap
2) The non-cheating aspects of THUD could be incorporated into the actual game, the magic words are "combat log".
Thud has some good features and it has a lot of cheat features, Like drawing outlines on the ground telling you where everything that's harmful that's a cheat, Letting you see all your buffs that's fine. Letting you see a Pylon or dead ends 2-3 screens ahead that's a cheat.
Just because thud ads better functionality to diablo 3 hud even without the cheats doesn't mean its not a cheat anymore.
You still have an advantage over others, which itself is cheating, not to mention it lets you see stuff you shouldn't even if can turn that off the fact it's possible doesn't make it any less worse.
I definitely hope they deal with thud users also, and in my opinion you cheat you're out, zero tolerance.
If you deal slow with cheaters and even don't hand out permanent bans then why should people take you seriously at all as game dev, they will just continue forever.
edit:
And btw, both issues could be adressed with changes to the game:
1) Bots would be a lesser factor, if there was a plvl cap
2) The non-cheating aspects of THUD could be incorporated into the actual game, the magic words are "combat log".
1) Botting is not about paragon levels. Maybe to some extent it is, but it's mostly about not having to farm GR keys and materials. Basically, if you run a simple bot on T6-10 every night when you sleep, you will basically have infinite GR keys and materials. Paragon farming through botting is extremely inefficient. I'm not saying people aren't doing that, i'm just saying that it's not the main incentive for botting. At least from what i've seen and experienced.
2) Adding a combat log won't solve all of the issues that THUD helps to solve. Sure if they implement all of the "good" THUD features in the game then there won't be any need for it but untill then, people will use THUD no matter what because it's simply fucking amazing if you are playing the game and want to have some more details about what's going on and not be limited to retarded chat messages.
THUD is not the issue here. If Blizzard adds mod support they will solve the THUD issue but that's a different story. Fact of the matter is that in this thread, people want to pressure Blizzard into addressing the botting problem because they know that there might still be a chance that Blizz would give a damn and actually ban some or all of the botters. There's no use in trying to pressure them to ban THUD users because that simply won't happen for multiple reasons, the main one being the fact that they can't tell for 100% that you are using THUD if you carry out a few simple safety measures.
Personally, i don't think Blizzard will change their stance because of this letter. Sure, they might ban some botters now but in the long run, it won't suddenly make them make a big shift in their policies and start investing more into the anti-cheats division that is supposed to specifically work on D3... A division that seems to be non-existent from what we've seen so far.
I didn't read all the responses but I did read this first on the forums in the popular topics.
I agree that botters are annoying but where this post falls down is that Jaetch says this is why he doesn't play the game anymore, this rings false since we didn't always have ladders even when we had Paragon levels. If you play this game only for the glory then you have enough time to make #1 in the ladders. Look at Quin who has made #1 in three classes periodically in the season without cheating.
The next weak complaint I will see from people will be that they don't have the time others do and we need to limit play time.
The real solution is just to not allow the cube or paragon levels in ladders and then botters will only have RNG which everyone else has. Of course they will get more chances at RNG but RNG is RNG. Blizzard will never do anything about botters, we don't pay a sub fee and it is too much work.
Just because thud ads better functionality to diablo 3 hud even without the cheats doesn't mean its not a cheat anymore.
You still have an advantage over others, which itself is cheating, not to mention it lets you see stuff you shouldn't even if can turn that off the fact it's possible doesn't make it any less worse.
I definitely hope they deal with thud users also, and in my opinion you cheat you're out, zero tolerance.
If you deal slow with cheaters and even don't hand out permanent bans then why should people take you seriously at all as game dev, they will just continue forever.
If I follow this logic, then Blizzard should ban every addon user in WoW, because addons give huge advantage to users.
Just because thud ads better functionality to diablo 3 hud even without the cheats doesn't mean its not a cheat anymore.
You still have an advantage over others, which itself is cheating, not to mention it lets you see stuff you shouldn't even if can turn that off the fact it's possible doesn't make it any less worse.
I definitely hope they deal with thud users also, and in my opinion you cheat you're out, zero tolerance.
If you deal slow with cheaters and even don't hand out permanent bans then why should people take you seriously at all as game dev, they will just continue forever.
If I follow this logic, then Blizzard should ban every addon user in WoW, because addons give huge advantage to users.
Yeah, because comparing addons, for which Blizzard supplies an API and restrictions is the same as memory-reading external programs. At least try to strawman correctly.
They aren't anything alike at all.
Just because thud ads better functionality to diablo 3 hud even without the cheats doesn't mean its not a cheat anymore.
You still have an advantage over others, which itself is cheating, not to mention it lets you see stuff you shouldn't even if can turn that off the fact it's possible doesn't make it any less worse.
I definitely hope they deal with thud users also, and in my opinion you cheat you're out, zero tolerance.
If you deal slow with cheaters and even don't hand out permanent bans then why should people take you seriously at all as game dev, they will just continue forever.
If I follow this logic, then Blizzard should ban every addon user in WoW, because addons give huge advantage to users.
Yeah, because comparing addons, for which Blizzard supplies an API and restrictions is the same as memory-reading external programs. At least try to strawman correctly.
They aren't anything alike at all.
THUD (w/o maphack part, which is obviously a cheat) and WoW addons do the same thing.
Play hardcore, I don't think bots are very active there... of course I still dont have a shot at leader-boards, but at least I know they are all real players.
i agree that bots make an unfair advantage and basically the only way to compete on diablo leaderboards is to also cheat or exploit something. i think one of the easiest approaches to this is to have paragon based leaderboards. that way everyone is able to be competitive. unfortunately anyone with 1400 plus paragon to me has cheated somehow or another. Either multiple players on one account, bots, exploits, etc. As for having people sign a petition doesnt hold value unless you have something that can make blizzard stop and think. it would not be difficult for a leaderboard system to be used based on paragon either.
1 to 400
401 to 600
601 to 800
801 to 1000
1000 to unlimited.
This would allow all gamers to have some type of competitive gameplay and for those who have lives that cannot invest 12 hours or more a day to a game, who are most likely cheating anyways or truely has no lives. Like the OP stated anyone who averages more than 12 hours a day again is probably cheating. I also wouldnt bet that those high level streamers are not cheating offline to get all those keystones. Ive seen the whole lot of them sitting on 200 plus keys and you rarely see them run 1 normal rift online, when they stream 8-12 hours a day. If anything just have someone watch the twitch streams and you will most likely catch everyone botting, even those who have signed this worthless petition.
Play hardcore, I don't think bots are very active there... of course I still dont have a shot at leader-boards, but at least I know they are all real players.
Not true, there are bots on hardcore. Maybe not as many as on SC but saying that people should move to HC to avoid the problem is like closing your eyes in front of a problem to say "it's gone".
overall, this is just more advertisement for all the famous bots who didnt get a banwave lately...Everybody is talking about it, and i guess one or another will think now twice about botting..."hey everybody is doing it...so why shouldnt I start too?"
-Change the Leaderboard / Laddersystem
-Get rid of Paragoooonz
-If Items would be worth more than paragon - we wouldnt have this misery now.
While I can agree with the letter and would like to see bots banned...there's a reason THUD and other such things aren't mentioned. No one listed would be able to actually sign it. I would say THUD has a bigger impact on a player getting the leaderboard than botting. To say in this letter that this is for getting players who work hard on the leaderboard isn't really true when you think about it. Someone who doesn't use THUD has a significant disadvantage to people who do.
People keep saying that this letter is about bots and to keep the other programs separate as it will clutter it up and make a response less direct. I think the reason is that most users use THUD and so they can't add it to the letter without looking foolish.
To use the EULA and ToS as a reason for banning bots so that users who use THUD can take these leaderboard spots is a bit ridiculous to me. They are not actually representing the community that uses nothing to help their gameplay and those users will still be significantly behind in getting a leaderboard spot no matter how much hard work they put in.
overall, this is just more advertisement for all the famous bots who didnt get a banwave lately...Everybody is talking about it, and i guess one or another will think now twice about botting..."hey everybody is doing it...so why shouldnt I start too?"
-Change the Leaderboard / Laddersystem
-Get rid of Paragoooonz
-If Items would be worth more than paragon - we wouldnt have this misery now.
these are just my thoughts and worth 2 cent...
Because Diablo 2 didn't have bots right?
of course it has...if you´ll scroll up a bit I even said it. Maybe you just cant follow my thought on this topic..
nobody cares really about d2 anymore...the ppl who still play it, are used to it that blizz doesnt care...
I made just some suggestions for d3
.#whatsoever
Yet you are somehow convinced that paragon's are the sole source of the problem. And that removing/changing that would someone make all bots magically disappear.
I agree that they should ban the botters, but i dont mind if they dont do it. Who cares? They made this game just too casual. I know theres a lot of hardcore players that want to compete in the ladders, but this game is just not that competitive at all.
If people wants to be competitive, maybe this is not their game to do so. The devs only care about casual Diablo 3.
what a waste of bytes of the internet..instead of writing a really useful open letter to urge Blizz to add expansions to this game and not patch-content only - you're fighting againsts something that will never changed and because AH\RMAH removed the botting is not as it was.
So do yourself a favor, urge blizzard to add a lot more content to this game instead of starting unwanted war - because from patch to patch the game will die and botting will be the last thing on your minds
1) Reported, and be glad you can hide behind a layer of anonymity on the internet, as your first sentence is quite the threat.
2) If you know of a better representative, please, by all means, come forth.
I get it, you're likely a botter. Keep it to yourself.
EDIT: I'm retraced what I said below here (I'm leaving it here so it doesn't look like I'm hiding what I originally said). I read the offendors edited version and did not see the bad sentence that was quoted by Mikhail.
Mikhail, my respect for you is restored. What he said was wrong. Though I do stand by the whole "you must be a botter" argument that gets used when anyone has a dissenting opinion and I feel is disingenuous.
== My original post ===
Well what respect I had for you Mikhail is now gone. I love how the response to this persons post is "you must be a botter". That's the go to for anyone who doesn't agree with the anti-botter group (and for the record, I'm anti-botter).
Personally I think he had a point. The arrogance of the 1%/streamer crowd for D3 is just astounding. And instead of responding like an adult you criticize him and call him a botter... Nice debating skills.
edit:
And btw, both issues could be adressed with changes to the game:
1) Bots would be a lesser factor, if there was a plvl cap
2) The non-cheating aspects of THUD could be incorporated into the actual game, the magic words are "combat log".
1) Botting is not about paragon levels. Maybe to some extent it is, but it's mostly about not having to farm GR keys and materials. Basically, if you run a simple bot on T6-10 every night when you sleep, you will basically have infinite GR keys and materials. Paragon farming through botting is extremely inefficient. I'm not saying people aren't doing that, i'm just saying that it's not the main incentive for botting. At least from what i've seen and experienced.
2) Adding a combat log won't solve all of the issues that THUD helps to solve. Sure if they implement all of the "good" THUD features in the game then there won't be any need for it but untill then, people will use THUD no matter what because it's simply fucking amazing if you are playing the game and want to have some more details about what's going on and not be limited to retarded chat messages.
THUD is not the issue here. If Blizzard adds mod support they will solve the THUD issue but that's a different story. Fact of the matter is that in this thread, people want to pressure Blizzard into addressing the botting problem because they know that there might still be a chance that Blizz would give a damn and actually ban some or all of the botters. There's no use in trying to pressure them to ban THUD users because that simply won't happen for multiple reasons, the main one being the fact that they can't tell for 100% that you are using THUD if you carry out a few simple safety measures.
Personally, i don't think Blizzard will change their stance because of this letter. Sure, they might ban some botters now but in the long run, it won't suddenly make them make a big shift in their policies and start investing more into the anti-cheats division that is supposed to specifically work on D3... A division that seems to be non-existent from what we've seen so far.
1) I get that and I mostly agree, but if there was a plvl cap, you wouldn't lose out on valuable exp-time when you farm other stuff. Botters would have an advantage still, but not one that resulted in +500 plvl.
2) Sure, it's not the only thing, but the required catalyst for everything else. With a combat log and the permission to write simple WoW-like addons, the game could be much better. I'd enjoy it more if it had my WoW interface, like a weakaura for the CoE buff etc. But such info is not available without spoiling the game for me with too many "wrongs".
Though, on a side note, while I would very much appreciate the latter part, I'm with those players who'd rather see resources spent on content than on cleaning up the leaderboards, if those are in any way related.
All the diablo games has been about the loot or gear (and slaying monsters for it).
This grind is what seperates the ARPG from MMOs (like any casual could grind mobs anywhere for the best (Mythic) gear in a MMO.)
Botting has been a problem before paragon levels and isn't tied to those directly, but the Paragon-level do give somewhat of an indication of whom may be using such cheats.
The odd part is why those who sign this want other cheats to be treated differently.
"Please punish the obvious cheaters (botters), but don't punish the other cheaters (thuddders)."
The Warden software can and should flag any who use those well known cheat programs.
And Blizzard should ban them all, there is no good reason to let some cheaters go unpunished.
Well, I agree that botting is bad and botters should be banned. And I also think that removing one offender is better than no action at all.
However, please don't pretend that the competition would be clean if only there were no botters. And please don't try to shut up the people, who claim the opposite.
I haven't used THUD, but as a long time WoW-player, I agree that many of its functions should be in the legit game client. But as of now it is plain and simple a cheat, mostly due to its map hack function. About this, there should also be no two opinions.
So, how about you start an open letter against that, too? Two separate letters for two separate cheats that each deny leaderboard access to the legitimate players? (for the record: I have no ambitions at all to rank outside of my f-list)
Otherwise you won't get rid of the smell of lobbying.
edit:
And btw, both issues could be adressed with changes to the game:
1) Bots would be a lesser factor, if there was a plvl cap
2) The non-cheating aspects of THUD could be incorporated into the actual game, the magic words are "combat log".
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
Thud has some good features and it has a lot of cheat features, Like drawing outlines on the ground telling you where everything that's harmful that's a cheat, Letting you see all your buffs that's fine. Letting you see a Pylon or dead ends 2-3 screens ahead that's a cheat.
Just because thud ads better functionality to diablo 3 hud even without the cheats doesn't mean its not a cheat anymore.
You still have an advantage over others, which itself is cheating, not to mention it lets you see stuff you shouldn't even if can turn that off the fact it's possible doesn't make it any less worse.
I definitely hope they deal with thud users also, and in my opinion you cheat you're out, zero tolerance.
If you deal slow with cheaters and even don't hand out permanent bans then why should people take you seriously at all as game dev, they will just continue forever.
1) Botting is not about paragon levels. Maybe to some extent it is, but it's mostly about not having to farm GR keys and materials. Basically, if you run a simple bot on T6-10 every night when you sleep, you will basically have infinite GR keys and materials. Paragon farming through botting is extremely inefficient. I'm not saying people aren't doing that, i'm just saying that it's not the main incentive for botting. At least from what i've seen and experienced.
2) Adding a combat log won't solve all of the issues that THUD helps to solve. Sure if they implement all of the "good" THUD features in the game then there won't be any need for it but untill then, people will use THUD no matter what because it's simply fucking amazing if you are playing the game and want to have some more details about what's going on and not be limited to retarded chat messages.
THUD is not the issue here. If Blizzard adds mod support they will solve the THUD issue but that's a different story. Fact of the matter is that in this thread, people want to pressure Blizzard into addressing the botting problem because they know that there might still be a chance that Blizz would give a damn and actually ban some or all of the botters. There's no use in trying to pressure them to ban THUD users because that simply won't happen for multiple reasons, the main one being the fact that they can't tell for 100% that you are using THUD if you carry out a few simple safety measures.
Personally, i don't think Blizzard will change their stance because of this letter. Sure, they might ban some botters now but in the long run, it won't suddenly make them make a big shift in their policies and start investing more into the anti-cheats division that is supposed to specifically work on D3... A division that seems to be non-existent from what we've seen so far.
I didn't read all the responses but I did read this first on the forums in the popular topics.
I agree that botters are annoying but where this post falls down is that Jaetch says this is why he doesn't play the game anymore, this rings false since we didn't always have ladders even when we had Paragon levels. If you play this game only for the glory then you have enough time to make #1 in the ladders. Look at Quin who has made #1 in three classes periodically in the season without cheating.
The next weak complaint I will see from people will be that they don't have the time others do and we need to limit play time.
The real solution is just to not allow the cube or paragon levels in ladders and then botters will only have RNG which everyone else has. Of course they will get more chances at RNG but RNG is RNG. Blizzard will never do anything about botters, we don't pay a sub fee and it is too much work.
They aren't anything alike at all.
Play hardcore, I don't think bots are very active there... of course I still dont have a shot at leader-boards, but at least I know they are all real players.
i agree that bots make an unfair advantage and basically the only way to compete on diablo leaderboards is to also cheat or exploit something. i think one of the easiest approaches to this is to have paragon based leaderboards. that way everyone is able to be competitive. unfortunately anyone with 1400 plus paragon to me has cheated somehow or another. Either multiple players on one account, bots, exploits, etc. As for having people sign a petition doesnt hold value unless you have something that can make blizzard stop and think. it would not be difficult for a leaderboard system to be used based on paragon either.
1 to 400
401 to 600
601 to 800
801 to 1000
1000 to unlimited.
This would allow all gamers to have some type of competitive gameplay and for those who have lives that cannot invest 12 hours or more a day to a game, who are most likely cheating anyways or truely has no lives. Like the OP stated anyone who averages more than 12 hours a day again is probably cheating. I also wouldnt bet that those high level streamers are not cheating offline to get all those keystones. Ive seen the whole lot of them sitting on 200 plus keys and you rarely see them run 1 normal rift online, when they stream 8-12 hours a day. If anything just have someone watch the twitch streams and you will most likely catch everyone botting, even those who have signed this worthless petition.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
ModeratorRofl at people thinking addons in WoW, and 3.party cheats in D3 is comparable.
Firstly addons is supported in WoW, 3.rd party apps is considered cheats in D3.
Maphack was bannable offence in D2, THUD delivers all the same cheat functionality and more.
Ofcourse THUD is in the same category of 3.rd party cheat applications.
(Which again is all detectable by Warden)
While I can agree with the letter and would like to see bots banned...there's a reason THUD and other such things aren't mentioned. No one listed would be able to actually sign it. I would say THUD has a bigger impact on a player getting the leaderboard than botting. To say in this letter that this is for getting players who work hard on the leaderboard isn't really true when you think about it. Someone who doesn't use THUD has a significant disadvantage to people who do.
People keep saying that this letter is about bots and to keep the other programs separate as it will clutter it up and make a response less direct. I think the reason is that most users use THUD and so they can't add it to the letter without looking foolish.
To use the EULA and ToS as a reason for banning bots so that users who use THUD can take these leaderboard spots is a bit ridiculous to me. They are not actually representing the community that uses nothing to help their gameplay and those users will still be significantly behind in getting a leaderboard spot no matter how much hard work they put in.
I agree that they should ban the botters, but i dont mind if they dont do it. Who cares? They made this game just too casual. I know theres a lot of hardcore players that want to compete in the ladders, but this game is just not that competitive at all.
If people wants to be competitive, maybe this is not their game to do so. The devs only care about casual Diablo 3.
Just my 2 cents.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse Premiumwhat a waste of bytes of the internet..instead of writing a really useful open letter to urge Blizz to add expansions to this game and not patch-content only - you're fighting againsts something that will never changed and because AH\RMAH removed the botting is not as it was.
So do yourself a favor, urge blizzard to add a lot more content to this game instead of starting unwanted war - because from patch to patch the game will die and botting will be the last thing on your minds
EDIT: I'm retraced what I said below here (I'm leaving it here so it doesn't look like I'm hiding what I originally said). I read the offendors edited version and did not see the bad sentence that was quoted by Mikhail.
Mikhail, my respect for you is restored. What he said was wrong. Though I do stand by the whole "you must be a botter" argument that gets used when anyone has a dissenting opinion and I feel is disingenuous.
== My original post ===
Well what respect I had for you Mikhail is now gone. I love how the response to this persons post is "you must be a botter". That's the go to for anyone who doesn't agree with the anti-botter group (and for the record, I'm anti-botter).
Personally I think he had a point. The arrogance of the 1%/streamer crowd for D3 is just astounding. And instead of responding like an adult you criticize him and call him a botter... Nice debating skills.
===================
You will never see an "Open letter from the community" on that topic from those that signed this one since they all use it.
1) I get that and I mostly agree, but if there was a plvl cap, you wouldn't lose out on valuable exp-time when you farm other stuff. Botters would have an advantage still, but not one that resulted in +500 plvl.
2) Sure, it's not the only thing, but the required catalyst for everything else. With a combat log and the permission to write simple WoW-like addons, the game could be much better. I'd enjoy it more if it had my WoW interface, like a weakaura for the CoE buff etc. But such info is not available without spoiling the game for me with too many "wrongs".
Though, on a side note, while I would very much appreciate the latter part, I'm with those players who'd rather see resources spent on content than on cleaning up the leaderboards, if those are in any way related.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450