For those who say THUD is more damaging than boting. I play roughly 3-4hrs on a daily basis have recently managed to get to 1000 paragons. I have witnessed players on my friends list who were on equal par with me at the start of this era and have now acquired 1600+ paragons as a result of boting no doubt. If you think for one second that even if i know what affixes or what density is around the corner from using thud in a GR will enable me to compete with those players...well you're sadly mistaken. If you do then you don't play the game enough to know that this is not possible. They would not even break a sweat at the GR I'm tirelessly opening and reopening and may finally complete with seconds to spare. Non seasons leaderboards are beyond repair...blizzard should focus on seasons to "try" and achieve a level playing field and the first step towards that would be to cap paragons at 800.
In my opinion they can't fix boting on this level, they stand to lose too many accounts as a result and that's losing money and no company can afford that.
"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."
Meanwhile by your own words those of us calling for ALL CHEATERS to be punished "are defending our botting". I have to say that is disappointing especially coming from you.
That's just it. These guys think they represent the entire community, and you're either on the band wagon, or you're a botter. Most of what I've read in this thread wasn't actually defending botting, as it is defending our own rights to speak, and pointing out the hypocritical signatories and thier motives. As well as (as you pointed out) the swaying of conversation away from those facts, and discrediting those who speak about thier motives. Sure there's a few in here who've asked, how do I sign? To which, there is no answer, because it's not a community letter, it's not even an open letter. Bagstone's own replies have been accusatory, and have stated that "No, once they deal with the fire, the building will fall down anyways."
We're not talking about solutions to the problem, we're not talking about anything around the issue, we're talking about botting. Again. For the hundredth time. These guys think because they're streamers (or free advertiser's for both right and wrong) or devs in sometimes useful websites, they should have a say in how the game is operated. Like an ant telling you what to pack for your picnic.
I want a resolution, but I don't want these egomaniacs to get anymore inflated, or they won't be able to fit on the servers, and server lag is bad enough.
So let's make the letter about "cheating" so that whatever slim chance there was of Blizzard actually addressing it will be completely gone or replaced with stupid examples of actions taken by blizz against exploits and other irrelevant stuff. I think people need to get over their ego and i'm not talking about streamers only...
So let's make the letter about "cheating" so that whatever slim chance there was of Blizzard actually addressing it will be completely gone or replaced with stupid examples of actions taken by blizz against exploits and other irrelevant stuff. I think people need to get over their ego and i'm not talking about streamers only...
I don't think, Blizzard is stupid. Ignorant to an extent yes, but not stupid. They are aware that the leaderboards are being won by people who go the extra mile, inside and outside of the game. And they know they won't fix the competitiveness with just the extraction of one evil. The question is, if they care. They see that only a tiny fraction of players actively tries to rank, to push their limits, which is visible through the behavior of opening and closing one gr after another fishing for that doable grift. Now this letter tries to pretend that a vast amount of players needs botting gone to enjoy D3 again, when in fact, it only speaks for an even smaller fraction of the aforementioned fraction. And Blizzard sees that as well. Plus they very much realize the hypocrites
So, they might care for the players who engage in the leaderboards and enforce some law against botters. Maybe you even luck out and they purge thudders as well, while they're at it. But don't assume they act based upon the number of people "liking" this letter. I'd rather have them read the discussion about it.
So let's make the letter about "cheating" so that whatever slim chance there was of Blizzard actually addressing it will be completely gone or replaced with stupid examples of actions taken by blizz against exploits and other irrelevant stuff. I think people need to get over their ego and i'm not talking about streamers only...
Sarcasm wins all debates right? It doesn't have to be aimed at "cheating" but the problems lay within the parameters of 'third-party software'. So the letter these 26 pillars of the community wrote could be written in that direction. It's not, because most of the signatories are third-party software users. Blizzard could even make an arguement that a website that times CoE is considered to be TPS. Not likely, but the arguement could be made, which would basically wipe the leaderboards completely.
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I have to say though, while they haven't addressed the botting issue as quickly as we'd all hope, fixing and punishing those involved in the Hellfire exploit shows they care. Acting as though it's irrelevant is childish. It was within thier power to do. Which logically speaks to the fact that they don't have a final solution to the bot problem. Would you prefer random bans to people who play more than 8 hours a day?
I don't think there are two different opinions about bots (unless you're a botter)
Hell, I'm a botter and I'm signing.
Really, if you can get rid of botting, ban me, I'll gladly take the fall.
The worst thing about botting is really that some players hate it, but they feel they have to do it in order to stay relevant and keep up with the botting community.
So whats your opinion on a solution? Paragon Cap in Season? Captcha like mentioned so often? Something else?
I*m realy interested to hear something additional than all this already mentioned stuff.
While this isn't the thread to poste it in, the solution is fairly simple from a technical standpoint. There is no ultimate solution. Botting will always be around, regardless of how many you cut down. Blizzard has proven they can target specific programs and in-game behaviours, using CAPTCHA would obviously increase the occurrence of banwaves, but it's like a cartoon bad guy, it'll keep coming back. My opinion to limit botting is to limit the game. Be it paragon levels, or a fatigue system in which you can only play for so long, I don't think we'll ever find a game that is 100% bot free, but games that allow you to spend endless hours grinding are where bots thrive. I'm not saying it's what's best for the game as a whole, but in the aspect of botting, there's only so much you can do.
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Limiting the game for the few who cheat isn't fair. It would be naive to assume that anything I, this community, the Blizzard technical team, or any other community can come up with will take down botting for good. The battle isn't just with botting, it's with human nature. Can cheat, will cheat, does cheat. Can cheat, won't cheat, doesn't cheat. Same topic could be applied to relationships, personal, romantic or work. You don't ban all 12 year olds from the gas and sip because one stole candybars, but you do install security cameras. CAPTCHA isn't the best option, because it can make incorrect assumptions, but if it would help, I'd take anything.
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To stay on point, the purpose of this thread isn't to come to a solution, but pleading Blizzard to find one. As well as bring awareness to, in my opinion, a farce of an open letter that 26 individuals put together. There are at least a dozen threads about solutions to botting. My point was that we talk about these things, so often, and that the laser point is that we are against botting as a community, but as has been discussed, many times, we are also against TPS. Why are we separating the two in an open letter? Why if they find a solution to botting will that blanket cover HUDs? Why is it taboo to clump TPS with TPS? How does that affect Blizzard's response? "If they respond to botting, they respond to THUD", technically, no they don't. I'll simply use Demonbuddy as an example, because I'm pretty sure it's done for good now. They got it, they got everyone using it, and still botting is an issue. Why? Because Blizzard targeted what it was doing, and flipped it. CAPTCHA, no CAPTCHA, doesn't matter, but they singled it out, and took care of it. It was changing memory, so it's not all that hard to target your own software, but they got it. I'm sure the same will happen when they get the other bots out there. So, when they took care of Demonbuddy, did they also get rid of THUD? Other bots? Was it a blanket enforcement of the EULA? No, so why then would I (or anyone else) assume that if they fix bot X, that THUD and all the other bots will just rollover? It makes me question the motives behind this letter and anyone who signed it.
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All I've seen are excuses and subterfuge, smoke and mirrors. So please explain, in fine detail why TPS is being so hush hush, yet botting is the main concern?
"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."
Meanwhile by your own words those of us calling for ALL CHEATERS to be punished "are defending our botting". I have to say that is disappointing especially coming from you.
We're not talking about solutions to the problem, we're not talking about anything around the issue, we're talking about botting.
So whats your opinion on a solution? Paragon Cap in Season? Captcha like mentioned so often? Something else?
I*m realy interested to hear something additional than all this already mentioned stuff.
First off I don't know if there is a 100% viable solution to the problem since Blizzard has let it get so far out of hand as it stands today.
If Blizzard can truly detect Bots, and not just "bot like behavior" then at least we have a starting point. However if they just go after anyone who has 12 plus hours of playtime a day for example, then you could be banning a great number of legitimate players mistakenly. People go on binges with this game, they leave the game on and sit in menus for 6 hours, they enter and leave games repeatedly looking for the perfect grifts, they run endless rifts back to back with no let up except maybe a few minutes break. That can all be looked at as behavior that is "bot like". But the real question remains if their system in place can currently detect 3rd party programs playing the game, because if they cannot, then ZERO bans should be handed out.
Now, on the other side of the coin, if Blizzard CAN see that third party programs are reading memory, injecting any commands into the game, or anything else that these programs can do, then by all means, ban them. Ban them all. Any and every player that uses a 3rd party program.
Now for arguments sake, lets say they do not take that road. Lets say they realize that removing bots would severely impact their playerbase on a daily average. Lets say they find an alternate measure.
Assuming they can identify bot users, one "solution" if they choose not to undertake a massive ban wave would be to flag these players accounts, in a visible way that ANY and ALL players can see. Lets say a new icon like a player portrait that cannot be changed, or maybe an asterisk next to their name when they log in or a message to all players when they join a party. Another harsher alternative would be something that may be too difficult to implement, but lets say any player who has been VERIFIED of botting is restricted from joining public games. They can play on their own or with clan/friendslist players, HOWEVER, if a GRift is opened in a group, no player who is flagged can join with other people. They can make their own GRifts, and they can push high GRifts, but they will not appear on the leaderboards, but there will always be a way to tell if the person has been/is a bot user.
In addition, I think that the paragon system is simply out of hand. I think paragon should be harder to obtain, and be limited to 800 points in season. Non season should be unlimited, but for competitive play it is simply too powerful and provides too much of a bonus in damage. I have completed GRift 55 on my monk and will be slowly pushing it to 60 if I can, and for that I am proud. However there is ZERO chance of me competing with players who have 1300 or 1600 paragon levels. Cap it at 800 for seasons and it might also be time for an overhaul of the available pages/choices on the paragon system. That however is a different discussion.
Captcha systems would work to a point, but would also annoy a lot of legit players who simply get tired of entering it. Also, when would the captcha come up......Beginning, mid game, would it pause the game, would it come up in the middle of a boss fight, would it come up when you just killed the boss and have 10 seconds to turn in the rift ? Things could go worse because of them.
You wanted possible solutions. That would be mine.
PS - Nachten You mistakenly changed the part of my quote from Bagstone's name to Arydor. (I changed it back for you)
No idea why that happened, but lets keep the accusations with who actually said them.
"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."
Meanwhile by your own words those of us calling for ALL CHEATERS to be punished "are defending our botting". I have to say that is disappointing especially coming from you.
We're not talking about solutions to the problem, we're not talking about anything around the issue, we're talking about botting.
So whats your opinion on a solution? Paragon Cap in Season? Captcha like mentioned so often? Something else?
I*m realy interested to hear something additional than all this already mentioned stuff.
First off I don't know if there is a 100% viable solution to the problem since Blizzard has let it get so far out of hand as it stands today.
If Blizzard can truly detect Bots, and not just "bot like behavior" then at least we have a starting point. However if they just go after anyone who has 12 plus hours of playtime a day for example, then you could be banning a great number of legitimate players mistakenly. People go on binges with this game, they leave the game on and sit in menus for 6 hours, they enter and leave games repeatedly looking for the perfect grifts, they run endless rifts back to back with no let up except maybe a few minutes break. That can all be looked at as behavior that is "bot like". But the real question remains if their system in place can currently detect 3rd party programs playing the game, because if they cannot, then ZERO bans should be handed out.
Now, on the other side of the coin, if Blizzard CAN see that third party programs are reading memory, injecting any commands into the game, or anything else that these programs can do, then by all means, ban them. Ban them all. Any and every player that uses a 3rd party program.
Now for arguments sake, lets say they do not take that road. Lets say they realize that removing bots would severely impact their playerbase on a daily average. Lets say they find an alternate measure.
Assuming they can identify bot users, one "solution" if they choose not to undertake a massive ban wave would be to flag these players accounts, in a visible way that ANY and ALL players can see. Lets say a new icon like a player portrait that cannot be changed, or maybe an asterisk next to their name when they log in or a message to all players when they join a party. Another harsher alternative would be something that may be too difficult to implement, but lets say any player who has been VERIFIED of botting is restricted from joining public games. They can play on their own or with clan/friendslist players, HOWEVER, if a GRift is opened in a group, no player who is flagged can join with other people. They can make their own GRifts, and they can push high GRifts, but they will not appear on the leaderboards, but there will always be a way to tell if the person has been/is a bot user.
In addition, I think that the paragon system is simply out of hand. I think paragon should be harder to obtain, and be limited to 800 points in season. Non season should be unlimited, but for competitive play it is simply too powerful and provides too much of a bonus in damage. I have completed GRift 55 on my monk and will be slowly pushing it to 60 if I can, and for that I am proud. However there is ZERO chance of me competing with players who have 1300 or 1600 paragon levels. Cap it at 800 for seasons and it might also be time for an overhaul of the available pages/choices on the paragon system. That however is a different discussion.
Captcha systems would work to a point, but would also annoy a lot of legit players who simply get tired of entering it. Also, when would the captcha come up......Beginning, mid game, would it pause the game, would it come up in the middle of a boss fight, would it come up when you just killed the boss and have 10 seconds to turn in the rift ? Things could go worse because of them.
You wanted possible solutions. That would be mine.
PS - Nachten You mistakenly changed the part of my quote from Bagstone's name to Arydor. (I changed it back for you)
No idea why that happened, but lets keep the accusations with who actually said them.
"Bot like behaviour" isn't just spamming rifts all day, it's a series of actions that a human person manually playing the game wouldn't do. Example; Attempting to loot the same item for 5 minutes and can't because of a full inventory. You and I and all the other real boys out there realize after the first, or maybe 5th attempt that our inventory is full, and adapt, the bot would just continue to try until the command timed out.
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Blizzard doesn't shame ban people, never have, never will. In fact, if you ever hear that someone was banned, it's through player channels. Actually, funny turn of events, if you actually read the EULA, you'll laugh a little bit at Quin, Dat, Alk, and the other streamers who signed this letter. (If you understand, you can give a thumbs up.) But it states that Blizzard cannot shame ban you, they can terminate your account without reason, but they can't tell anybody what that reason is.
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Paragon is getting out of hand because it's the only thing of value to farm. Perfect Ancient gear is awesome, but once you've got all that, what do you do? Especially when you dedicate 8+ hours to the game.
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Thanks for the cheers, I'm not the one saying that anyone who disagrees is a botter
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<Informational poste only> =)
I agree Bliz should do something extreme with boters when they use bots to exploit a tournament setting such as season play. But what are we gonna expect them to do about those signing the plea for stopping botting that are botting. You can tell by hours played and see it in some of the online videos that they are not even watching the screen and using both hands to gesture while talking durring possition holding runs on the leader boards lol. Start by policing our own by not suporting those live streams or youtube video chanels. Even if they are not static charge botting, if they are just botting for materials to craft it is unfair to everyone else.
Maybe I'm being a lil naive here, but I still believe that Blizz will eventually do something about all the botting/THUD BS even if it isn't gonna happen tomorrow.
I just don't wanna see anything happen that's gonna punish legit players because of the crap that botters are doing. I don't wanna lose paragons, I don't want some stupid restrictions, I don't want to have to deal with Capchas or anything like that. I'd really, really hope that they could deal with this problem in a way that ONLY effects the botters.
Personally, I play more on the casual side. Never even look at leaderboards, never attempted to get on them, and don't pay much attention to the more competitive side of D3. I like to consider myself "decent enough" at the game (Almost 800 paragon, pretty good gear on my fav characters, could handle 60-65 rifts) but totally nothing special. But I could totally understand from the perspective of a legitimate player looking to play more seriously that it could be pretty defeating to only see the cheaters winning and totally agree something should be done about it.
Again though, I just don't wanna see anything done that would punish or hinder legit players because a bunch of other players are cheating. That just doesn't seem fair at all, that I as someone who's never even considered the idea of cheating on here would have my gaming experience messed up or otherwise complicated because of other people being lame and cheating.
Personally, I play more on the casual side. Never even look at leaderboards, never attempted to get on them, and don't pay much attention to the more competitive side of D3. I like to consider myself "decent enough" at the game (Almost 800 paragon, pretty good gear on my fav characters, could handle 60-65 rifts) but totally nothing special. But I could totally understand from the perspective of a legitimate player looking to play more seriously that it could be pretty defeating to only see the cheaters winning and totally agree something should be done about it.
By your statement you could handle 65. That could put you on every leaderboard except monk. How do these top end players make the assumption that people on the leaderboards are botters. They could very well level that accusation if you were on them. They can say anything they want to about people botting, but how do they KNOW that ANYONE on the leaderboards are. Simple answer : They don't. They are leveling unsubstantiated accusations against others. The finger could just as easily be pointed back at them. We would have the same proof of their botting as they have against anyone else.
I am by NO means saying that there are no players on the leaderboards that have exploited the TOS by using bots. I am simply saying until Blizzard takes action, we have no proof that any of them have. We all know there are botters out there, but this letter comes from the "part of the community that engages in the Competitive aspects". They are only complaining about the impact on the Leaderboards and Conquests. Period. It states that in the opening paragraph. JUst because you assume that someone used illicit means to compete with you does not make it true.
Lets say that they ban all botters at the moment and remove all said names from the leaderboards. I hesitate to think that it will have much of an impact in the top end of the leaderboards that the signatories are in. Playstyle, reaction time, fishing for grifts, snapshotting, THUD, key macros, num lock all have more to do with the top end of the competitive aspect of the leaderboards. A bot can only do so much. After getting all the gear you need, you still need to be able to complete the higher level grifts. Different players have different skills. Just because you have all the mats, keys , gear you need does not make everyone capable of competing for the top 1% on the leaderboards.
Just hope Blizzard ends the season, removes and bans all botters, and lets us move on with all of our lives and the game.
So let's make the letter about "cheating" so that whatever slim chance there was of Blizzard actually addressing it will be completely gone or replaced with stupid examples of actions taken by blizz against exploits and other irrelevant stuff. I think people need to get over their ego and i'm not talking about streamers only...
Sarcasm wins all debates right? It doesn't have to be aimed at "cheating" but the problems lay within the parameters of 'third-party software'. So the letter these 26 pillars of the community wrote could be written in that direction. It's not, because most of the signatories are third-party software users. Blizzard could even make an arguement that a website that times CoE is considered to be TPS. Not likely, but the arguement could be made, which would basically wipe the leaderboards completely.
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I have to say though, while they haven't addressed the botting issue as quickly as we'd all hope, fixing and punishing those involved in the Hellfire exploit shows they care. Acting as though it's irrelevant is childish. It was within thier power to do. Which logically speaks to the fact that they don't have a final solution to the bot problem. Would you prefer random bans to people who play more than 8 hours a day?
It doesn't make sense to include Thud in this letter because as you said, almost if not all of the people who signed the letter actually use Thud (Including me, back when i used to play D3). It's too good to give up on while still not breaking the game imo. It's very different from botting, it's more like a reaction to Blizzard's horrible hard-coded UI implementation in D3. The lack of modding support is just really bad and the fact that people have Thud to compensate that is actually a good thing in my view. If Blizzard just works on a better minimap to include things like champion / elite packs that you have already encountered, then they could also make it so you can't read the minimap portion of the game off of the client's memory somehow... I think if Thud didn't have the maphack then it would have been more legit and awesome but the fact that it has some sort of a maphack makes its validity go down by quite a bit.
This letter is about botting and botting is what the people who signed the letter, think that is the worst thing that is happening to the game. I'm glad so many people care about this issue and come to voice their opinion but i really don't understand why you have to disagree with something just because it doesn't fulfill your expectations by 100%... I think we as players in general are a bit spoiled and this attitude of all or nothing is actually pretty bad for us because i think that if this letter would have gained more support and less criticism because people are not satisfied with the fact that it doesn't address other things (that are unrelated imo, thud is unrelated to botting and is not the main issue here), then it would have had more chances at actually creating a change or forcing Blizzard to react, possibly in a bit of a more rushed manner (rushed doesn't have to be bad, just mobilizing resources to a certain direction).
It's hard for people especially mods on this forum to please everyone. It's also hard to argue with 20 different people when it's one mod versus dozens of newcomers or old timers that are all arguing the same points over and over, often without reading what the mods have had to say in previous posts. It's also really stupid in my opinion how some people are offended by the claim that whoever is opposed to this letter is probably a botter because it's just a logical assumption and really, what did you expect? I think people need to lay off a bit and try to focus on the main issue here and that is the fact that D3 is turning into a complete bot fest and if you don't think it's true then i think you are either fooling yourself or just unaware of the magnitude of the problem.
TL:DR: I botted, i used Thud / D3helper whatever and i am in favor of all of those being limited and completely removed but some features of Thud need to stay until Blizzard implements UI modding support. Botting is the main issue here and diverting the focus from the main issue towards lesser issues like Thud is effectively a disservice to the community as a whole because expecting Thud to become "illegal" is simply unrealistic according to what we have seen in the past, and that does not apply to botting therefore this letter receives my (humble ) endorsement.
--> Will the majority of the actual player base quit the game because some enthusiastic players are botting? No. Will they cry about it? Yes.
--> Will the majority of the actual player base (including botters) quit, when blizzard decides to do smth against botters? Yes. Will a lot of innocent players be negatively affected by blizzards actions? Yes. Does Blizzard want to earn a lot of money? Yes.
Sorry, how do you know ? I know some people that already quitted to others botting, and botters that bots because they "have to" and will be glad to stop.
Blizzard is not going to harm their business. Botters will always be there. That's how it works now.
Keep in mind that for every business, the reputation is maybe the most important thing.
And Diablo having the reputation as a bot paradise is not good to their reputation.
And I know plenty of people who would quit if they couldn't bot. I would imagine these people just do not have much time to play and do not want to waste what little time they have doing bounties or normal rifts etc.. I am not saying this justifies it, I am just saying you know people who quit because of botting, and I know people who would quit without botting.
And profit >>>>>>>>>> reputation. Do you really think a business would rather make LESS money just to have the people using their product say "well at least they are reputable" over making MORE money but having people say "they do some stuff I don't agree with"? IF, this is a big if, Blizzard were to lose money from removing botting completely, I don't think botting will EVER go away. Remember that Bobby Kotick is in charge these days, and if you don't know his philosophy behind the game industry and making money, give it a nice Google search. The guy literally makes every move based on net gains, which from a business perspective doesn't seem unreasonable.
This is a message on behalf of the portion of the community that engages in the competitive aspects (such as Leaderboards and Conquests) of this game you created - the players who love the game to the point where they dedicate large portions of their free time to playing it; who want to have at least something to show for this dedication; who want to have their names up there on the Leaderboards; and who want to see rewards for the countless hours of gameplay they spend on Diablo III.
You’re making this incredibly difficult for us.
We all know that beating the highest possible Greater Rift tiers requires a large number of attempts in addition to the time investment that is needed to get the appropriate gear. This involves a lot of grinding, be it for Keystones, crafting materials, Infernal Machines, or Ancient Legendaries. Such is the nature of the game and that is not the issue. The actual problem lies in the vast amount of people who try to get around doing this dirty work - the ones that use bots; the ones that can log into the game to hundreds of Greater Rift Keystones, Legendary crafting materials, or Infernal Machines every day, without having lifted a finger for any of those. It should be obvious that this provides these players with a huge advantage over those of us that choose not to bot, but put at least the same amount of effort into the game and advancement of our characters. This feeling is extremely disheartening. We all know that it is incredibly hard to beat the botters and even impossible if they were to step up their gameplay to a higher level of efficiency. They can get a huge lead on you every single night. This knowledge reduces the incentive and desire to participate in the Leaderboard competition until eventually the Diablo III competition becomes a farce altogether. Thus, those of us that love the game and have been dedicated players since the start become increasingly frustrated with it until we simply give up on the entire competition, or create our own, virtual “bot-free” competition by ignoring all known botters.
To prevent that, your very own End User License Agreement, which we all agreed to, states that players may not use bots such as these, even giving “the automated control of a character in a Game” as an example for such a prohibited program (Section 1.C.ii.2. of Battle.net® End User License Agreement, http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/legal/eula.html). Enforcing this agreement is your duty and yours alone. If you don’t, it will only go to show that you don’t care. It has been months since the last major action taken against botters and, consequently, Season 3 was dominated by them. Our friends lists contain more and more people who are online for more than 20 hours a day, despite them having to go to work or school. Even if detecting the actual bots running on people's machines or identifying them by their in-game behavior was impossible, their log-in times should be more than enough to warrant additional investigation. Nobody can play for 23 hours every single day.
Even if that were infeasible, at least let us report botters so that you may investigate their behavior. It has come to a point where it is quite obvious that certain high profile streamers are botting off-stream and some are even admitting so themselves in public chat rooms. These players are viewed as examples by the community, so what kind of message does that send? To us, it sends the message that not only is it apparently legal to bot, but that the game even requires it to be competitive. That is undoubtedly not how you want Diablo III to be seen, especially with how far we’ve come since the issues of the original release.
Of course, we would prefer any action against botters to happen immediately upon them being discovered. However, we are aware that this is likely infeasible. Thus, we would propose any action against botters to take place approximately two weeks before the end of a Season, coinciding with the “Season Ending” announcement, as to not give botters the time to catch up to the legitimate and fair players again. The latter would then still be able to fight for the clean Leaderboards, as they would if botters didn’t exist.
Still, with no action having been taken for so long, sending out a message to the entire community sooner rather than later would be a good idea.
Please, if you have the same love for the game that we do, do something about the botters. It cannot continue like this. We cannot continue like this.
The irony boss half if not all of those guys bot, cheat, use Turbo HUD (map hack), Share Accounts, etc etc
so they need to find a nice day and go fly a kite.
It doesn't make sense to include Thud in this letter because as you said, almost if not all of the people who signed the letter actually use Thud (Including me, back when i used to play D3). It's too good to give up on while still not breaking the game imo. It's very different from botting, it's more like a reaction to Blizzard's horrible hard-coded UI implementation in D3. The lack of modding support is just really bad and the fact that people have Thud to compensate that is actually a good thing in my view. If Blizzard just works on a better minimap to include things like champion / elite packs that you have already encountered, then they could also make it so you can't read the minimap portion of the game off of the client's memory somehow... I think if Thud didn't have the maphack then it would have been more legit and awesome but the fact that it has some sort of a maphack makes its validity go down by quite a bit. - This is an issue with the Blizzard default UI, to which D3 was not opened to modding for the exact reason THUD provides a maphack. It's the source-code, when THUD reads the memory it displays everything, from my understanding, it was a non-intentional 'perk' when the code was finished. That being said, it does provide a map-hack, it's not provided or condoned by Blizzard, ergo makes it TPS, which is forbidden in the EULA, so is streaming your game-play for money, FTR. As to the underlined section, botters are quoting you here, saying it's "not game breaking, it's just like I'm playing, it's too good to give up".
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This letter is about botting and botting is what the people who signed the letter, think that is the worst thing that is happening to the game. I'm glad so many people care about this issue and come to voice their opinion but i really don't understand why you have to disagree with something just because it doesn't fulfill your expectations by 100%... I think we as players in general are a bit spoiled and this attitude of all or nothing is actually pretty bad for us because i think that if this letter would have gained more support and less criticism because people are not satisfied with the fact that it doesn't address other things (that are unrelated imo, thud is unrelated to botting and is not the main issue here), then it would have had more chances at actually creating a change or forcing Blizzard to react, possibly in a bit of a more rushed manner (rushed doesn't have to be bad, just mobilizing resources to a certain direction).
- I'm not really sure what you expected? This is a letter about botting, it's been claimed that the entire community had a hand in this, much like it was claimed that the entire community is against paragon farming. However, if there were to be swift responses from Blizzard, I think, we as a community would prefer that it be towards ALL TPS, not just botters, but people who utilize exploitative progams and game-play to gain advantage over those who don't. Is it fair to say, we the community don't care about THUD, as much as we do botting? I think by this thread alone that answer is no.
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It's hard for people especially mods on this forum to please everyone. It's also hard to argue with 20 different people when it's one mod versus dozens of newcomers or old timers that are all arguing the same points over and over, often without reading what the mods have had to say in previous posts. It's also really stupid in my opinion how some people are offended by the claim that whoever is opposed to this letter is probably a botter because it's just a logical assumption and really, what did you expect? I think people need to lay off a bit and try to focus on the main issue here and that is the fact that D3 is turning into a complete bot fest and if you don't think it's true then i think you are either fooling yourself or just unaware of the magnitude of the problem.
- I don't think you understand, I've seen few objections to banning botters, and nobody is condoning botting, people are bantering on both sides. The issue is the standpoint on the subject at hand, not just the subject matter. The only few mods that are getting flak are the ones who made accusations that if you don't support this letter, you are a botter. Which, in the next statement, you are a botter, and you support this letter. So how is it that logically speaking, you can support this and be a botter, but I cannot comment to the contrary without being a botter? TPS is TPS, if you want to take a stand against something, and ask for a response on behalf of an entire community of people, get the facts straight first.
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TL:DR: I botted, i used Thud / D3helper whatever and i am in favor of all of those being limited and completely removed but some features of Thud need to stay until Blizzard implements UI modding support. Botting is the main issue here and diverting the focus from the main issue towards lesser issues like Thud is effectively a disservice to the community as a whole because expecting Thud to become "illegal" is simply unrealistic according to what we have seen in the past, and that does not apply to botting therefore this letter receives my (humble ) endorsement.
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I won't go the obvious route and run your opinion into the ground. You cheated, and are a cheater, so regardless if THUD and bots are managed, you'd still use them given the opportunity. Claiming to use them out of necessity is ridiculous. Nonetheless, claiming THUD has less to do with Leaderboard placement than botting is even more ridiculous. Yes, fishing, snap-shotting, gearing, paragons, and key tricks do some good, but nothing like a maphack and positional markers to help you not die to the sliver of animation you were standing in, or knowing where that really nasty Elite pack you're going to skip is. Finding a conduit pylon a few maps ahead. Countless times I've been in groups where after killing large or difficult packs, we'll find a pylon in the not-so-far distance that would have helped, but hey, if we were THUDing, we wouldn't have that issue, right?
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Your attitude breeds the idea that because cheats are available, everyone will use them. You say nobody is actually reading, but it's you that has not read. This is human nature, you're a cheater, therefor you will cheat, given the opportunity. Not all of us are wired that way
--> Will the majority of the actual player base quit the game because some enthusiastic players are botting? No. Will they cry about it? Yes.
--> Will the majority of the actual player base (including botters) quit, when blizzard decides to do smth against botters? Yes. Will a lot of innocent players be negatively affected by blizzards actions? Yes. Does Blizzard want to earn a lot of money? Yes.
Sorry, how do you know ? I know some people that already quitted to others botting, and botters that bots because they "have to" and will be glad to stop.
Blizzard is not going to harm their business. Botters will always be there. That's how it works now.
Keep in mind that for every business, the reputation is maybe the most important thing.
And Diablo having the reputation as a bot paradise is not good to their reputation.
And I know plenty of people who would quit if they couldn't bot. I would imagine these people just do not have much time to play and do not want to waste what little time they have doing bounties or normal rifts etc.. I am not saying this justifies it, I am just saying you know people who quit because of botting, and I know people who would quit without botting.
And profit >>>>>>>>>> reputation. Do you really think a business would rather make LESS money just to have the people using their product say "well at least they are reputable" over making MORE money but having people say "they do some stuff I don't agree with"? IF, this is a big if, Blizzard were to lose money from removing botting completely, I don't think botting will EVER go away. Remember that Bobby Kotick is in charge these days, and if you don't know his philosophy behind the game industry and making money, give it a nice Google search. The guy literally makes every move based on net gains, which from a business perspective doesn't seem unreasonable.
How many micro transactions are there in Diablo? Reputation in a game like this is everything. You pay once. If people hear that it's Botablo, where's the incentive to buy unless they intend to bot themselves? Profit vs. Rep doesn't really apply here, unless we're talking about the resources required to maintain the fair game state. In which case, attracting more people to buy the game would be a larger gain.
--> Will the majority of the actual player base quit the game because some enthusiastic players are botting? No. Will they cry about it? Yes.
--> Will the majority of the actual player base (including botters) quit, when blizzard decides to do smth against botters? Yes. Will a lot of innocent players be negatively affected by blizzards actions? Yes. Does Blizzard want to earn a lot of money? Yes.
Sorry, how do you know ? I know some people that already quitted to others botting, and botters that bots because they "have to" and will be glad to stop.
Blizzard is not going to harm their business. Botters will always be there. That's how it works now.
Keep in mind that for every business, the reputation is maybe the most important thing.
And Diablo having the reputation as a bot paradise is not good to their reputation.
And I know plenty of people who would quit if they couldn't bot. I would imagine these people just do not have much time to play and do not want to waste what little time they have doing bounties or normal rifts etc.. I am not saying this justifies it, I am just saying you know people who quit because of botting, and I know people who would quit without botting.
And profit >>>>>>>>>> reputation. Do you really think a business would rather make LESS money just to have the people using their product say "well at least they are reputable" over making MORE money but having people say "they do some stuff I don't agree with"? IF, this is a big if, Blizzard were to lose money from removing botting completely, I don't think botting will EVER go away. Remember that Bobby Kotick is in charge these days, and if you don't know his philosophy behind the game industry and making money, give it a nice Google search. The guy literally makes every move based on net gains, which from a business perspective doesn't seem unreasonable.
How many micro transactions are there in Diablo? Reputation in a game like this is everything. You pay once. If people hear that it's Botablo, where's the incentive to buy unless they intend to bot themselves? Profit vs. Rep doesn't really apply here, unless we're talking about the resources required to maintain the fair game state. In which case, attracting more people to buy the game would be a larger gain.
I have to disagree on this one.
I'm not defending botters and I also think they're scum. But they will only impact on competitive play - leaderboards.
Since it's impossible to just trade items, bots cannot inflate the market with thousands of legendaries or sell them on ebay (like it happens in D2).
I don't think the majority of players really care about them.
As far as I know Blizzard is proceeding with ban waves in the beginning of every season (please DO correct me if I'm wrong on this) but I often see people saying "that's not enough", "the game is swarmed by bots" despite having no data to support those allegations.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Do you guys not have phones?"
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For those who say THUD is more damaging than boting. I play roughly 3-4hrs on a daily basis have recently managed to get to 1000 paragons. I have witnessed players on my friends list who were on equal par with me at the start of this era and have now acquired 1600+ paragons as a result of boting no doubt. If you think for one second that even if i know what affixes or what density is around the corner from using thud in a GR will enable me to compete with those players...well you're sadly mistaken. If you do then you don't play the game enough to know that this is not possible. They would not even break a sweat at the GR I'm tirelessly opening and reopening and may finally complete with seconds to spare. Non seasons leaderboards are beyond repair...blizzard should focus on seasons to "try" and achieve a level playing field and the first step towards that would be to cap paragons at 800.
In my opinion they can't fix boting on this level, they stand to lose too many accounts as a result and that's losing money and no company can afford that.
We're not talking about solutions to the problem, we're not talking about anything around the issue, we're talking about botting. Again. For the hundredth time. These guys think because they're streamers (or free advertiser's for both right and wrong) or devs in sometimes useful websites, they should have a say in how the game is operated. Like an ant telling you what to pack for your picnic.
I want a resolution, but I don't want these egomaniacs to get anymore inflated, or they won't be able to fit on the servers, and server lag is bad enough.
So let's make the letter about "cheating" so that whatever slim chance there was of Blizzard actually addressing it will be completely gone or replaced with stupid examples of actions taken by blizz against exploits and other irrelevant stuff. I think people need to get over their ego and i'm not talking about streamers only...
I don't think, Blizzard is stupid. Ignorant to an extent yes, but not stupid. They are aware that the leaderboards are being won by people who go the extra mile, inside and outside of the game. And they know they won't fix the competitiveness with just the extraction of one evil. The question is, if they care. They see that only a tiny fraction of players actively tries to rank, to push their limits, which is visible through the behavior of opening and closing one gr after another fishing for that doable grift. Now this letter tries to pretend that a vast amount of players needs botting gone to enjoy D3 again, when in fact, it only speaks for an even smaller fraction of the aforementioned fraction. And Blizzard sees that as well. Plus they very much realize the hypocrites
So, they might care for the players who engage in the leaderboards and enforce some law against botters. Maybe you even luck out and they purge thudders as well, while they're at it. But don't assume they act based upon the number of people "liking" this letter. I'd rather have them read the discussion about it.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sol77-2972/hero/66110450
Sarcasm wins all debates right? It doesn't have to be aimed at "cheating" but the problems lay within the parameters of 'third-party software'. So the letter these 26 pillars of the community wrote could be written in that direction. It's not, because most of the signatories are third-party software users. Blizzard could even make an arguement that a website that times CoE is considered to be TPS. Not likely, but the arguement could be made, which would basically wipe the leaderboards completely.
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I have to say though, while they haven't addressed the botting issue as quickly as we'd all hope, fixing and punishing those involved in the Hellfire exploit shows they care. Acting as though it's irrelevant is childish. It was within thier power to do. Which logically speaks to the fact that they don't have a final solution to the bot problem. Would you prefer random bans to people who play more than 8 hours a day?
An easy solution would be to add all these 3.party cheat applications to Warden2.0 .
Then all offenders would be get their account flagged as cheaters.
Blizzard could then just make those accounts not eligble for leaderbord rankings, and problem would be solved.
(ofcourse banning them would have similar effect)
Hell, I'm a botter and I'm signing.
Really, if you can get rid of botting, ban me, I'll gladly take the fall.
The worst thing about botting is really that some players hate it, but they feel they have to do it in order to stay relevant and keep up with the botting community.
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Limiting the game for the few who cheat isn't fair. It would be naive to assume that anything I, this community, the Blizzard technical team, or any other community can come up with will take down botting for good. The battle isn't just with botting, it's with human nature. Can cheat, will cheat, does cheat. Can cheat, won't cheat, doesn't cheat. Same topic could be applied to relationships, personal, romantic or work. You don't ban all 12 year olds from the gas and sip because one stole candybars, but you do install security cameras. CAPTCHA isn't the best option, because it can make incorrect assumptions, but if it would help, I'd take anything.
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To stay on point, the purpose of this thread isn't to come to a solution, but pleading Blizzard to find one. As well as bring awareness to, in my opinion, a farce of an open letter that 26 individuals put together. There are at least a dozen threads about solutions to botting. My point was that we talk about these things, so often, and that the laser point is that we are against botting as a community, but as has been discussed, many times, we are also against TPS. Why are we separating the two in an open letter? Why if they find a solution to botting will that blanket cover HUDs? Why is it taboo to clump TPS with TPS? How does that affect Blizzard's response? "If they respond to botting, they respond to THUD", technically, no they don't. I'll simply use Demonbuddy as an example, because I'm pretty sure it's done for good now. They got it, they got everyone using it, and still botting is an issue. Why? Because Blizzard targeted what it was doing, and flipped it. CAPTCHA, no CAPTCHA, doesn't matter, but they singled it out, and took care of it. It was changing memory, so it's not all that hard to target your own software, but they got it. I'm sure the same will happen when they get the other bots out there. So, when they took care of Demonbuddy, did they also get rid of THUD? Other bots? Was it a blanket enforcement of the EULA? No, so why then would I (or anyone else) assume that if they fix bot X, that THUD and all the other bots will just rollover? It makes me question the motives behind this letter and anyone who signed it.
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All I've seen are excuses and subterfuge, smoke and mirrors. So please explain, in fine detail why TPS is being so hush hush, yet botting is the main concern?
First off I don't know if there is a 100% viable solution to the problem since Blizzard has let it get so far out of hand as it stands today.
If Blizzard can truly detect Bots, and not just "bot like behavior" then at least we have a starting point. However if they just go after anyone who has 12 plus hours of playtime a day for example, then you could be banning a great number of legitimate players mistakenly. People go on binges with this game, they leave the game on and sit in menus for 6 hours, they enter and leave games repeatedly looking for the perfect grifts, they run endless rifts back to back with no let up except maybe a few minutes break. That can all be looked at as behavior that is "bot like". But the real question remains if their system in place can currently detect 3rd party programs playing the game, because if they cannot, then ZERO bans should be handed out.
Now, on the other side of the coin, if Blizzard CAN see that third party programs are reading memory, injecting any commands into the game, or anything else that these programs can do, then by all means, ban them. Ban them all. Any and every player that uses a 3rd party program.
Now for arguments sake, lets say they do not take that road. Lets say they realize that removing bots would severely impact their playerbase on a daily average. Lets say they find an alternate measure.
Assuming they can identify bot users, one "solution" if they choose not to undertake a massive ban wave would be to flag these players accounts, in a visible way that ANY and ALL players can see. Lets say a new icon like a player portrait that cannot be changed, or maybe an asterisk next to their name when they log in or a message to all players when they join a party. Another harsher alternative would be something that may be too difficult to implement, but lets say any player who has been VERIFIED of botting is restricted from joining public games. They can play on their own or with clan/friendslist players, HOWEVER, if a GRift is opened in a group, no player who is flagged can join with other people. They can make their own GRifts, and they can push high GRifts, but they will not appear on the leaderboards, but there will always be a way to tell if the person has been/is a bot user.
In addition, I think that the paragon system is simply out of hand. I think paragon should be harder to obtain, and be limited to 800 points in season. Non season should be unlimited, but for competitive play it is simply too powerful and provides too much of a bonus in damage. I have completed GRift 55 on my monk and will be slowly pushing it to 60 if I can, and for that I am proud. However there is ZERO chance of me competing with players who have 1300 or 1600 paragon levels. Cap it at 800 for seasons and it might also be time for an overhaul of the available pages/choices on the paragon system. That however is a different discussion.
Captcha systems would work to a point, but would also annoy a lot of legit players who simply get tired of entering it. Also, when would the captcha come up......Beginning, mid game, would it pause the game, would it come up in the middle of a boss fight, would it come up when you just killed the boss and have 10 seconds to turn in the rift ? Things could go worse because of them.
You wanted possible solutions. That would be mine.
PS - Nachten You mistakenly changed the part of my quote from Bagstone's name to Arydor. (I changed it back for you)
No idea why that happened, but lets keep the accusations with who actually said them.
"Bot like behaviour" isn't just spamming rifts all day, it's a series of actions that a human person manually playing the game wouldn't do. Example; Attempting to loot the same item for 5 minutes and can't because of a full inventory. You and I and all the other real boys out there realize after the first, or maybe 5th attempt that our inventory is full, and adapt, the bot would just continue to try until the command timed out.
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Blizzard doesn't shame ban people, never have, never will. In fact, if you ever hear that someone was banned, it's through player channels. Actually, funny turn of events, if you actually read the EULA, you'll laugh a little bit at Quin, Dat, Alk, and the other streamers who signed this letter. (If you understand, you can give a thumbs up.) But it states that Blizzard cannot shame ban you, they can terminate your account without reason, but they can't tell anybody what that reason is.
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Paragon is getting out of hand because it's the only thing of value to farm. Perfect Ancient gear is awesome, but once you've got all that, what do you do? Especially when you dedicate 8+ hours to the game.
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Thanks for the cheers, I'm not the one saying that anyone who disagrees is a botter
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<Informational poste only> =)
I agree Bliz should do something extreme with boters when they use bots to exploit a tournament setting such as season play. But what are we gonna expect them to do about those signing the plea for stopping botting that are botting. You can tell by hours played and see it in some of the online videos that they are not even watching the screen and using both hands to gesture while talking durring possition holding runs on the leader boards lol. Start by policing our own by not suporting those live streams or youtube video chanels. Even if they are not static charge botting, if they are just botting for materials to craft it is unfair to everyone else.
Maybe I'm being a lil naive here, but I still believe that Blizz will eventually do something about all the botting/THUD BS even if it isn't gonna happen tomorrow.
I just don't wanna see anything happen that's gonna punish legit players because of the crap that botters are doing. I don't wanna lose paragons, I don't want some stupid restrictions, I don't want to have to deal with Capchas or anything like that. I'd really, really hope that they could deal with this problem in a way that ONLY effects the botters.
Personally, I play more on the casual side. Never even look at leaderboards, never attempted to get on them, and don't pay much attention to the more competitive side of D3. I like to consider myself "decent enough" at the game (Almost 800 paragon, pretty good gear on my fav characters, could handle 60-65 rifts) but totally nothing special. But I could totally understand from the perspective of a legitimate player looking to play more seriously that it could be pretty defeating to only see the cheaters winning and totally agree something should be done about it.
Again though, I just don't wanna see anything done that would punish or hinder legit players because a bunch of other players are cheating. That just doesn't seem fair at all, that I as someone who's never even considered the idea of cheating on here would have my gaming experience messed up or otherwise complicated because of other people being lame and cheating.
By your statement you could handle 65. That could put you on every leaderboard except monk. How do these top end players make the assumption that people on the leaderboards are botters. They could very well level that accusation if you were on them. They can say anything they want to about people botting, but how do they KNOW that ANYONE on the leaderboards are. Simple answer : They don't. They are leveling unsubstantiated accusations against others. The finger could just as easily be pointed back at them. We would have the same proof of their botting as they have against anyone else.
I am by NO means saying that there are no players on the leaderboards that have exploited the TOS by using bots. I am simply saying until Blizzard takes action, we have no proof that any of them have. We all know there are botters out there, but this letter comes from the "part of the community that engages in the Competitive aspects". They are only complaining about the impact on the Leaderboards and Conquests. Period. It states that in the opening paragraph. JUst because you assume that someone used illicit means to compete with you does not make it true.
Lets say that they ban all botters at the moment and remove all said names from the leaderboards. I hesitate to think that it will have much of an impact in the top end of the leaderboards that the signatories are in. Playstyle, reaction time, fishing for grifts, snapshotting, THUD, key macros, num lock all have more to do with the top end of the competitive aspect of the leaderboards. A bot can only do so much. After getting all the gear you need, you still need to be able to complete the higher level grifts. Different players have different skills. Just because you have all the mats, keys , gear you need does not make everyone capable of competing for the top 1% on the leaderboards.
Just hope Blizzard ends the season, removes and bans all botters, and lets us move on with all of our lives and the game.
This letter is about botting and botting is what the people who signed the letter, think that is the worst thing that is happening to the game. I'm glad so many people care about this issue and come to voice their opinion but i really don't understand why you have to disagree with something just because it doesn't fulfill your expectations by 100%... I think we as players in general are a bit spoiled and this attitude of all or nothing is actually pretty bad for us because i think that if this letter would have gained more support and less criticism because people are not satisfied with the fact that it doesn't address other things (that are unrelated imo, thud is unrelated to botting and is not the main issue here), then it would have had more chances at actually creating a change or forcing Blizzard to react, possibly in a bit of a more rushed manner (rushed doesn't have to be bad, just mobilizing resources to a certain direction).
It's hard for people especially mods on this forum to please everyone. It's also hard to argue with 20 different people when it's one mod versus dozens of newcomers or old timers that are all arguing the same points over and over, often without reading what the mods have had to say in previous posts. It's also really stupid in my opinion how some people are offended by the claim that whoever is opposed to this letter is probably a botter because it's just a logical assumption and really, what did you expect? I think people need to lay off a bit and try to focus on the main issue here and that is the fact that D3 is turning into a complete bot fest and if you don't think it's true then i think you are either fooling yourself or just unaware of the magnitude of the problem.
TL:DR: I botted, i used Thud / D3helper whatever and i am in favor of all of those being limited and completely removed but some features of Thud need to stay until Blizzard implements UI modding support. Botting is the main issue here and diverting the focus from the main issue towards lesser issues like Thud is effectively a disservice to the community as a whole because expecting Thud to become "illegal" is simply unrealistic according to what we have seen in the past, and that does not apply to botting therefore this letter receives my (humble ) endorsement.
90% of my clan bots, or act like it. Never speak to anyone and online 24/7 or close to it.
50% of the clan when I last played (S2) was bots
Before Seasons, which suck major ass imo, it was closer to 15% of the clan that botted.
No idea why they are so hard up on allowing the shit but I say take advantage of it.
Since it appears the chance of ever getting caught / punished is so low.
Which really is the saddest part about this, the total and complete lack of backbone exhibited by Blizzard RE: bots
And profit >>>>>>>>>> reputation. Do you really think a business would rather make LESS money just to have the people using their product say "well at least they are reputable" over making MORE money but having people say "they do some stuff I don't agree with"? IF, this is a big if, Blizzard were to lose money from removing botting completely, I don't think botting will EVER go away. Remember that Bobby Kotick is in charge these days, and if you don't know his philosophy behind the game industry and making money, give it a nice Google search. The guy literally makes every move based on net gains, which from a business perspective doesn't seem unreasonable.
The irony boss half if not all of those guys bot, cheat, use Turbo HUD (map hack), Share Accounts, etc etc
so they need to find a nice day and go fly a kite.
It doesn't make sense to include Thud in this letter because as you said, almost if not all of the people who signed the letter actually use Thud (Including me, back when i used to play D3). It's too good to give up on while still not breaking the game imo. It's very different from botting, it's more like a reaction to Blizzard's horrible hard-coded UI implementation in D3. The lack of modding support is just really bad and the fact that people have Thud to compensate that is actually a good thing in my view. If Blizzard just works on a better minimap to include things like champion / elite packs that you have already encountered, then they could also make it so you can't read the minimap portion of the game off of the client's memory somehow... I think if Thud didn't have the maphack then it would have been more legit and awesome but the fact that it has some sort of a maphack makes its validity go down by quite a bit.
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This is an issue with the Blizzard default UI, to which D3 was not opened to modding for the exact reason THUD provides a maphack. It's the source-code, when THUD reads the memory it displays everything, from my understanding, it was a non-intentional 'perk' when the code was finished. That being said, it does provide a map-hack, it's not provided or condoned by Blizzard, ergo makes it TPS, which is forbidden in the EULA, so is streaming your game-play for money, FTR. As to the underlined section, botters are quoting you here, saying it's "not game breaking, it's just like I'm playing, it's too good to give up".
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This letter is about botting and botting is what the people who signed the letter, think that is the worst thing that is happening to the game. I'm glad so many people care about this issue and come to voice their opinion but i really don't understand why you have to disagree with something just because it doesn't fulfill your expectations by 100%... I think we as players in general are a bit spoiled and this attitude of all or nothing is actually pretty bad for us because i think that if this letter would have gained more support and less criticism because people are not satisfied with the fact that it doesn't address other things (that are unrelated imo, thud is unrelated to botting and is not the main issue here), then it would have had more chances at actually creating a change or forcing Blizzard to react, possibly in a bit of a more rushed manner (rushed doesn't have to be bad, just mobilizing resources to a certain direction).
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I'm not really sure what you expected? This is a letter about botting, it's been claimed that the entire community had a hand in this, much like it was claimed that the entire community is against paragon farming. However, if there were to be swift responses from Blizzard, I think, we as a community would prefer that it be towards ALL TPS, not just botters, but people who utilize exploitative progams and game-play to gain advantage over those who don't. Is it fair to say, we the community don't care about THUD, as much as we do botting? I think by this thread alone that answer is no.
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It's hard for people especially mods on this forum to please everyone. It's also hard to argue with 20 different people when it's one mod versus dozens of newcomers or old timers that are all arguing the same points over and over, often without reading what the mods have had to say in previous posts. It's also really stupid in my opinion how some people are offended by the claim that whoever is opposed to this letter is probably a botter because it's just a logical assumption and really, what did you expect? I think people need to lay off a bit and try to focus on the main issue here and that is the fact that D3 is turning into a complete bot fest and if you don't think it's true then i think you are either fooling yourself or just unaware of the magnitude of the problem.
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I don't think you understand, I've seen few objections to banning botters, and nobody is condoning botting, people are bantering on both sides. The issue is the standpoint on the subject at hand, not just the subject matter. The only few mods that are getting flak are the ones who made accusations that if you don't support this letter, you are a botter. Which, in the next statement, you are a botter, and you support this letter. So how is it that logically speaking, you can support this and be a botter, but I cannot comment to the contrary without being a botter? TPS is TPS, if you want to take a stand against something, and ask for a response on behalf of an entire community of people, get the facts straight first.
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TL:DR: I botted, i used Thud / D3helper whatever and i am in favor of all of those being limited and completely removed but some features of Thud need to stay until Blizzard implements UI modding support. Botting is the main issue here and diverting the focus from the main issue towards lesser issues like Thud is effectively a disservice to the community as a whole because expecting Thud to become "illegal" is simply unrealistic according to what we have seen in the past, and that does not apply to botting therefore this letter receives my (humble ) endorsement.
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I won't go the obvious route and run your opinion into the ground. You cheated, and are a cheater, so regardless if THUD and bots are managed, you'd still use them given the opportunity. Claiming to use them out of necessity is ridiculous. Nonetheless, claiming THUD has less to do with Leaderboard placement than botting is even more ridiculous. Yes, fishing, snap-shotting, gearing, paragons, and key tricks do some good, but nothing like a maphack and positional markers to help you not die to the sliver of animation you were standing in, or knowing where that really nasty Elite pack you're going to skip is. Finding a conduit pylon a few maps ahead. Countless times I've been in groups where after killing large or difficult packs, we'll find a pylon in the not-so-far distance that would have helped, but hey, if we were THUDing, we wouldn't have that issue, right?
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Your attitude breeds the idea that because cheats are available, everyone will use them. You say nobody is actually reading, but it's you that has not read. This is human nature, you're a cheater, therefor you will cheat, given the opportunity. Not all of us are wired that way
I'm not defending botters and I also think they're scum. But they will only impact on competitive play - leaderboards.
Since it's impossible to just trade items, bots cannot inflate the market with thousands of legendaries or sell them on ebay (like it happens in D2).
I don't think the majority of players really care about them.
As far as I know Blizzard is proceeding with ban waves in the beginning of every season (please DO correct me if I'm wrong on this) but I often see people saying "that's not enough", "the game is swarmed by bots" despite having no data to support those allegations.
"Do you guys not have phones?"