In recent days there has been another round of bans being given out for Season 19. While Blizzard never officially announces ban waves, we can see the effects from names disappearing on the leaderboards. This is likely a combination of bans for the usual mix of botters as well as a follow up on the exploit that was fixed just the other week. Most of the focus lately has been on discussions and feedback for Diablo IV, but it's good to see Blizzard still committed to Diablo III. Expect the ban waves to continue from Season to Season and for Blizzard to possibly take further steps to combat the botting issues the game faces as well as other third party programs. Senior Game Producer Matthew Cederquist have been very active on the forums lately and has not been shy about issuing ultimatums to botters.
While 1 month in a 3 month Season is way too late, there are still people with 99% uptime in the boards. Especially from ZD and ZB. 2 people banned 2 people still playing. That's another reason why Diablo is losing more and more ground to PoE every day. 685 hours in 33 days (21 hours a day) is either account sharing or botting. And if you CANT get rid of these people because you CANT figure out that they are cheating you know what is wrong with your game. A leaderboard with botters for ONE month? How will you keep the fair players that wanna play a bit more competitive? Blizzard is just spitting into their faces. I don't understand what this 1 month period of waiting is. You ban them early! They get a new copy? Ban them again.
"take further steps to combat the botting"? It's 2019. Tracking and banning after 1 month? That's 10 steps back and not forward.
Well said in closing about 2019, they buy up another account ban them as many times as needed, until they've exhausted every ave. Especially since Blizzard has been aggressively combating botters, (from what I've read) since CATACLYSM expansion in Wow had botters farming herbs and mineral nodes non stop also. And in today's gaming world, mobile especially imo, they data mine our usage and use it to update content and bug fixes.. lol.. in order to strengthen the content against the players. So much I wonder sometimes that I have my own assigned AI opponent's that know every trick or counter to impede progression. It's over the top, and I totally agree with your post.