90 replies to this topic

[Gurriish]

Hello everybody!

I've been playing Diablo since June, I think. I've had my "on and offs" from the game like most other people. And I've played few diffrent classes. I've enjoyed it, and I've hated it. Like most other people again.

I quit again when I started to find the game boring. And when patch 1.0.5 and paragon system was introduced I started. I leveled to like 20 pretty fast and then quit again for some weeks. Then few of my friends started to play again and I said I'll join with you guys. So I did. I pretty much rushed to a high paragon level and got bored. We did alot of things togheter, started at farming MP level 2-3-4 and worked our way up, that was a challenge for us. We liked it and we tried to beat the uber bosses on higher and higher difficulties, in the end. We barely got any reward. We felt that this wasn't enough. Most of us quit, when I'm talking about "us" I'm talking about my real life friends that I used to play with.

But I had couple of "internet friends" that I met in general chat or through public games. Good guys, can't say anything bad about them. They were all alot lower level than me but soon they started to out level me, as I started to log in more rarely(I still logged in atleast once a day to just check AH, have a chat etc). I thought it was something wrong, and I've heard from few of them that they used some kind of bot. Which is in my eyes, bad ofcourse. But somehow understandable.

I mean, it is ofcourse against the rules, but I can still understand why some people decided to start bot. Can't we all understand that? Even if we do not agree with it(I even think they don't agree with it themselves sometimes), we can still understand? Or?

For example, people manually leveled to paragon level 60-70-80 and didn't get a single item worth 100m+. I guess these people get tired. Thats hundreds of hours played. Don't you think they feel like it's not rewarding enough? I think they start to think like "Fuck this, since this game is all about gear anyways I can aswell just bot it and meanwhile do anything else, watch a movie, read a book, go outside, play another game etc".

People will argue that "this game is not all about gear", you might be right. To a point it isn't. We've all had a point where we played because we wanted challenges and because we wanted to beat things as hard as possible etc. But when you've done all of that, what's left?

Do Blizzard understand why causual players start to bot? I'm 100% sure it's not only "bot companies/farms" or whatever they're called that bots. I'm sure there is also people with just 1 account that got "tired" and started to bot.

People will say "whats the point of playing the game when it's not you playing it!". I also agree with this, whats the fucking point? But when I think about it for a moment and when I try to think "what do the botters think about this, and why do they bot?", I come to the conclusion that in the end they will get paragon level 100, and if they are lucky they will get good gear and just wait for new challenges to be introduced in the coming patches. I.e. PVP etc. And if they don't get anything valueable by the time they're plvl 100, they will probably just think "phew, luckily I didnt spend 1000h getting plvl 100 for nothing!".


What do you guys think? Am I speculating totally wrong? If we have botters around us, would you care to explain/discuss what you feel/think and what made you start botting?

PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT I'M IN NO WAY ENCOURAGING BOTTING!  If you bot, you risk getting perma banned.

What I want to do is simply to discuss, and I hope we can respect everyones opinions. We all think differently. But I hope we can keep a good level of discussion here, no insulting eachother etc.

Edit: And oh, I also welcome any Community Managers to reply on their insights and thoughts about botting. Why do you think it is as big problem as it is? Is it because people see it as "the fast way to get to the top", or because they are simply bored of playing themselves? What do you think is the main reason, and how can we stop it? Except from banning ofcourse, what other actions can we take? What does the game need? Etc etc.

Sincerely,
G~

Edited by Gurriish, 14 December 2012 - 12:36 AM.

[Bagstone]

I play a game because I enjoy it. If I don't like the game or don't have time (like right now before Christmas) I don't play.

A bot is the equivalent of a cheat: without my own personal effort I will get more items/money/paragon. If I discover after a few hours that my bot has found an awesome Echoing Fury, I would be mad that my bot has found it and I missed the moment when it dropped and my heartbeat stopped for a second. It'd be nice for a few days to have the nice gear that my bot allowed me to get, but in the end it is the definite way to dislike D3, as the character isn't "yours" anymore and there's no incentive for you to play it yourself, because your bot will be more efficient and become a necessary evil in order to maintain the fun level for you.

Edited by Bagstone, 14 December 2012 - 12:08 AM.

[TehAdi]

Quote

If you bot, you risk getting perma banned.

haha, good joke
Its D3, you don't risk anything because if you get banned it will be in about 3-4 months so you will get the money you want. trust me.

[Gurriish]

Bagstone, on 13 December 2012 - 11:59 PM, said:

I play a game because I enjoy it. If I don't like the game or don't have time (like right now before Christmas) I don't play.

A bot is the equivalent of a cheat: without my own personal effort I will get more items/money/paragon. If I discover after a few hours that my bot has found an awesome Echoing Fury, I would be mad that my bot has found it and I missed the moment when it dropped and my heartbeat stopped for a second. It'd be nice for a few days to have the nice gear that my bot allowed me to get, but in the end it is the definite way to dislike D3, as the character isn't "yours" anymore and there's no incentive for you to play it yourself, because your bot will be more efficient and become a necessary evil in order to maintain the fun level for you.

I agree, a bot is ofcourse a cheat. And I also agree in the part where you describe perfectly about finding legendaries and the feeling when you identify it. But again, if you try to think as a botter, as a tired player of the game.

Don't you think they would think like "Fuck it, I will just bot untill I get good gear thats what matters in this game anyway, I dont care if it takes 2000 or 3000 bot hours". I think that botters think something like that? Even if they don't get this "feeling" we're talking about, they get the gear they want. And they can compete with the best players in PVP later when its released. Would you really care if the "character wasnt even yours" if it had TOP gear/level?

For me, it's a hard choice if I'm going to be completely honest. I mean, I am/was(right now is a moment when I play more rarely than usually) playing this game to upgrade my gear, since I was pretty much killing everything anyway the only thing left for me is to upgrade my gear to get better simply. I think I never found any piece of armor that would replace the gear I was using by the time I found it. And if someone would offer me a character on level 100 with SICK gear, I would atleast start thinking for a second. Is this what I want? Is this what I'm struggling for anyway?

TehAdi, on 14 December 2012 - 12:05 AM, said:

Quote

If you bot, you risk getting perma banned.

haha, good joke
Its D3, you don't risk anything because if you get banned it will be in about 3-4 months so you will get the money you want. trust me.

What do you mean by this reply? Could you clearify please? "get the money you want?" Do you mean that a botter gets money by selling on rmah or what?

Thanks for the answers so far guys

Edited by Gurriish, 14 December 2012 - 12:26 AM.

[Bagstone]

Gurriish, on 14 December 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

Don't you think they would think like "Fuck it, I will just bot untill I get good gear thats what matters in this game anyway, I dont care if it takes 2000 or 3000 bot hours". I think that botters think something like that? Even if they don't get this "feeling" we're talking about, they get the gear they want. And they can compete with the best players in PVP later when its released. Would you really care if the "character wasnt even yours" if it had TOP gear/level?

You're talking about a shortcut. I remember a loooong discussion about this a while ago on these forums in a RMAH thread. To some extent, using a credit card is the same like botting, just legal. That is, if you're not botting as a business to earn money.

Gurriish, on 14 December 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

For me, it's a hard choice if I'm going to be completely honest. I mean, I am/was(right now is a moment when I play more rarely than usually) playing this game to upgrade my gear, since I was pretty much killing everything anyway the only thing left for me is to upgrade my gear to get better simply. I think I never found any piece of armor that would replace the gear I was using by the time I found it. And if someone would offer me a character on level 100 with SICK gear, I would atleast start thinking for a second. Is this what I want? Is this what I'm struggling for anyway?

I wouldn't even think a millisecond about it. Never ever would I want that. The journey is the destination.

I'm an avid hiker. Of course, what I like most is climbing mountains, standing on top of a 10000 feet mountain and looking at the valley, at all the other mountains, looking back at the way I came from. However, when I go to these mountains with visitors and take the cable car, it's not the same. It doesn't feel as nice. It's kind of like "meh", and of course you can't look back at the way it took you to reach the top.

Paragon 100 for me would be useless if someone else did it. Or if it would only take me 2 weeks. I won't reach it before middle of next year, if ever - but that makes it even feel better.

Gurriish, on 14 December 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

What do you mean by this reply? Could you clearify please? "get the money you want?" Do you mean that a botter gets money by selling on rmah or what?

Yeah, most people bot for that reason. The forum of the bot software is public, you can actually go and read it, it's pretty much ridiculous. I just skimmed a few threads and trust me - I wouldn't want to become part of it. My fear is getting killed by MP10 damage reflect mobs or wasting a portal b/c our uber group sucks. Their fear is getting banned. My enjoyment is the game and every single aspect of it; items, killing mobs, getting achievements, finishing events. Their enjoyment is the daily identification of all the legendaries in their bags. It's just a trade, they're not better off.

[Küken]

I don't use a bot for the same reasons I don't buy items for real money. Its a shortcut to the perfect gear, and once I have that, I won't have fun with the game anymore. If I somehow get the best gear possible, I will do a couple of runs, feeling good that I have this gear, then get bored and probably never touch the game again.

[Cyberwaste]

I'd bot my character to plvl 100 if there were no risk of being banned. It's fun levelling something when you move through dynamic and interesting new content. Going through the same act every 15 minutes with the same 'best paragon levelling build' for days/weeks/months isn't interesting. The pay off isn't really there for me either, as far as auction houses are concerned. I've personally hated the auction houses and the fact the drop rates were affected by their presence in the game irks me. It's saddening to identify an inventory full of ilvl63 rares and then salvage the lot of them.

The common response to people these days seems to be 'kill more faster for longer'. Waste of time I could be spending doing less repetitive, more interesting things.

Why not let a bot do it? Because you may get banned. Only reason.

[Lolypop]

Are you me? all your story is what happened to me this last months. So is your way of thinking.

I want you to know that the conclusion that you will find in this path is that there's a frightning number of people that won't understand you.

In other words, this is somewhat the conclusion version i found myself:
I spent playing and having fun a lot of time, I remark I DID have fun. Had a decent char, nicely equipped etc. See that, once all fun is spent, all there is to it is expect the blowing-mind legend fall sometime. Start seeing videos of people botting and multiboxing. Realized that, unless I sacrifice a big ammount of time, It will be rather hard to keep on and do any kind of benefit out of it at expenses of a time that I could spend doing so many other things I consider worthwhile.

OFC i considered botting, but the very same moment my head considered it, it automatically switched to: fuck you, i won't be playing this (for me) shit anymore.



In no way i'm "stating" this is shit nor trolling, and that you are not having fun (being "you" the whole community). In fact, I envy you if you still find this game fun.

[egervari]

I understand the original post all too well. It's not like it hasn't crossed my mind.

But instead of botting, I just stopped playing - more or less. I do think at some point, playing this game is not rational. The rewards just never come, the paragon journey is way too long - longer than necessary, that's for damn sure - and the rewards are just not worth it for the time put in.

Beyond the rewards, it's just not a satisfying game to play. In D2, you could get a farming character geared in just a few days... and you could get a really good pvp character geared in 2 weeks or so. The fun in D2 was making multiple characters, and finding/crafting lots of different items.

In D3, it's all about gearing 1 character, and at some point, you're not trying to find different items - just better items of the same kind that you already have. It's boring.

Edited by egervari, 14 December 2012 - 04:00 AM.

[Doofu]

I'd personally never bot... what's the point of the game if there is no hardship to overcome? I've even got a character of each class to gear!

[egervari]

Doofu, on 14 December 2012 - 04:41 AM, said:

I'd personally never bot... what's the point of the game if there is no hardship to overcome? I've even got a character of each class to gear!

The "hardships" in this game are just a timesink. There is nothing hard about grinding MP2 for 1500 hours. This is just wasting the player's time.

[taicho1983]

Getting banned is always the deterrent to any kind of "accelerated" assistance.  Even in D2 days when I got sick of trying to find durance wp 3 I used a map hack till it got fixed.   It helped take the annoying grind out of a game and make it less mind numbing. It was great to be honest.  Something as simple as that.  However, this game gets the other way a lot of times.  U see what other ppl have in terms of gear and have a plan, but then realize executing that plan can take a daunting amount of time.  U get bored, or discouraged, n stop playing.   Add on the very poor RNG way of item  finding and u flat out give up.  That's the discouraging part.   Maybe school n money gets in the way but I just cant see myself spending that much time.   So I hear from where the OP is coming from.  Do I condone bottling ? I can care less; but should u get banned that's on you.  Don't come crying.

[Jaetch]

I did not read all the comments, nor the wall of texts that includes the comments and the OP, but I will say this in regards to the topic title.

I've played since day one. Launch date.

I've had eight friends banned because they botted. Six of them were my real life friends. One of them was a real baller and bought a second CE only to get that one banned as well. Another one bought another account to bot and remains undetected as of today. The others quit the game outright.

Bot at your own risk. It's an easy way to gain gold, but it really takes the enjoyment and purpose out of the game.

[Punkskelm]

I have had this bot thing in my mind for awhile now, but one thing that i can say is as soon as anyone starts botting this game is no longer a game but a program running in the background for me that is a no go, i would rather play 2000hours and then know i got to paragon level 100 i picked up those items this is my Hero i built up not some bot,

It is  about pure dedication, if you want to be the best then beat the rest,(or just be a rich kid and use your mom's /dad's credit card and buy gold. Iets leagal but still cheat.

[Babu]

I agree with Gurriish. I do somehow understand why people bot. Got one real life friend who played to paragon 70 and didnt find any good items and he had pretty terrible gear because every drop was so horrible.. so he did quit playing the game. Then i have a internet friend who was at paragon 20 when i was like 70lvl. Soon he started gaining levels and i was left behind. I started wondering how he can play all day long.. and he was even at school but still status says "Act3 Inferno". Then i read about botting and realized this is the reason lol!

Still i wouldnt use a bot myself because i play this game cos i like to play it and if i played to paragon100 by using a bot i would feel like a cheater. Botting is ugly.. fuk dat shieeet!

Peace!

[TehAdi]

Gurriish, on 14 December 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

What do you mean by this reply? Could you clearify please? "get the money you want?" Do you mean that a botter gets money by selling on rmah or what?

yep, botters usually run multiple bots and get quite a big pile of cash from legendaries + gold. So Even if they ban a botter account he doesn't care because he can buy another one.

The ammount of bots is growing, the game is just boring, running alkaizer run every 15 minutes on MP2 with the same farming build (because any other build isn't effective enough which makes the characters even more boring) is NOT fun after you get high paragon level but wait... there's RMAH! So they are just downloading the bot and don't care about the game. Instead they are waiting for profit.

Blizzard idea with RMAH is the biggest gaming fail of 2012. Sure it can bring you some money. It also brings money for blizz. But for the actual game its the worst thing they did. Its even worse than this funny loot system
So answering your topic title - I don't see any reason why we should not bot. If the game is not fun anymore for somebody i don't see any reason. I admit, if i would have a PC that can run bot + other game i would be botting for long time already. Right now i have old PC and i can't run virtual machine+D3+anything else because my comp will burn

[thundersteele]

Why would you have a program play the game instead of doing it yourself? It's like buying movie tickets and then not going.

Let me be a bit more specific. I think the misconception that is in place here is that the whole grind is to gear up (and getting the paragons up) for some future content. In my opinion this is fundamentally wrong. The process of leveling and gearing is all that there is. If you let the bot do it instead, you might as well not play at all. If you don't enjoy playing right now, why would it be more fun if you are leveled out and decked out in BiS gear? Then there is nothing left to do...

Content additions will be marginal, similar to the uber bosses. They add something to the endgame, but they don't become the new endgame. This is not WoW where there is a new raid every other month that requires better gear.

Future expansions will most likely reset paragon levels in some form, and make most gear obsolete, so this is also not a good reason to run a bot.

PvP is still unclear. If someone thinks he has to bot to be prepared for PvP, I can not change it. It's something I don't care so much about though.

Finally, if someone is just looking to make money off the game, then running multiple bots is probably a good idea. But I think this is not the main point of this thread.


In short, I don't see how botting enhances the gaming experience. If you enjoy the game, play it, if not, stop. A bot won't change that.

[TehAdi]

thundersteele, on 14 December 2012 - 08:22 AM, said:

Why would you have a program play the game instead of doing it yourself? It's like buying movie tickets and then not going.

Imagine that this movie suck so much that you can't stand it but somebody will give you 10$ for just buying the ticket which cost 5$. So you get free 5$ and you can buy a ticket for better movie in better cinema.
That's how the botting motivation works in D3.

Edited by TehAdi, 14 December 2012 - 08:36 AM.

[thundersteele]

TehAdi, on 14 December 2012 - 08:31 AM, said:

thundersteele, on 14 December 2012 - 08:22 AM, said:

Why would you have a program play the game instead of doing it yourself? It's like buying movie tickets and then not going.

Imagine that this movie suck so much that you can't stand it but somebody will give you 10$ for just buying the ticket which cost 5$. So you get free 5$ and you can buy a ticket for better movie in better cinema.
That's how the botting motivation works in D3.

I believe that the OP had casual players in mind, not people looking to earn $ using bots. I can't really argue against the latter, except maybe that it is ethically questionable.

[Ultragrisen]

If you are a complete fail/looser, then by all means BOT.

The point of a game is to do your very best and try to perform splendid. If you cheat... then you just cheat towards yourself, and probably lack a lot of self-esteem and try to brag with stuff you actually did not perform yourself.

When building your first Breath of the dying in D2 I felt really really proud and happy about myself. If i would have purchased those runes it would be like.. "ohhh ok now then?"