I personally like the numbers that THUD shows (damage, exp, etc), but i dislike the fact that it works like a maphack. It gives user these precious SECONDS to get rank 1 instead of rank 2 for example. And this is a cheat as well.
I doubt there is at least ONE top1 ranked player left now who hasn't used thud. Maybe just Quin and Alkaizer.
I understand that you are extremely bent over the fact that I am admitting to botting; however, I don't think that you fully understand the sacrifices I've made as a service member. Does that excuse me from botting? No, it doesn't. It is cheating, I never said it wasn't. I work in healthcare in a forward deployed command. I know that you might not grasp that concept, but it is nothing like sitting in my parents' basement playing a game for hours a day without any responsibilities. People's lives depend on me and after a day of work sometimes I want to enjoy a game. Why would I want to take care of people all day or do physical training routines all day and come back to grind out materials only to never have the opportunity to even enjoy the end game? There are solutions to this problem and frankly, bots aren't the problem. There are much larger issues here. Games are meant for enjoyment and competition, but so far Blizzard has missed the mark on both for D3. Bots aside, the people with nothing but time to grind away at this game will always have the upper hand. I saw skill mentioned in this thread, but currently, time investment > skill in D3.
I work, I workout, I read, everyday. I have a wife and 2 kids. [...]You choose to be a service member. My father was a Master Sgt in the Air Force. While I don't know what it's like to serve, I do know what it's like to live with it. How much I had to sacrifice while a father had to move around every 2-3. Friends, Family, Stability. I had none of that shit as a child. Anyone that mentions service in anything beyond when asked, is asking for curried favor. You want your service to be an excuse, otherwise why mention it? Literally has no bearing on the situation at hand. Diablo 3 is a time sink. You don't want to invest into a time sink. Don't fucking play the game. Simple as that. If you have to cheat to get by, then this game isn't for you. Just move on.
Your logic of cheating could be literally used for any walk of life, in any situation. It's like saying I steal because I work hard, but don't make enough. Yet, I am sure if someone broke into your house, you wouldn't let that shit go because they have it hard. Having it hard isn't an excuse. And you damn well know it.
D3 faults aren't a reason to cheat. It's another excuse. You cheat because you want too. And you cheat because it's easy. Nothing else, nothing more. If you didn't care, you wouldn't post about it. You posted to rub in peoples faces. I don't buy it. And I'm not going to let you have it either.
Notes: Mod edit: Removed flaming (infracted) and reduced quote train
I personally like the numbers that THUD shows (damage, exp, etc), but i dislike the fact that it works like a maphack. It gives user these precious SECONDS to get rank 1 instead of rank 2 for example. And this is a cheat as well.
I doubt there is at least ONE top1 ranked player left now who hasn't used thud. Maybe just Quin and Alkaizer.
Did you ever tried to turn map reveal off? However, there will be ppl on this forum whihning on you because you have the numbers that THUD shows (damage, exp, etc) and gain an unfair advantage.
The truth is what d3 is NOT showing your DPS totally, just a few digits telling nothing about reality. And THUD does. And you have to use THUD or d3planner if you want to get more than a char for t10 rifts.
I work, I workout, I read, everyday. I have a wife and 2 kids. You choose to be a service member. My father was a Master Sgt in the Air Force. While I don't know what it's like to serve, I do know what it's like to live with it. How much I had to sacrifice while a father had to move around every 2-3. Friends, Family, Stability. I had none of that shit as a child. Anyone that mentions service in anything beyond when asked, is asking for curried favor. You want your service to be an excuse, otherwise why mention it? Literally has no bearing on the situation at hand. Diablo 3 is a time sink. You don't want to invest into a time sink. Don't fucking play the game. Simple as that. If you have to cheat to get by, then this game isn't for you. Just move on.
Your logic of cheating could be literally used for any walk of life, in any situation. It's like saying I steal because I work hard, but don't make enough. Yet, I am sure if someone broke into your house, you wouldn't let that shit go because they have it hard. Having it hard isn't an excuse. And you damn well know it.
D3 faults aren't a reason to cheat. It's another excuse. You cheat because you want too. And you cheat because it's easy. Nothing else, nothing more. If you didn't care, you wouldn't post about it. You posted to rub in peoples faces. I don't buy it. And I'm not going to let you have it either.
You need to take a chill-pill mate. And doing parallells to stealing and such is not a valid comparison. It does not affect you (other than the illusion of competition), so why going ballistic now?
And it's fun you saying that having it hard is no excuse, I could say: Having it hard gives you no excuse to act like an asshole towards others.
Botting affects the entire community. Why and how?
Let's see, by acknowledging botting and cheating in general it lets the community know there is an easier path to ultimately the same goal. Which gives a mind set of, "can't beat them join them." And if I joined any game he has played. by proxy, I have gained on his cheating. As he wouldn't have the gear to maybe been in the same path as I am. Maybe he carried quite a few runs with me in the game. And I got upgrades due to his carrying that he earn by cheating. I don't want that, but he forced that on me. Botting isn't quite a victim-less crime, as you purpose. It's a wide spread issue.
I'd also purpose that botting is like cheating on a test. At the end of the day his cheating has little affect on me. Here is a link to why cheating is wrong. https://www.csusm.edu/dos/studres/wwwc.html
May I once more remind everyone to stay civil, even towards people who you disagree with. If someone admits to fraudulent activity, they might lose your respect, but they do not lose their right to have an opinion. In general, treat everyone as if you were Evelyn Beatrice hall:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Especially for such a sensitive topic as cheating in a computer game we often get emotional. However, that should not impact our reasoning and ability to express our opinion as well as respect other people's opinions, because only when we show the very ability to reflect upon others' views we are what makes us human (and what differentiates us from most animals). Botters may have lost your respect, but by coming here and admitting their activity you should treat this as an "DFans AMA" and inquire why people resorted to those activities (after all they knowingly risk their account and everything they've achieved in their Diablo career). You also have a unique chance to sway people from the "dark side" to the "light" - but you miss that chance as soon as you get personal and attack them.
This topic is on the verge of being locked. However, the botting banwave is too important as a topic and the discussion to important within our community, so we will continue to heavily moderate this thread where needed. Hopefully you all will continue to be more reflective on what you write before you hit the "post reply"button, so we can keep this thread going for a while. Thanks.
There are two types of botters: those who do it for competitive reasons (to gain an advantage over other players, to crush the leaderboard/paragon ladder, etc), and those who do it for convenience reasons (the only purpose is to make the game more fun for themselves, they don't care about the leaderboards or paragon race or whatever; people who "lack time" or are just straight up too bored of TX rifts/bounties all fall into this category).
People who bot for competitive reasons are directly malicious to the games competitive integrity, and they will cheat and bot whenever it is not too risky (most common reason being "well, everybody else does it, so will I"). The only way to fix this type of behavior is directly punishing it. The risk of losing an account is virtually the only thing keeping this type in check, but the efficiency of this strategy only depends on how active Blizzard is with updating detection and banning. It is, however, very possible to scare away all of these (even a single big banwave at the end of each season will be enough).
People who bot for convenience are a more interesting phenomenon. For them, the game is simply not fun if they are forced to play the intended way (e.g. a statement like "if I do get banned, I don't care, because these bots/cheats made the game significantly more fun for me, I acknowledge the risks and I believe it's worth it"). The intent itself isn't malicious - the intent is just to make the game more enjoyable for themselves. These players don't really damage the competitive environment simply because they don't participate in it (generally). Now the most important thing is, these players aren't afraid of getting banned - they literally state that they aren't. If you do ban these players, especially without fixing the things that they are willing to lose their accounts for, you are more than likely losing them permanently. From a developers point of view, it's much wiser to first fix the core issues that created this group, and then proceed to warn and/or ban people. (This is exactly how they handled their recent banwaves in WoW, for example.)
Note that I'm not defending anyone and my point isn't that any one type of botting/cheating is justified. I'm not making a "this is ok"/"this is not ok" statement. I am just analyzing two things which I think are different, and I am doing it from developer standpoint. I think this might explain why their bans were quite selective, and the bias towards competitive players can be clearly tracked. Those players will still come back (most of them), just on different accounts.
Note that I'm not defending anyone and my point isn't that any one type of botting/cheating is justified. I'm not making a "this is ok"/"this is not ok" statement. I am just analyzing two things which I think are different, and I am doing it from developer standpoint. I think this might explain why their bans were quite selective, and the bias towards competitive players can be clearly tracked. Those players will still come back (most of them), just on different accounts.
He doesn't have a point and it's entirely moot. His point could literally reflect anything, anywhere. All it shows is his morality. Its beating a dead horse. Cheating perverse the point of the game. In any aspect, in any form. If you have to cheat to get by, then what is the point? Why can't get he enjoy the game for what it is? Get where he can get? He isn't playing the same game legitimate players are, he is playing an entirely different game.
Jokerfiend, please read the replies from bagstone and Thaya (as you did). I do respect you for having a different opinion than me, and most likely a lot of the community agrees with you, but please take in consideration what they have written (in a more formal and better way than what I am capable of).
I say this, not as an insult to you or other, but come on, take it easy. It's just a game. We like it, therfor we cheat (D3Helper guilty here). And even so, I and other "cheaters" have contributed in form of communities and groups, and tried our best to be welcomming to other people. Ultimately it's the community that keeps the game alive, sadly the D3 community is having a hard time these days with too much elitismn and hostility towards people.
Can't we just play and have it fun? Why is it so bad that you have to go to such extremes as making parallells to a WW?
He doesn't have a point and it's entirely moot. His point could literally reflect anything, anywhere. All it shows is his morality. Its beating a dead horse. Cheating perverse the point of the game. In any aspect, in any form. If you have to cheat to get by, then what is the point? Why can't get he enjoy the game for what it is? Get where he can get? He isn't playing the same game legitimate players are, he is playing an entirely different game.
Jokerfiend, please read the replies from bagstone and Thaya (as you did). I do respect you for having a different opinion than me, and most likely a lot of the community agrees with you, but please take in consideration what they have written (in a more formal and better way than what I am capable of).
I say this, not as an insult to you or other, but come on, take it easy. It's just a game. We like it, therfor we cheat (D3Helper guilty here). And even so, I and other "cheaters" have contributed in form of communities and groups, and tried our best to be welcomming to other people. Ultimately it's the community that keeps the game alive, sadly the D3 community is having a hard time these days with too much elitismn and hostility towards people.
Can't we just play and have it fun? Why is it so bad that you have to go to such extremes as making parallells to a WW?
We aren't playing the same game. You are playing an entirely different game, with different circumstances. You don't like people pointing out your lack of morality and feel a personal affront. Then good. I hope it feels bad man. There are many types of games, yet you have to perverse Diablo 3 why?
What is the point of cheating? Because the game give you a lack of motivation as it currently stands? Tough titty. Suck it up and play legitimately. If it's just a game, why cheat?
There are two types of botters: those who do it for competitive reasons (to gain an advantage over other players, to crush the leaderboard/paragon ladder, etc), and those who do it for convenience reasons (the only purpose is to make the game more fun for themselves, they don't care about the leaderboards or paragon race or whatever; people who "lack time" or are just straight up too bored of TX rifts/bounties all fall into this category).
Well they could improve some things in game. QOL changes like: auto pick on mats (with an option to on/off this feature), DB dropping rate and where, remove keys for GR, changes to enchant (like roll only above the number that you have on the item for that stat), reforge on cube to revert EXACTLY the stats you had (ancient items will remain ancient items), improve kadala (weapon types/drop leg rate).
You might disagree with this, but after all the time spent playing, some things in this game become really boring and ridiculous, and I could understand botters that does this for convenience reasons.
I can only agree with this because that is my entire point.
Although I do disagree with your solution. Imho, the core issue itself is that the "farming" content (bounties and neph rifts) don't scale. Once you reach the level of power where you oneshot things on TX with a speed build, that's it, it doesn't improve from here in any direction at all. Right now I am farming with the exact same speed I was farming over 2 months ago, nothing has changed despite me gaining A LOT of power on my characters during this time.
That's what makes it boring. We need higher difficulties or farming content that scales. A more powerful character should be able to farm slightly faster than a less powerful character (it can be due to the more powerful character being able to run a higher difficulty or run faster). I'm sure they could introduce more Torment levels which are scaled appropriately to the the maximum power characters will have in a season (with best gear and, say, plvl 1k+). All of this is possible to calculate before a patch goes live, even the community has the tools required for this (d3planner).
There are two types of botters: those who do it for competitive reasons (to gain an advantage over other players, to crush the leaderboard/paragon ladder, etc), and those who do it for convenience reasons (the only purpose is to make the game more fun for themselves, they don't care about the leaderboards or paragon race or whatever; people who "lack time" or are just straight up too bored of TX rifts/bounties all fall into this category).
Well they could improve some things in game. QOL changes like: auto pick on mats (with an option to on/off this feature), DB dropping rate and where, remove keys for GR, changes to enchant (like roll only above the number that you have on the item for that stat), reforge on cube to revert EXACTLY the stats you had (ancient items will remain ancient items), improve kadala (weapon types/drop leg rate).
You might disagree with this, but after all the time spent playing, some things in this game become really boring and ridiculous, and I could understand botters that does this for convenience reasons.
I can only agree with this because that is my entire point.
Although I do disagree with your solution. Imho, the core issue itself is that the "farming" content (bounties and neph rifts) don't scale. Once you reach the level of power where you oneshot things on TX with a speed build, that's it, it doesn't improve from here in any direction at all. Right now I am farming with the exact same speed I was farming over 2 months ago, nothing has changed despite me gaining A LOT of power on my characters during this time.
That's what makes it boring. We need higher difficulties or farming content that scales. A more powerful character should be able to farm slightly faster than a less powerful character (it can be due to the more powerful character being able to run a higher difficulty or run faster). I'm sure they could introduce more Torment levels which are scaled appropriately to the the maximum power characters will have in a season (with best gear and, say, plvl 1k+). All of this is possible to calculate before a patch goes live, even the community has the tools required for this (d3planner).
It's called Grifts. And it has been in the game for quite sometime. You literally have what you are asking for... already in the game. That's the reason why Grifts are ranked as well. To show who is the highest in the game. If you find the game boring, then this game is not for you. Why perverse the game with cheating? It makes no sense.
There are two types of botters: those who do it for competitive reasons (to gain an advantage over other players, to crush the leaderboard/paragon ladder, etc), and those who do it for convenience reasons (the only purpose is to make the game more fun for themselves, they don't care about the leaderboards or paragon race or whatever; people who "lack time" or are just straight up too bored of TX rifts/bounties all fall into this category).
Well they could improve some things in game. QOL changes like: auto pick on mats (with an option to on/off this feature), DB dropping rate and where, remove keys for GR, changes to enchant (like roll only above the number that you have on the item for that stat), reforge on cube to revert EXACTLY the stats you had (ancient items will remain ancient items), improve kadala (weapon types/drop leg rate).
You might disagree with this, but after all the time spent playing, some things in this game become really boring and ridiculous, and I could understand botters that does this for convenience reasons.
I can only agree with this because that is my entire point.
Although I do disagree with your solution. Imho, the core issue itself is that the "farming" content (bounties and neph rifts) don't scale. Once you reach the level of power where you oneshot things on TX with a speed build, that's it, it doesn't improve from here in any direction at all. Right now I am farming with the exact same speed I was farming over 2 months ago, nothing has changed despite me gaining A LOT of power on my characters during this time.
That's what makes it boring. We need higher difficulties or farming content that scales. A more powerful character should be able to farm slightly faster than a less powerful character (it can be due to the more powerful character being able to run a higher difficulty or run faster). I'm sure they could introduce more Torment levels which are scaled appropriately to the the maximum power characters will have in a season (with best gear and, say, plvl 1k+). All of this is possible to calculate before a patch goes live, even the community has the tools required for this (d3planner).
It's called Grifts. And it has been in the game for quite sometime. You literally have what you are asking for... already in the game. That's the reason why Grifts are ranked as well. To show who is the highest in the game. If you find the game boring, then this game is not for you. Why perverse the game with cheating? It makes no sense.
Because you need rift keys for GRs. That's literally a direct requirement. And because Rift Guardian loot is worthless when you only lack 2-3 slots (which are weapons/rings/amulets, which have very low drop chances in random loot tables), so your best bet at upgrading those slots is doing bounties for materials for reforging and upgrading at the cube. You could say that's optional, sure, but it's undoubtedly the best way to gear up right now, nothing else even comes close.
What doesn't make sense? That sometimes people cheat with the purpose of avoiding parts of the game they don't like, so that they can do parts of the game they do like? It's not exactly rocket science. I don't know how else to explain this. I guess I'll just stop trying.
Edit: also, if you're pushing GRs for ranks, the amount of rift guardians you'll kill won't be very high. It's mostly 0 or 1.
It's called Grifts. And it has been in the game for quite sometime. You literally have what you are asking for... already in the game. That's the reason why Grifts are ranked as well. To show who is the highest in the game. If you find the game boring, then this game is not for you. Why perverse the game with cheating? It makes no sense.
Because you need rift keys for GRs. That's literally a direct requirement. And because Rift Guardian loot is worthless when you only lack 2-3 slots (which are weapons/rings/amulets, which have very low drop chances in random loot tables), so your best bet at upgrading those slots is doing bounties for materials for reforging and upgrading at the cube. You could say that's optional, sure, but it's undoubtedly the best way to gear up right now, nothing else even comes close.
What doesn't make sense? That sometimes people cheat with the purpose of avoiding parts of the game they don't like, so that they can do parts of the game they do like? It's not exactly rocket science. I don't know how else to explain this. I guess I'll just stop trying.
So, you want a Cobb Salad, no Bacon, no Egg, but blue cheese on the side. Then you don't want a Cobb Salad. Go play something else. You aren't playing Diablo 3, if you bot. You are playing an entirely different game.
Well, statement such as "makes life easier" is not enough when u hit 1 key in order to cast more than the binded skill
It is programming --> not playing as intended, EXCEPT IF Blizz stated that autocast and macros are legal.
I use it just for EB (not for diamond skin or anything else. i adjusted my farming for that reason)
I know that it's probably not allowed. But if I would get banned for something that should be a feature. So be it. it would just be plain stupid and probably that's why they won't do that
Some interesting points raised by Thaya and LordofDestruction regards types of botting, reasons why and ideas on changes/improvements to the game.
If everyone cheats, no one cheats.
Followers in WoW are legal quasi-bots that can aid progress and perform some tasks automatically. There was also a similar system in the Star Wars MMO. These things were integarted into the respective games with no issues whatsoever (well, ok, one can argue Garrisons destroyed the concept of an MMO but that's another discussion).
Maybe a solution (in addition to the great ideas from LoD) could be the introduction of automation of some tasks via a 'limited use' legal bot system or the ability for your followers to do some stuff for you on CD with stripped down results vs. doing it manually?
I personally like the numbers that THUD shows (damage, exp, etc), but i dislike the fact that it works like a maphack. It gives user these precious SECONDS to get rank 1 instead of rank 2 for example. And this is a cheat as well.
I doubt there is at least ONE top1 ranked player left now who hasn't used thud. Maybe just Quin and Alkaizer.
I personally like the numbers that THUD shows (damage, exp, etc), but i dislike the fact that it works like a maphack. It gives user these precious SECONDS to get rank 1 instead of rank 2 for example. And this is a cheat as well.
I doubt there is at least ONE top1 ranked player left now who hasn't used thud. Maybe just Quin and Alkaizer.
they both use it, don't be so naive.
I doubt so. Quin is just too scared to be banned. The risks are too high for him, his twitch sheeps are all that is "feeding" him. And Alkaizer just never cared i believe. He did so many rank1's, he's just good at it and does not need any cheats.
There are two types of botters: those who do it for competitive reasons (to gain an advantage over other players, to crush the leaderboard/paragon ladder, etc), and those who do it for convenience reasons (the only purpose is to make the game more fun for themselves, they don't care about the leaderboards or paragon race or whatever; people who "lack time" or are just straight up too bored of TX rifts/bounties all fall into this category).
People who bot for competitive reasons are directly malicious to the games competitive integrity, and they will cheat and bot whenever it is not too risky (most common reason being "well, everybody else does it, so will I"). The only way to fix this type of behavior is directly punishing it. The risk of losing an account is virtually the only thing keeping this type in check, but the efficiency of this strategy only depends on how active Blizzard is with updating detection and banning. It is, however, very possible to scare away all of these (even a single big banwave at the end of each season will be enough).
People who bot for convenience are a more interesting phenomenon. For them, the game is simply not fun if they are forced to play the intended way (e.g. a statement like "if I do get banned, I don't care, because these bots/cheats made the game significantly more fun for me, I acknowledge the risks and I believe it's worth it"). The intent itself isn't malicious - the intent is just to make the game more enjoyable for themselves. These players don't really damage the competitive environment simply because they don't participate in it (generally). Now the most important thing is, these players aren't afraid of getting banned - they literally state that they aren't. If you do ban these players, especially without fixing the things that they are willing to lose their accounts for, you are more than likely losing them permanently. From a developers point of view, it's much wiser to first fix the core issues that created this group, and then proceed to warn and/or ban people. (This is exactly how they handled their recent banwaves in WoW, for example.)
Note that I'm not defending anyone and my point isn't that any one type of botting/cheating is justified. I'm not making a "this is ok"/"this is not ok" statement. I am just analyzing two things which I think are different, and I am doing it from developer standpoint. I think this might explain why their bans were quite selective, and the bias towards competitive players can be clearly tracked. Those players will still come back (most of them), just on different accounts.
That is 100% correct.
I've seen both types of botters. The second one we have in our clan (why he isn't banned i have no idea, admins know he's a botter). He's barely playing. Has been banned in season 2 for botting, still he bought another account and just "idling" there now. He never pushes leaderboards, barely participates in any clan activities. He's p1200, and he botted whole season 4 AFKing with his monk , up to p800 i believe. He's just a strange "filler". I think he completely lost interest in the game itself and just runs bot to check what gear it found.
I personally like the numbers that THUD shows (damage, exp, etc), but i dislike the fact that it works like a maphack. It gives user these precious SECONDS to get rank 1 instead of rank 2 for example. And this is a cheat as well.
I doubt there is at least ONE top1 ranked player left now who hasn't used thud. Maybe just Quin and Alkaizer.
http://www.angryroleplayer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/c/angryroleplayer
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105329-2-6-7-rend-bleed-whirlwind-gr130
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105301-2-6-7-fist-of-the-heavens-aegis-of-valor-gr110
I work, I workout, I read, everyday. I have a wife and 2 kids. [...]You choose to be a service member. My father was a Master Sgt in the Air Force. While I don't know what it's like to serve, I do know what it's like to live with it. How much I had to sacrifice while a father had to move around every 2-3. Friends, Family, Stability. I had none of that shit as a child. Anyone that mentions service in anything beyond when asked, is asking for curried favor. You want your service to be an excuse, otherwise why mention it? Literally has no bearing on the situation at hand. Diablo 3 is a time sink. You don't want to invest into a time sink. Don't fucking play the game. Simple as that. If you have to cheat to get by, then this game isn't for you. Just move on.
Your logic of cheating could be literally used for any walk of life, in any situation. It's like saying I steal because I work hard, but don't make enough. Yet, I am sure if someone broke into your house, you wouldn't let that shit go because they have it hard. Having it hard isn't an excuse. And you damn well know it.
D3 faults aren't a reason to cheat. It's another excuse. You cheat because you want too. And you cheat because it's easy. Nothing else, nothing more. If you didn't care, you wouldn't post about it. You posted to rub in peoples faces. I don't buy it. And I'm not going to let you have it either.
The truth is what d3 is NOT showing your DPS totally, just a few digits telling nothing about reality. And THUD does. And you have to use THUD or d3planner if you want to get more than a char for t10 rifts.
You need to take a chill-pill mate. And doing parallells to stealing and such is not a valid comparison. It does not affect you (other than the illusion of competition), so why going ballistic now?
And it's fun you saying that having it hard is no excuse, I could say: Having it hard gives you no excuse to act like an asshole towards others.
Botting affects the entire community. Why and how?
Let's see, by acknowledging botting and cheating in general it lets the community know there is an easier path to ultimately the same goal. Which gives a mind set of, "can't beat them join them." And if I joined any game he has played. by proxy, I have gained on his cheating. As he wouldn't have the gear to maybe been in the same path as I am. Maybe he carried quite a few runs with me in the game. And I got upgrades due to his carrying that he earn by cheating. I don't want that, but he forced that on me. Botting isn't quite a victim-less crime, as you purpose. It's a wide spread issue.
I'd also purpose that botting is like cheating on a test. At the end of the day his cheating has little affect on me. Here is a link to why cheating is wrong. https://www.csusm.edu/dos/studres/wwwc.html
May I once more remind everyone to stay civil, even towards people who you disagree with. If someone admits to fraudulent activity, they might lose your respect, but they do not lose their right to have an opinion. In general, treat everyone as if you were Evelyn Beatrice hall:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Especially for such a sensitive topic as cheating in a computer game we often get emotional. However, that should not impact our reasoning and ability to express our opinion as well as respect other people's opinions, because only when we show the very ability to reflect upon others' views we are what makes us human (and what differentiates us from most animals). Botters may have lost your respect, but by coming here and admitting their activity you should treat this as an "DFans AMA" and inquire why people resorted to those activities (after all they knowingly risk their account and everything they've achieved in their Diablo career). You also have a unique chance to sway people from the "dark side" to the "light" - but you miss that chance as soon as you get personal and attack them.
This topic is on the verge of being locked. However, the botting banwave is too important as a topic and the discussion to important within our community, so we will continue to heavily moderate this thread where needed. Hopefully you all will continue to be more reflective on what you write before you hit the "post reply" button, so we can keep this thread going for a while. Thanks.
To be honest, Uglytoes does have a point.
There are two types of botters: those who do it for competitive reasons (to gain an advantage over other players, to crush the leaderboard/paragon ladder, etc), and those who do it for convenience reasons (the only purpose is to make the game more fun for themselves, they don't care about the leaderboards or paragon race or whatever; people who "lack time" or are just straight up too bored of TX rifts/bounties all fall into this category).
People who bot for competitive reasons are directly malicious to the games competitive integrity, and they will cheat and bot whenever it is not too risky (most common reason being "well, everybody else does it, so will I"). The only way to fix this type of behavior is directly punishing it. The risk of losing an account is virtually the only thing keeping this type in check, but the efficiency of this strategy only depends on how active Blizzard is with updating detection and banning. It is, however, very possible to scare away all of these (even a single big banwave at the end of each season will be enough).
People who bot for convenience are a more interesting phenomenon. For them, the game is simply not fun if they are forced to play the intended way (e.g. a statement like "if I do get banned, I don't care, because these bots/cheats made the game significantly more fun for me, I acknowledge the risks and I believe it's worth it"). The intent itself isn't malicious - the intent is just to make the game more enjoyable for themselves. These players don't really damage the competitive environment simply because they don't participate in it (generally). Now the most important thing is, these players aren't afraid of getting banned - they literally state that they aren't. If you do ban these players, especially without fixing the things that they are willing to lose their accounts for, you are more than likely losing them permanently. From a developers point of view, it's much wiser to first fix the core issues that created this group, and then proceed to warn and/or ban people. (This is exactly how they handled their recent banwaves in WoW, for example.)
Note that I'm not defending anyone and my point isn't that any one type of botting/cheating is justified. I'm not making a "this is ok"/"this is not ok" statement. I am just analyzing two things which I think are different, and I am doing it from developer standpoint. I think this might explain why their bans were quite selective, and the bias towards competitive players can be clearly tracked. Those players will still come back (most of them), just on different accounts.
Jokerfiend, please read the replies from bagstone and Thaya (as you did). I do respect you for having a different opinion than me, and most likely a lot of the community agrees with you, but please take in consideration what they have written (in a more formal and better way than what I am capable of).
I say this, not as an insult to you or other, but come on, take it easy. It's just a game. We like it, therfor we cheat (D3Helper guilty here). And even so, I and other "cheaters" have contributed in form of communities and groups, and tried our best to be welcomming to other people. Ultimately it's the community that keeps the game alive, sadly the D3 community is having a hard time these days with too much elitismn and hostility towards people.
Can't we just play and have it fun? Why is it so bad that you have to go to such extremes as making parallells to a WW?
We aren't playing the same game. You are playing an entirely different game, with different circumstances. You don't like people pointing out your lack of morality and feel a personal affront. Then good. I hope it feels bad man. There are many types of games, yet you have to perverse Diablo 3 why?
What is the point of cheating? Because the game give you a lack of motivation as it currently stands? Tough titty. Suck it up and play legitimately. If it's just a game, why cheat?
I can only agree with this because that is my entire point.
Although I do disagree with your solution. Imho, the core issue itself is that the "farming" content (bounties and neph rifts) don't scale. Once you reach the level of power where you oneshot things on TX with a speed build, that's it, it doesn't improve from here in any direction at all. Right now I am farming with the exact same speed I was farming over 2 months ago, nothing has changed despite me gaining A LOT of power on my characters during this time.
That's what makes it boring. We need higher difficulties or farming content that scales. A more powerful character should be able to farm slightly faster than a less powerful character (it can be due to the more powerful character being able to run a higher difficulty or run faster). I'm sure they could introduce more Torment levels which are scaled appropriately to the the maximum power characters will have in a season (with best gear and, say, plvl 1k+). All of this is possible to calculate before a patch goes live, even the community has the tools required for this (d3planner).
Because you need rift keys for GRs. That's literally a direct requirement. And because Rift Guardian loot is worthless when you only lack 2-3 slots (which are weapons/rings/amulets, which have very low drop chances in random loot tables), so your best bet at upgrading those slots is doing bounties for materials for reforging and upgrading at the cube. You could say that's optional, sure, but it's undoubtedly the best way to gear up right now, nothing else even comes close.
What doesn't make sense? That sometimes people cheat with the purpose of avoiding parts of the game they don't like, so that they can do parts of the game they do like? It's not exactly rocket science. I don't know how else to explain this. I guess I'll just stop trying.
Edit: also, if you're pushing GRs for ranks, the amount of rift guardians you'll kill won't be very high. It's mostly 0 or 1.
I know that it's probably not allowed. But if I would get banned for something that should be a feature. So be it. it would just be plain stupid and probably that's why they won't do that
Some interesting points raised by Thaya and LordofDestruction regards types of botting, reasons why and ideas on changes/improvements to the game.
If everyone cheats, no one cheats.
Followers in WoW are legal quasi-bots that can aid progress and perform some tasks automatically. There was also a similar system in the Star Wars MMO. These things were integarted into the respective games with no issues whatsoever (well, ok, one can argue Garrisons destroyed the concept of an MMO but that's another discussion).
Maybe a solution (in addition to the great ideas from LoD) could be the introduction of automation of some tasks via a 'limited use' legal bot system or the ability for your followers to do some stuff for you on CD with stripped down results vs. doing it manually?
http://www.angryroleplayer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/c/angryroleplayer
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105329-2-6-7-rend-bleed-whirlwind-gr130
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105301-2-6-7-fist-of-the-heavens-aegis-of-valor-gr110
That is 100% correct.
I've seen both types of botters. The second one we have in our clan (why he isn't banned i have no idea, admins know he's a botter). He's barely playing. Has been banned in season 2 for botting, still he bought another account and just "idling" there now. He never pushes leaderboards, barely participates in any clan activities. He's p1200, and he botted whole season 4 AFKing with his monk , up to p800 i believe. He's just a strange "filler". I think he completely lost interest in the game itself and just runs bot to check what gear it found.
http://www.angryroleplayer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/c/angryroleplayer
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105329-2-6-7-rend-bleed-whirlwind-gr130
https://www.diablofans.com/builds/105301-2-6-7-fist-of-the-heavens-aegis-of-valor-gr110