To those that defended turbo hud, plz go ahead and keep using it, i dare ya
You got it. If I get banned I get banned. I'm OK with the consequences.
Sometimes I wish bigworded ppl like yourself will suffer the consequences just for a reality check!
Hahaha. My good sir, D3 is a videogame. The only consequences for me to "suffer" is being banned which would just mean I've more time for other games, certainly nothing of a "reality check". Trust me, I stand by what I said and if Blizzard ever does decide to come down hard on THud, I guarantee you I will be hit as I've taken zero of the suggested security precautions found on the THud forums. I don't even rename the application (which honestly would only prevent the most basic of checks anyway). If Blizzard wants to ban me for using THud, they are welcome to, heck I've even admitted to using THud on the official forums before (somewhere far more likely to get a response from Blizzard than my admittance here on diablofans where Bliz has no way of figuring out my battle tag). The great thing about being a gamer is I've a very large library of games just waiting to entertain me.
In my opinion, the base UI of D3 is disgustingly lacking, whether that be proper damage calculations for skills or quick and easy notice of whether you've cubed an item or anything in between, the base UI is about as useful as a fresh turd. Thus I improve upon it with THud. Believe it or not, I've even turned off the map hack portion of it (an option for all who download THud believe it or not). I'm not on the leaderboards... OK, that's a lie, my hardcore non seasonal crusader is on the leaderboards, but to be fair, all you need to do is beat GR20 solo and you're on the hardcore non seasonal leaderboards. I suppose it's more accurate to say I'm not on the leaderboards in any real competitive sense.
Being a multi-boxer, I'm called a cheater all the time. They point out that it's not fair that I can run 3 accounts at the same time.. bla bla bla... Well, it's not fair to me that some people can play for 18 hours a day. It's not fair to me that people can stream their game play and get paid for it. It's an endless cycle, we could all literally find something to complain about with all of it.
I say, play the way you are happy. If it means you are playing against the rules, don't get bent out of shape when your account goes bye-bye.
If you are one of the folks complaining about botters, then be happy! Blizzard heard you and took care of what accounts they could prove were cheating. Score!
Just as a clarification: all you WQW friends are botters.
I know that, and I knew there were people botting. Which there were in all top clans, maybe except ZE. But I left ZE long time ago so I had no option. Anyways, I did already quit the game, and this reason was one of them. I did never support botting, but it's hard to play in a high-end group with at least 1 botter.
Not like ZE is better than WQW. They do not bot but still using d3helper or/and Thud.... I dont think Hud should be punished, neither helper. D3 helper is some kind of a bot, since it automates the gameplay, however it works nearly as a mouse macro... sort of in a super simple way. Its up to blizz whether they want to punish it or not. Since the bans are given due to 3rd party programs , there is a chance they are also banable. my 2 cents
hes somewhat correct. Botting eliminates all the part of the game which is useless. Key farm, mat farm. These things are boring. (not like endless GR100 is better...)
There are many ppl out there who want to compete, even though they have life, for thembotting is a tool that helps to reduce the handicap between kids who study and have 16 hours a day to play. If you go to work, you simple feel ultimatly behind. Whether this feeling is true or not thats up to you to decide. It has been proven many times, that paragon isnt everything.
The paragon system should be changed completly anyways. This game is about getting loots and compete. What happens this seaons? you play legit 3 days till you geared, then bot + mindless GR100. Boring as fak.
Change paragon around Kadala:
1.) Increase the chance of getting a legendary
2.) increase the chance that this legendary is ancient.
Boom, it eliminates the material farm requirement, no more mindless para farm for powercreep, you get your loot, and opens the chance to the wider community to have fun on LB. <- this is the bot now. this is only my opinion, and how i feel about it.
hes somewhat correct. Botting eliminates all the part of the game which is useless. Key farm, mat farm. These things are boring. (not like endless GR100 is better...)
There are many ppl out there who want to compete, even though they have life, for thembotting is a tool that helps to reduce the handicap between kids who study and have 16 hours a day to play. If you go to work, you simple feel ultimatly behind. Whether this feeling is true or not thats up to you to decide. It has been proven many times, that paragon isnt everything.
The paragon system should be changed completly anyways. This game is about getting loots and compete. What happens this seaons? you play legit 3 days till you geared, then bot + mindless GR100. Boring as fak.
Change paragon around Kadala:
1.) Increase the chance of getting a legendary
2.) increase the chance that this legendary is ancient.
Boom, it eliminates the material farm requirement, no more mindless para farm for powercreep, you get your loot, and opens the chance to the wider community to have fun on LB. <- this is the bot now. this is only my opinion, and how i feel about it.
You aren't playing Diablo 3 then. That is the experience of D3. While it might suck for you. That isn't an excuse to cheat. You perverse the point of the game. Go play something else, if D3 is that boring to you.
Thud is an overlay and nothing more. Its everybody blizzard should do but doesnt because we do have THUD, blizzard employees use it as well.
Please post your source/evidence of blizzard employee's using/advocating use of THUD. I have looked into some of the features, and while some are definitely beneficial to gameplay, I would not want THUD in its current state to be completely integrated into D3. I do encourage the use of THUD for competitive play, as it helps to reduce some of the non-essential/counter-intuitive RNG elements present within GRs (which become significantly more prominent at higher GRs). THUD can help competitive players create a more level ground upon which to compete, and they do so by analysing data in real time; the decision to go left/right is not made by a computer/program, but the program does aid the human player to make the decision.
I think it is imperative that Blizzard take a stand on the matter of THUD use, as it is clearly a topic which splits the community. I don't think that THUD users should be punished as harshly as botters straight off the bat, because they are vastly different advantages. One allows farming while the player is AFK (sleeping/work/etc.) and is often used for lengthy durations; the other provides more detailed information on the player's surroundings, allowing them to use their time more efficiently while actively playing.
To be clear, I am for features/extensions which provide the player with more decision-making power, and against any element which makes that decision for the player.
THUD features I openly support (I do not use THUD, but do familiarise myself with the features of the program):
- Skill calculation details (it's basically a read-out similar to that provided on D3Planner)
- Arcs and circles (displays radius marks which the player can use to set up their positioning for buffs like zei's)
- Orbs on minimap (displays orbs on the minimap, so you don't run past them and miss out on your rift progress)
There is a feature which ... ... ... is unfair in a competition of non-THUD vs THUD user:
Monster dots on minimap show how many monsters are within the detection radius. ... ... ... My main issue however is the detection radius itself. Based upon the image I am viewing, the detection radius would have an effective range which exceeds the player's FOV; If this range were matched to ~85% of FOV, I would not have an issue with it.
Saw this post and had a lot of thought and agreement with it.
I go more in-depth with actual mechanics and loss-gain benefits of THUD vs no THUD users on the first two of PsykStrike's 'supported features'.
As for the third? Orbs, yes, I agree with that, nothing to get into detail about, whatsoever.
Orbs on minimap would be great.
Also go into the unfairness of the minimap vs detection radius actual visibility range and inherent disadvantages by those with different aspect ratios throughout.
Totally agreed with this post. The first 3 components are useful, very useful, but nothing you can't do without D3planner.
If you had a second monitor that had d3planner up and you imported your hero every gear change, you would actually get far more info/stats than THUD gives you (referring mostly to the damage calculations of your skills.
D3planner will give you calculations including passives, legendary procs, skill AS breakpoints and how much you need to reach that next breakpoint for what amount of damage increase you will attain by reaching the breakpoint... etc etc.)
D3 has needed this info for years. They refuse to give us a test dummy in town, even, let alone a DPS meter for ourselves.
Fine, we'll have a website calculate it all in another window, with extreme detail. Or an overlay calculate it all, with far less detail, but on the same window.
You aren't going to check your skill damage in combat any more than you would ALT+TAB and check out d3planner mid-combat to check your skill damage.
Both are used, basically, exclusively while in town and swapping between different weapons and checking for upgrades/synergies.
Timesaver, not an advantage giver. You can calculate it all by hand if you really want, the "player who uses no THUD or d3planner", you will not be at a disadvantage in combat.
~Arcs and circles, yes. What the hell is a yard, in Diablo? Seriously, what the hell is 50 yards on 1920x1080?
How about on 1280x720? 1440p?
Some of these things have zero indicator buffs or debuff auras/icons on the mobs.
Cyclone strike -> Implosion pulls in mobs from, let's see... 36 yards. Where, in, the, HELL, is, thirty-six, yards. The monk aura that affects enemy mobs has a 30 yard range, so if you stop exactly when you see that aura indicator on enemy mobs, you must then advance another 6 yards to be in range of pulling exactly the zombie pack 36 yards away, without pulling the elite extra health illusionist Mallet Lord pack that is 40 yards away from you.
People will say 'lulz just practice more scrub', but nobody knows exact ranges all the time.
This game does not provide range 'arcs' like games such as WC3 did (press chain lightning on your far seer, you get a transparent-ish blue circle with the Far Seer Hero at the center, and the circle has a radius that is precisely the size of the spell's maximum castable range. If the unit is inside the circle, you can hit the spell and rain lightning upon their forsaken souls. If they are not in the circle, you know immediately that you are not in range.
As I said, Diablo 3 lacks any kind of range feature (besides the fact that skills have ranges.) Range is a static number property of spells in Diablo 3, with no other implementation or confirmation process as to you actually being in this range.)
Not even in the campaign, or FAQ, blizzard beginner tips/tutorial website, or the instruction manual for the game is 'discerning range' alluded to as a necessary skill or a method to estimate it; there is not even an official post on a 'standard x yard range is this distance from this spot to this spot' picture.
Thank god somebody made that Demon Hunter in town picture a long time ago. Click the spoiler to view it.
A point to note: a 4:3 monitor can see 30 yards down-corner, 60 yards to an upper corner. This is due to the isometric, non-top-down camera angle.
So, 50 yards to a mob that is below your character (lower corners of monitor) is not in the expected, same-but-opposite-side location as 50 yards to an enemy above you (top corners of your screen). This makes range really really hard to figure out on-the-fly.
Also to note, 16:10 resolutions see 17% more of the battlefield than a 4:3 monitor does. ON EACH SIDE.
If we are gosu enough and can see all 4 corners of our 16:10 monitor at once, we are seeing 68% more of the battlefield at once (en totale, including all 4 directional bounds, implied as the corners of your monitor) than a dude with a 4:3 monitor.
This same 16:10 aspect ratio monitor is only showing, per corner, 90% of what a 16:9 would show. So, again, if we see all corners at once with our eyes, there's another (10% * 4 =) 40% increase in what we can see from our character to the edge of our gamescreen.
I'll let you do the math for how bad 4:3 AR visual range is when compared to the 1080p monitors at 16:9. (Hint, 25% in each direction.)
Combine that with the fact that the camera makes it such that seemingly 'equal' amounts of space going at a down angle are actually only half the in-game 'yards' distance of the 'same' spot, just going up instead.
Don't get what the hell this chart is? Isometric camera what the hell is that? How can two equal distances not be equal?? Wat??
Ok, here's a demonstration. Follow along at home, click the spoiler.
Go get a piece of paper.
Fold it in half twice and unfold it, so you have the center of the paper where the two folds meet, you can mark it with a pencil or pen as the center if you want, on both sides of the paper.
Now, lay the paper with the long side on the top and bottom of the sheet (like the shape of your monitor.)
Now grab a pin or a pencil or a sharpie (let it bleed to both sides), and put a hole (or sharpie mark) somewhere in the lower right quadrant of the paper. Wherever you want.
Draw a straight line from the center dot to the hole you made in the paper.
Now fold the bottom half of the paper up, so you have a "taco shell" shape, and line the paper edges up and crease it.
Mark the hole onto the top right quadrant by simply penciling or crayon (hah, nobody uses crayons anymore.) to color through the hole you made, onto the piece of paper behind it.
Now unfold the paper so its a monitor shape again, with a hole on the bottom right, quadrant, and a mark on the top-right.
Draw a straight line from the center dot to the bottom-right dot, and draw a separate straight line from the center to the top-right dot.
Same distance, right? Get a ruler if you want or you think I'm a lying sorcerer to confirm the distance is the same from center to both spots.
In Diablo 3, the distance from the center to the top-right hole/mark IS DOUBLE the distance from the center to the bottom-right hole/mark.
How the hell are we supposed to calculate range with this??? We don't. We let Turbohud draw a circle for us at 50 yards in all directions (for zei's.)
This feature is not a cheat, it's an improvement, in my opinion. Diablo has zero built-in resources for learning range. Zero.
And isometric camera, hah, yea, good luck bud.
If somebody thinks this is cheating...do i need to put a sharpie on my monitor to draw zei's circle out? Would that be considered 'cheating'? I'd always have Zei's 50 yard range indicator up on my screen.
Hell, just get those plastic films teachers used to use on the school projectors in the classroom, with the dry-erasable markers and tape it on your monitor.
Done with d3? Flip it over the back of the screen. No marker damage to the monitor, and I know more than other players about zei's max range for damage boost maximization.
I now have an advantage. Is this cheating? Is this unfair? It isn't software, as when THUD software draws a circle on screen for you.
It's a hardware circle, and even though Blizzard bans third-party 'software', did I not gain an unfair advantage still? Is it ok because it's not drawn by software, but THUD circles are not okay because they are? In fact, the distinction is irrelevant: they do the same exact thing.
So, circle ranges It is a useful feature that should be allowed or implemented by Blizzard, especially since they cannot expect us to compensate for the camera angle doubling yardage ranges above the x-axis.
This feature should be implemented. So agree again great feature.
P.S. Say for example I run in 1920x1080 and you run in some garbage 4:3 resolution on your old CRT.
I have another unfair advantage over you, I can see double the area around my character vs what you can see around yours (25% more in each direction to the monitors corner borders.)
Is this also cheating?
What about super-widescreen monitors that go up to 21:9 This is like a cinema projector screen, ust so you can imagine how widescreen it is. No blackbars stretching or cropping will be needed when the DVD comes out, you'll have the true cinematic viewpoint the director made the film with.
And you'll see a metric fuckton more of D3 than the pitifully un-wide, lesser, plebeian monitors.
It's not software, and Blizzard isn't going to ban you for using your new Projector screen to play their game. But it gives me a huge advantage.
And this will always exist in Diablo 3.
So, saying anything 'third-party software giving advantage' should be banned no matter what... well, it's silly.
Shall we ban anybody laying in 16:9 when there are 4:3 players on the leaderboards too?
People take Blizz posts too literally. "Third-party" "software" = must be banned regardless of function or availability of advantage attained also being obtained without the third-party software.
Bots let you double or triple your playtime and always do most efficient xp runs during real play-time and farm mats/keys while you're away or sleeping off the 4-day adderall binge you did at season startup. Come back and farm some more GRs and hey you're top 10 player you're the best! ... Except not.
THUD provides about as much of an advantage as does having a more widescreen Aspect Ratio monitor/resolution provides you, at least for the 3 features supported by PsykStrike
The only thing that breaks the competition is the vision/detection range.
If the minimap dots were only visible up to the players visual range (i.e. the resolution of his or her monitor from the center to the outside edge or corner, depending on the direction he's heading, obviously), this would be fine in my opinion.
You could see mobs on the screen at the same time as a THUD user could see them as dots on the minimap.
I played RTS games for years, years, and years, before Diablo 3. I am far more comfortable judging the size of a force with radar/minimap dots than looking at actual 3d-ish-isometric view models that sometimes do not contrast very well with the terrain/colors and could be misleading, at least for myself personally.
As an example, think about the very, very dark rifts, and you've got a bunch of Zombie pukers stuffed into chokepoints, and a WALLER elite just for fun (the wall is quite dark.)
Sometimes I can't see walls made by WALLER on the super-super-dark-blackness-of-the-void colored rift floors. They're both just too dark.
Or, the cave levels ~ but not any cave level, it's an ICE cave level. What do we get? Of course, tons of freaking elites with FROZEN.
I literally cannot see those 90% of the time without THUD (it will show a red dotted outline around the Frozen particle/spell's Area of Effect. It's not that I can't react or don't pay attention, but sometimes the color matches the terrain in a snow level pretty much perfectly and it's impossible to avoid without that outline there.
We all know Blizzard messes up on shadow outlines with similar colors. Check out your buff stacks on Live server right now. Sorry, you have how many stacks of Firebird's? or Tal Rashas? White text on white background, works about as well as Frozen in an Ice Cave. THUD gives me the outline blizz is adding to Text/number indicators on buff/stack icons next patch, but gives me that outlinefor things that can kill me, but shouldn't, as they are basically invisible.
Again, these are just my thoughts, mostly in agreement with PsykStrike's well-written post.
I don't think minimap dots at same range as visual monitor resolution range are an extra advantage vs looking at the edge of the monitor (this is where you have to look to see the minimap anyway. We're both looking at a edge of the monitor in this situation!) and not having the minimap dots.
For me, this is what I am extremely accustomed to in other Blizzard games, and what I would prefer, personally.
Thus, I may have bias in that it isn't unfair to have dots as the same range as your character's vision range, as they show the same thing, just one as some dots in a small compact area (minimap), and one as a real-scale representation of the battlefield, as some 3D sprites shown on the battlefield itself, The area your eyes must scan is larger without minimap dots, but you get a much better depiction of range (Zei's, etc.) in the non-THUD users' case; you can also immediately detect the monster type and more quickly formulate whether to sit and kill, avoid and pass them, or group them up and pull them with you to the next pack of stuff.
This is a reasonable tradeoff for either playstyle and should be left to the user to decide.
Minimap dots show total mob amount/force size more easily, and in conjunction with upcoming map features, all in a compact area of the minimap. Thus, you can plan your route whilst you see upcoming trash packs and dynamically move and group or kill on-the-fly.
No minimap dots, you can always see what monster types are incoming (Will it be a mounted armadon at the chokepoint? Are the mobs in the next room something you should pull into this room to clear both at once?
Nah, there's like 100 Oppressors in there.
Can't tell either of those things with THUD minimap dots, but you can if you watch the screen instead of the minimap), you can see the size of the force (same as THUD can).
So, my thoughts on it is the minimap dots do not really do anything special, they do one thing better than without them, and some things worse if you are focusing on them instead of the world on your screen, in acceptably qualitatively equal benefits/losses for each option.
Neither is overpowered, and it is more personal preference. Hell, some people don't ever look at the minimap, with or without THUD, or even in a WarCraft 3 or SC2 game (or league of legends or CS:GO or... ad nausem).
Some folks are very good as visually scanning the isometric field, and can instantly decide whether to skip, kill, have them follow you to another pack, etc.
Conversely, some, such as myself, or those with heavy RTS backgrounds, thrive on minimap dot spotting in order to more closely focus on map terrain and relative mob pack sizes, so we can look at routes while we check out incoming amounts of mobs; only really ever looking at the isometric battlefield when we are in range to fight, really.
THEN we see what mobs these are, and then waste precious seconds deciding whether to skip, clump, fight, or make them follow you to another pack, etc.
What's My Point?
Minimap dots are basically equal and pure preference to scanning the visual battlefield ahead/around your hero, so long as neither has a larger field of vision than the other. No bigger advantage than having a widescreen monitor vs somebody who has a 4:3 CRT.
Ranges in this game are completely fucked sideways as pertaining to how many yards away something is in isometric view, with any downward location of the x-axis being half of the equiangular upward distance.
As THUD currently does have 'maphack' esque things, that is the main issue of contention I can see.Then again, I could also once again argue it's the same as having a wider monitor.
I concede it is a controversial feature, however, but still hold that it's silly to cry about it when the game gives you 100% more visual space by going from a 4:3 AR to a 16:9 AR, and that's okay but map reveal (which is mostly based on cached rift / known rift layouts...as im sure you've noticed rifts are not exactly random at all, and often have the same dead-ends and layouts, same paths that lead in a big loop to waste your time, etc.
It's more like drawing the known map when it matches the current GR floor, it fills in what it knows, and where variations can occur, it stops drawing.
If the map is always one layout, then you get the full 'maphack'. A person could easily memorize all of these if they tried. Everybody who runs enough GRs has memoriozed some of the maps already. "Ok, the giant hell rift always has a dead-end when you are in the top center, and choose to go up the incline to the left path. And heading the other path to the top-right, always leads to the next floor of the GR after a small stretch of straight pathing."
You know what I'm talking about! :^) THud just knows more patterns like this. It's not really a maphack, though it is a map-fill-in tool once it matches the rift with rifts it knows.
I conclude this post once again finding myself agreeing with PsykStriker. Thanks for the post, and I didn't intend to write even 1/10 of this length of post, but you got me thinking in-depth about your points.
Doubt anybody read this far into my post, but hey if you did, thanks.
To be honest, the holier than thou attitude gets tiresome, mostly because it's very shortminded. If you are not able to rationalize that a game is first and foremost to be enjoyed, and if they don't affect you, there is absolutely nothing you can say that would prove they are playing the game wrong by botting, if that's how they enjoy the game. Other thing is when people use it to get into the leaderboards, which certainly gives an advantadge over people who try to compete (small or big as it may be, i don't care and i won't talk about it because i don't really know). But otherwise ? How the game should be played means a squat on a singleplayer game.
They aren't playing Diablo 3 by botting. The tedium is the game. The farming is game. Grinding is the game. Without all of these elements then it's not Diablo 3. It's also not a singleplayer game, as gains made by botting can affect other players, if the botters so choose to play with randoms. You can benefit from the programs by proxy. I ask, what game are they playing if they bot. Because it's certainly not Diablo 3.
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.
I will acknowledge your point made in a post after this one about the indirect impact of botting on unknowing players. That is a valid point. My only other contribution here is that I am not trying to justify myself, I am not trying to convince you that what I am doing or how I utilize the game is right, and I am not trying to leverage my lifestyle as an excuse. My point was merely to be an insight into the mindset of why some people bot. Very few people I see on botting sites have a mindset different than mine about botting. It is a convenience to them when they lack the opportunity to put in the massive hours that others can afford. My only point that I would want to get across is that in the current state of the game, the fact that time is the only factor of the game affecting group play directly divides the community into small groups. This is not conducive to encouraging group play or overall growth in the game. If anything it will just turn away more and more people from the game until the community is so small that forming a group will take hours. People will just say "Fuck it. I can't put in the time and no one will group because I am so far behind, I might as well quit".
One more thing to consider; botting will never stop. Perma bans are not effective. They will shrink the community because a majority will just never buy a new license. Those who do will just start botting all over again.
This thread is practically full of people praising bot bans. I guarantee you that some people praising are botters themselves, but my intent was not to "rub it in", but to provide insight into the opposite end of the spectrum.
8 pages full of stupid botters that are trying to explain how wonderful and important their real life is, so they do care about game forum to explain the others why they're cheating. don't make me laugh
9 pages of people who cannot even have a propper discussion back and forth. Botting or cheating in general is not the problem, it's just a symptom of the state D3 is in. Cheating, unless done for profitting, by leaderboards (who are an illusion of competition btw) or to cause harm will not affect you or destroy your game experience. Cheating in D3 can be seen as using a mod, a mod which is not allowed, but that will not affect you.
If you read what most of the "defenders" here state, they are not trying to justify or talk their way out of the situation, they merely try to give a picture of who an why botting excists. If you fail to even aknowlege that there are different types of people who does actions based on different reasons and situations, then you have nothing to contribute to in this discussion.
I probably play this game more than most, and I can honestly say that botters have never bothered me (nor did I ever play with one). I dont care about the leaderboards as there is no gain to be on them. The ones that bother me are the dumb asses that close non-bonus acts and then flame you for three hours because you kicked them. I do bounties about two hours a day and I usually run across 3 idiots per day that close non-bonus bounties. these are the people I want to see banned!!
"Why they're cheating" would be a super interesting thing to know for a developer of a game like this.
It's a useful discussion.
No it's not.
Here is the list:
Tedium - Picking up items
Farming - The sink (can't or won't do it)
Malfeasance - Fuck the police
That's it. That's literally the list of the reason why people cheat. There is nothing more too it. If you can think of any reason that isn't covered under these 3 bases. I'd would love to hear it. FFS there is a dude with no arms that doesn't cheat. What is your excuse?
"Why they're cheating" would be a super interesting thing to know for a developer of a game like this.
It's a useful discussion.
No it's not.
Here is the list:
Tedium - Picking up items
Farming - The sink (can't or won't do it)
Malfeasance - Fuck the police
That's it. That's literally the list of the reason why people cheat. There is nothing more too it. If you can think of any reason that isn't covered under these 3 bases. I'd would love to hear it. FFS there is a dude with no arms that doesn't cheat. What is your excuse?
"Can't or won't do it" - why they won't do it?
i.e. they don't want to / don't enjoy it - the question is, why they don't want to / don't enjoy it. As a developer or a designer you're constantly asking yourself "why/what do people enjoy/don't enjoy about my game/product"
And you still don't understand. There is no excuse. I'm not saying that there is an excuse, either. I am just saying that the subject is more interesting than "people who cheat should go play another game".
If there's a lot of people who say that your product sucks (or a certain part of it sucks) - via words OR ACTION (action in this case) - then it's all worth reviewing, analyzing, and learning from.
"Why they're cheating" would be a super interesting thing to know for a developer of a game like this.
It's a useful discussion.
No it's not.
Here is the list:
Tedium - Picking up items
Farming - The sink (can't or won't do it)
Malfeasance - Fuck the police
That's it. That's literally the list of the reason why people cheat. There is nothing more too it. If you can think of any reason that isn't covered under these 3 bases. I'd would love to hear it. FFS there is a dude with no arms that doesn't cheat. What is your excuse?
"Can't or won't do it" - why they won't do it?
i.e. they don't want to / don't enjoy it - the question is, why they don't want to / don't enjoy it. As a developer or a designer you're constantly asking yourself "why/what do people enjoy/don't enjoy about my game/product"
And you still don't understand. There is no excuse. I'm not saying that there is an excuse, either. I am just saying that the subject is more interesting than "people who cheat should go play another game".
If there's a lot of people who say that your product sucks (or a certain part of it sucks) - via words OR ACTION (action in this case) - then it's all worth reviewing, analyzing, and learning from.
Finally something substantial in this thread.
thanks.
What we learn from this thread is basically : people cant agree on cheating and the diversity of different oppinions is quite big.
However, as Thaya said i also think we can learn a lot from as to why people are botting. There are also a lot different oppinons here in the thread from people saying that they bot or botted.
Anyways and thats a little bit coming from the position of FunForEvery1 - i think in a time sinking game where progress is solely made by spending time in the game... (as the word..) the one advantage you get from botting is removing the time component.
The solution to this would be to provide other means of progress which are not based on a time sink but at the same time still encourage people to play the game. (which is kinda contradicting to the concept of a time sinking game)
Imagine d3 would be more skill based and you acutally could do grift100 naked if you played perfectly.
Now add gear to this concept. What isnt it allowed to be , to not accidentally remove the skill component? It cant be too powerfull, or even gamebreaking.
Since that would shift the reason for your damage / survivability from the player to the gear.
And thats what diablo is doing. You cant make a skill based, competitive game with gear and RNG. AT least not with big RNG.
But diablo has big variance on the gear. However the biggest problem is timesink due to paragon and the bounty mats and the rift keys.
Diablo is a timesink game type and will always stay that way. You cannot make something like : collect X things fun for the entire livetime of a game for everyone.
The people always saying botters are playing a different game and should go away why are you not saying:
When you are botting because you don't want to spend time in a time sinking game, then ask yourself is a time sinking game the correct thing for you?
While some botters might say yes to this statement, its not always that black and white.
Diablo is not a "single game" but rather a collect of multiple components all working independently but also depend on each other.
There is the bounties
the rifts
the grifts.
the gear game
the paragon game
the theorycrafting game
and so on . there are some more.
You cant do grifts without rifts and you cant continue grifting without doing bounties for mats and gear game.
Although all these games are dependent on each other people might have different biases towards some components.
Such could be :
I hate bounties and rifts and like grifts. I actually just want perfect gear to see how far i can push the best to my abilities because the combat system of d3 is super fun and engaging and i suck at shoters (my personal oppinion)
or
I hate grifts running against a timer, but i love rifts and bounties, i can chill watch something while iam doing that and not focus too much on the game.
thats relaxing.
or
I want to be the fukin best in d3, well because i suck at everything else and i have lots of time.
and so on.
While iam really really in danger of the botting temptation because well i hate the bounties and rift parts - which are the most time sinky.
group 2 the rift likers are not really in danger of starting botting.
Group 3 however has the luxory to chose to either bot or not - thinking gabynator here..
Now comes the tricky part.
Any change made to the game would still leave it as a time sinking game to some way, except blizzard would invent a miracle in video gaming.
Which group would this change influence in their decision to bot or not?
Group 1? maybe i would not be feeling tempted to bot if rerolling lengedary would work with fewer bounty materials and more souls required. to shift the balance a little more towards grifting
may be i would not be feeling tempted if i wouldnt need grift keys.
group 2? certainly not
group 3 ? certainly not . if you can get the edge in competition by some means and you have exorted all others its down to your personality to bot(cheat) or not. Not due to changes in the game.
Consequential there will always be botting in a time sink game if the bot can help reduce time needed to actually play the game - or increase the time one can play to gain the competitive edge.
Its either lazyness or the other extreme.
However all groups of people like the game and you cant do anything about it.
What we can do is keep them out of the competition via bans. If there where no botters in the leaderbards you couldnt give a rats ass about people botting since there is no trading anyways.
Except your feeling for justice and fairness of course.. but well chill its a game.. no reason to get that much invested.
There's a conceptually simple solution to what you describe and it's already in place for XP. People don't bot XP for a simple reason: it's worthless. The best case scenario is 250b xp/h (info is from "show off" forum sections of these tools), which is close to nothing possible via manual play.
They could just make botting keys/bounties worthless relatively to what you can do with manual play. Up the difficulty.
After that, it's a matter of a few banwaves to make people scared of risking their accounts for something with little value.
that is correct thaya, if you make botting worthless botting will stop.
That could be done by scaling bounties and rifts the same way grifts to.
If you can for example do bounties on grift lv 80 difficulty - which bots cannot do you need to make sure that the reward is so much bigger than what bounties on TX via bots could accomplish.
However this will not make bounties on TX useless but just less effective than doing it manually.
Your argument is that bots do not farm xp because doing it manually is much more effective.
However you cannot be sure that nobody will use bots for XP while they are sleeping. Getting a little bit of xp is still better than no xp while you are sleeping.
While these changes would likely decrease botting, it will not remove it completly.
UNLESS you make bounties and rifts only yield rewards if you do them on the same difficulty as your highest solo grift.
If you cleared grift 80 your Torment X would be as difficult as grift 80 - all the time.
Something similar was suggested a while ago in another form and it was called infernal torment or something like that.
Instead of having a TX which is always the same, the TX dfiffulty would actually scale with your highest grift.
That would make botting impossible from a certain point on.
I like this idea but its very casual unfriendly.
Even with this approach botting is still usefull.
Just bot for 2 month before you start solo grifting and TX will still be TX as it is today.
you accumulate thousands of mats and keys and only then you stop botting to push solo grifts.
=> consequence, no matter what you do, botting will stay.
Also nothing prevents improvment in botting implenentation. Maybe changing the game like i described will just increase motivation for bot implementers to make them better being able to handle the circumstances.
=> arms race.as always.
The only thing which would prevent botting is a method of making sure a human is at the PC, such as captcha before grift and so on
allthough technically possible, thats something every company will try to avoid because its such a big hassle
Hahaha. My good sir, D3 is a videogame. The only consequences for me to "suffer" is being banned which would just mean I've more time for other games, certainly nothing of a "reality check". Trust me, I stand by what I said and if Blizzard ever does decide to come down hard on THud, I guarantee you I will be hit as I've taken zero of the suggested security precautions found on the THud forums. I don't even rename the application (which honestly would only prevent the most basic of checks anyway). If Blizzard wants to ban me for using THud, they are welcome to, heck I've even admitted to using THud on the official forums before (somewhere far more likely to get a response from Blizzard than my admittance here on diablofans where Bliz has no way of figuring out my battle tag). The great thing about being a gamer is I've a very large library of games just waiting to entertain me.
In my opinion, the base UI of D3 is disgustingly lacking, whether that be proper damage calculations for skills or quick and easy notice of whether you've cubed an item or anything in between, the base UI is about as useful as a fresh turd. Thus I improve upon it with THud. Believe it or not, I've even turned off the map hack portion of it (an option for all who download THud believe it or not). I'm not on the leaderboards... OK, that's a lie, my hardcore non seasonal crusader is on the leaderboards, but to be fair, all you need to do is beat GR20 solo and you're on the hardcore non seasonal leaderboards. I suppose it's more accurate to say I'm not on the leaderboards in any real competitive sense.
I don't think there is a way to remove botting.
Being a multi-boxer, I'm called a cheater all the time. They point out that it's not fair that I can run 3 accounts at the same time.. bla bla bla... Well, it's not fair to me that some people can play for 18 hours a day. It's not fair to me that people can stream their game play and get paid for it. It's an endless cycle, we could all literally find something to complain about with all of it.
I say, play the way you are happy. If it means you are playing against the rules, don't get bent out of shape when your account goes bye-bye.
If you are one of the folks complaining about botters, then be happy! Blizzard heard you and took care of what accounts they could prove were cheating. Score!
Not like ZE is better than WQW. They do not bot but still using d3helper or/and Thud.... I dont think Hud should be punished, neither helper. D3 helper is some kind of a bot, since it automates the gameplay, however it works nearly as a mouse macro... sort of in a super simple way. Its up to blizz whether they want to punish it or not. Since the bans are given due to 3rd party programs , there is a chance they are also banable. my 2 cents
There are many ppl out there who want to compete, even though they have life, for thembotting is a tool that helps to reduce the handicap between kids who study and have 16 hours a day to play. If you go to work, you simple feel ultimatly behind. Whether this feeling is true or not thats up to you to decide. It has been proven many times, that paragon isnt everything.
The paragon system should be changed completly anyways. This game is about getting loots and compete. What happens this seaons? you play legit 3 days till you geared, then bot + mindless GR100. Boring as fak.
Change paragon around Kadala:
1.) Increase the chance of getting a legendary
2.) increase the chance that this legendary is ancient.
Boom, it eliminates the material farm requirement, no more mindless para farm for powercreep, you get your loot, and opens the chance to the wider community to have fun on LB. <- this is the bot now. this is only my opinion, and how i feel about it.
Saw this post and had a lot of thought and agreement with it.
Also go into the unfairness of the minimap vs detection radius actual visibility range and inherent disadvantages by those with different aspect ratios throughout.
Totally agreed with this post. The first 3 components are useful, very useful, but nothing you can't do without D3planner.
If you had a second monitor that had d3planner up and you imported your hero every gear change, you would actually get far more info/stats than THUD gives you (referring mostly to the damage calculations of your skills.
D3 has needed this info for years. They refuse to give us a test dummy in town, even, let alone a DPS meter for ourselves.
Timesaver, not an advantage giver. You can calculate it all by hand if you really want, the "player who uses no THUD or d3planner", you will not be at a disadvantage in combat.
~Arcs and circles, yes. What the hell is a yard, in Diablo? Seriously, what the hell is 50 yards on 1920x1080?
How about on 1280x720? 1440p?
This game does not provide range 'arcs' like games such as WC3 did (press chain lightning on your far seer, you get a transparent-ish blue circle with the Far Seer Hero at the center, and the circle has a radius that is precisely the size of the spell's maximum castable range. If the unit is inside the circle, you can hit the spell and rain lightning upon their forsaken souls. If they are not in the circle, you know immediately that you are not in range.
Thank god somebody made that Demon Hunter in town picture a long time ago. Click the spoiler to view it.
Also see: http://www.diabloii.net/blog/comments/diablo-iii-the-art-of-distance for explanation on these ranges and circle if you don't understand it or the axes. Very good writeup there already.
A point to note: a 4:3 monitor can see 30 yards down-corner, 60 yards to an upper corner. This is due to the isometric, non-top-down camera angle.
Also to note, 16:10 resolutions see 17% more of the battlefield than a 4:3 monitor does. ON EACH SIDE.
Combine that with the fact that the camera makes it such that seemingly 'equal' amounts of space going at a down angle are actually only half the in-game 'yards' distance of the 'same' spot, just going up instead.
Don't get what the hell this chart is? Isometric camera what the hell is that? How can two equal distances not be equal?? Wat??
Ok, here's a demonstration. Follow along at home, click the spoiler.
Go get a piece of paper.
Fold it in half twice and unfold it, so you have the center of the paper where the two folds meet, you can mark it with a pencil or pen as the center if you want, on both sides of the paper.
Now, lay the paper with the long side on the top and bottom of the sheet (like the shape of your monitor.)
Now grab a pin or a pencil or a sharpie (let it bleed to both sides), and put a hole (or sharpie mark) somewhere in the lower right quadrant of the paper. Wherever you want.
Draw a straight line from the center dot to the hole you made in the paper.
Now fold the bottom half of the paper up, so you have a "taco shell" shape, and line the paper edges up and crease it.
Mark the hole onto the top right quadrant by simply penciling or crayon (hah, nobody uses crayons anymore.) to color through the hole you made, onto the piece of paper behind it.
Now unfold the paper so its a monitor shape again, with a hole on the bottom right, quadrant, and a mark on the top-right.
Draw a straight line from the center dot to the bottom-right dot, and draw a separate straight line from the center to the top-right dot.
Same distance, right? Get a ruler if you want or you think I'm a lying sorcerer to confirm the distance is the same from center to both spots.
In Diablo 3, the distance from the center to the top-right hole/mark IS DOUBLE the distance from the center to the bottom-right hole/mark.
How the hell are we supposed to calculate range with this??? We don't. We let Turbohud draw a circle for us at 50 yards in all directions (for zei's.)
This feature is not a cheat, it's an improvement, in my opinion. Diablo has zero built-in resources for learning range. Zero.
And isometric camera, hah, yea, good luck bud.
If somebody thinks this is cheating...do i need to put a sharpie on my monitor to draw zei's circle out? Would that be considered 'cheating'? I'd always have Zei's 50 yard range indicator up on my screen.
Hell, just get those plastic films teachers used to use on the school projectors in the classroom, with the dry-erasable markers and tape it on your monitor.
Done with d3? Flip it over the back of the screen. No marker damage to the monitor, and I know more than other players about zei's max range for damage boost maximization.
I now have an advantage. Is this cheating? Is this unfair? It isn't software, as when THUD software draws a circle on screen for you.
It's a hardware circle, and even though Blizzard bans third-party 'software', did I not gain an unfair advantage still? Is it ok because it's not drawn by software, but THUD circles are not okay because they are? In fact, the distinction is irrelevant: they do the same exact thing.
P.S. Say for example I run in 1920x1080 and you run in some garbage 4:3 resolution on your old CRT.
I have another unfair advantage over you, I can see double the area around my character vs what you can see around yours (25% more in each direction to the monitors corner borders.)
Is this also cheating?
So, saying anything 'third-party software giving advantage' should be banned no matter what... well, it's silly.
Shall we ban anybody laying in 16:9 when there are 4:3 players on the leaderboards too?
People take Blizz posts too literally. "Third-party" "software" = must be banned regardless of function or availability of advantage attained also being obtained without the third-party software.
THUD provides about as much of an advantage as does having a more widescreen Aspect Ratio monitor/resolution provides you, at least for the 3 features supported by PsykStrike
The only thing that breaks the competition is the vision/detection range.
If the minimap dots were only visible up to the players visual range (i.e. the resolution of his or her monitor from the center to the outside edge or corner, depending on the direction he's heading, obviously), this would be fine in my opinion.
You could see mobs on the screen at the same time as a THUD user could see them as dots on the minimap.
I played RTS games for years, years, and years, before Diablo 3. I am far more comfortable judging the size of a force with radar/minimap dots than looking at actual 3d-ish-isometric view models that sometimes do not contrast very well with the terrain/colors and could be misleading, at least for myself personally.
I literally cannot see those 90% of the time without THUD (it will show a red dotted outline around the Frozen particle/spell's Area of Effect. It's not that I can't react or don't pay attention, but sometimes the color matches the terrain in a snow level pretty much perfectly and it's impossible to avoid without that outline there.
Again, these are just my thoughts, mostly in agreement with PsykStrike's well-written post.
I don't think minimap dots at same range as visual monitor resolution range are an extra advantage vs looking at the edge of the monitor (this is where you have to look to see the minimap anyway. We're both looking at a edge of the monitor in this situation!) and not having the minimap dots.
Minimap dots show total mob amount/force size more easily, and in conjunction with upcoming map features, all in a compact area of the minimap. Thus, you can plan your route whilst you see upcoming trash packs and dynamically move and group or kill on-the-fly.
No minimap dots, you can always see what monster types are incoming (Will it be a mounted armadon at the chokepoint? Are the mobs in the next room something you should pull into this room to clear both at once?
Nah, there's like 100 Oppressors in there.
Can't tell either of those things with THUD minimap dots, but you can if you watch the screen instead of the minimap), you can see the size of the force (same as THUD can).
So, my thoughts on it is the minimap dots do not really do anything special, they do one thing better than without them, and some things worse if you are focusing on them instead of the world on your screen, in acceptably qualitatively equal benefits/losses for each option.
Some folks are very good as visually scanning the isometric field, and can instantly decide whether to skip, kill, have them follow you to another pack, etc.
What's My Point?
Minimap dots are basically equal and pure preference to scanning the visual battlefield ahead/around your hero, so long as neither has a larger field of vision than the other. No bigger advantage than having a widescreen monitor vs somebody who has a 4:3 CRT.
It's more like drawing the known map when it matches the current GR floor, it fills in what it knows, and where variations can occur, it stops drawing.
You know what I'm talking about! :^) THud just knows more patterns like this. It's not really a maphack, though it is a map-fill-in tool once it matches the rift with rifts it knows.
I conclude this post once again finding myself agreeing with PsykStriker. Thanks for the post, and I didn't intend to write even 1/10 of this length of post, but you got me thinking in-depth about your points.
Doubt anybody read this far into my post, but hey if you did, thanks.
Either a person plays the online multiplayer game as intended, or he cheats in it with any cheat application.
People who try to defend cheating for personal enjoyment is just making a fool of themself regardless of its cheat program X, Y and/or Z they use.
One more thing to consider; botting will never stop. Perma bans are not effective. They will shrink the community because a majority will just never buy a new license. Those who do will just start botting all over again.
This thread is practically full of people praising bot bans. I guarantee you that some people praising are botters themselves, but my intent was not to "rub it in", but to provide insight into the opposite end of the spectrum.
9 pages of people who cannot even have a propper discussion back and forth. Botting or cheating in general is not the problem, it's just a symptom of the state D3 is in. Cheating, unless done for profitting, by leaderboards (who are an illusion of competition btw) or to cause harm will not affect you or destroy your game experience. Cheating in D3 can be seen as using a mod, a mod which is not allowed, but that will not affect you.
If you read what most of the "defenders" here state, they are not trying to justify or talk their way out of the situation, they merely try to give a picture of who an why botting excists. If you fail to even aknowlege that there are different types of people who does actions based on different reasons and situations, then you have nothing to contribute to in this discussion.
Zt1mQ - grow up.
"Why they're cheating" would be a super interesting thing to know for a developer of a game like this.
It's a useful discussion.
sry deleted
I probably play this game more than most, and I can honestly say that botters have never bothered me (nor did I ever play with one). I dont care about the leaderboards as there is no gain to be on them. The ones that bother me are the dumb asses that close non-bonus acts and then flame you for three hours because you kicked them. I do bounties about two hours a day and I usually run across 3 idiots per day that close non-bonus bounties. these are the people I want to see banned!!
Regardless. Bnet is strict against 3rd party software. A rule is a rule. And as for cursing. They block that out so no such thing.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/antsunrise-1393/hero/73407888
Here is the list:
Tedium - Picking up items
Farming - The sink (can't or won't do it)
Malfeasance - Fuck the police
That's it. That's literally the list of the reason why people cheat. There is nothing more too it. If you can think of any reason that isn't covered under these 3 bases. I'd would love to hear it. FFS there is a dude with no arms that doesn't cheat. What is your excuse?
"Can't or won't do it" - why they won't do it?
i.e. they don't want to / don't enjoy it - the question is, why they don't want to / don't enjoy it. As a developer or a designer you're constantly asking yourself "why/what do people enjoy/don't enjoy about my game/product"
And you still don't understand. There is no excuse. I'm not saying that there is an excuse, either. I am just saying that the subject is more interesting than "people who cheat should go play another game".
If there's a lot of people who say that your product sucks (or a certain part of it sucks) - via words OR ACTION (action in this case) - then it's all worth reviewing, analyzing, and learning from.
thanks.
What we learn from this thread is basically : people cant agree on cheating and the diversity of different oppinions is quite big.
However, as Thaya said i also think we can learn a lot from as to why people are botting. There are also a lot different oppinons here in the thread from people saying that they bot or botted.
Anyways and thats a little bit coming from the position of FunForEvery1 - i think in a time sinking game where progress is solely made by spending time in the game... (as the word..) the one advantage you get from botting is removing the time component.
The solution to this would be to provide other means of progress which are not based on a time sink but at the same time still encourage people to play the game. (which is kinda contradicting to the concept of a time sinking game)
Imagine d3 would be more skill based and you acutally could do grift100 naked if you played perfectly.
Now add gear to this concept. What isnt it allowed to be , to not accidentally remove the skill component? It cant be too powerfull, or even gamebreaking.
Since that would shift the reason for your damage / survivability from the player to the gear.
And thats what diablo is doing. You cant make a skill based, competitive game with gear and RNG. AT least not with big RNG.
But diablo has big variance on the gear. However the biggest problem is timesink due to paragon and the bounty mats and the rift keys.
Diablo is a timesink game type and will always stay that way. You cannot make something like : collect X things fun for the entire livetime of a game for everyone.
The people always saying botters are playing a different game and should go away why are you not saying:
When you are botting because you don't want to spend time in a time sinking game, then ask yourself is a time sinking game the correct thing for you?
While some botters might say yes to this statement, its not always that black and white.
Diablo is not a "single game" but rather a collect of multiple components all working independently but also depend on each other.
There is the bounties
the rifts
the grifts.
the gear game
the paragon game
the theorycrafting game
and so on . there are some more.
You cant do grifts without rifts and you cant continue grifting without doing bounties for mats and gear game.
Although all these games are dependent on each other people might have different biases towards some components.
Such could be :
I hate bounties and rifts and like grifts. I actually just want perfect gear to see how far i can push the best to my abilities because the combat system of d3 is super fun and engaging and i suck at shoters (my personal oppinion)
or
I hate grifts running against a timer, but i love rifts and bounties, i can chill watch something while iam doing that and not focus too much on the game.
thats relaxing.
or
I want to be the fukin best in d3, well because i suck at everything else and i have lots of time.
and so on.
While iam really really in danger of the botting temptation because well i hate the bounties and rift parts - which are the most time sinky.
group 2 the rift likers are not really in danger of starting botting.
Group 3 however has the luxory to chose to either bot or not - thinking gabynator here..
Now comes the tricky part.
Any change made to the game would still leave it as a time sinking game to some way, except blizzard would invent a miracle in video gaming.
Which group would this change influence in their decision to bot or not?
Group 1? maybe i would not be feeling tempted to bot if rerolling lengedary would work with fewer bounty materials and more souls required. to shift the balance a little more towards grifting
may be i would not be feeling tempted if i wouldnt need grift keys.
group 2? certainly not
group 3 ? certainly not . if you can get the edge in competition by some means and you have exorted all others its down to your personality to bot(cheat) or not. Not due to changes in the game.
Consequential there will always be botting in a time sink game if the bot can help reduce time needed to actually play the game - or increase the time one can play to gain the competitive edge.
Its either lazyness or the other extreme.
However all groups of people like the game and you cant do anything about it.
What we can do is keep them out of the competition via bans. If there where no botters in the leaderbards you couldnt give a rats ass about people botting since there is no trading anyways.
Except your feeling for justice and fairness of course.. but well chill its a game.. no reason to get that much invested.
There's a conceptually simple solution to what you describe and it's already in place for XP. People don't bot XP for a simple reason: it's worthless. The best case scenario is 250b xp/h (info is from "show off" forum sections of these tools), which is close to nothing possible via manual play.
They could just make botting keys/bounties worthless relatively to what you can do with manual play. Up the difficulty.
After that, it's a matter of a few banwaves to make people scared of risking their accounts for something with little value.
that is correct thaya, if you make botting worthless botting will stop.
That could be done by scaling bounties and rifts the same way grifts to.
If you can for example do bounties on grift lv 80 difficulty - which bots cannot do you need to make sure that the reward is so much bigger than what bounties on TX via bots could accomplish.
However this will not make bounties on TX useless but just less effective than doing it manually.
Your argument is that bots do not farm xp because doing it manually is much more effective.
However you cannot be sure that nobody will use bots for XP while they are sleeping. Getting a little bit of xp is still better than no xp while you are sleeping.
While these changes would likely decrease botting, it will not remove it completly.
UNLESS you make bounties and rifts only yield rewards if you do them on the same difficulty as your highest solo grift.
If you cleared grift 80 your Torment X would be as difficult as grift 80 - all the time.
Something similar was suggested a while ago in another form and it was called infernal torment or something like that.
Instead of having a TX which is always the same, the TX dfiffulty would actually scale with your highest grift.
That would make botting impossible from a certain point on.
I like this idea but its very casual unfriendly.
Even with this approach botting is still usefull.
Just bot for 2 month before you start solo grifting and TX will still be TX as it is today.
you accumulate thousands of mats and keys and only then you stop botting to push solo grifts.
=> consequence, no matter what you do, botting will stay.
Also nothing prevents improvment in botting implenentation. Maybe changing the game like i described will just increase motivation for bot implementers to make them better being able to handle the circumstances.
=> arms race.as always.
The only thing which would prevent botting is a method of making sure a human is at the PC, such as captcha before grift and so on
allthough technically possible, thats something every company will try to avoid because its such a big hassle