General bots/botting discussion

[elilasol]

My main complaint is that botting is something done by an exclusive group of players.
I realise there is no way to "win" the game, but botting is a way for veterans to maintain the "gap" and even increase it.

So what exactly counts as botting then? Some of the clients do auto-curio replacement... If i'm not at the computer when that happens, that's a bot. Do you also want this functionality removed from the custom clients?

What about decay ticks and world loading? If bushes do not regenerate food(and whatever else doesn't happen) while unloaded from the world, I need to have a bot just sit at my village and make sure the zone is loaded to ensure decay ticks happen properly. That's a bot too.

If they say "This is illegal", the only thing that happens is you no longer know who is botting because they wont tell you.

[Kaios]

Some of the clients do auto-curio replacement... If i'm not at the computer when that happens, that's a bot. Do you also want this functionality removed from the custom clients?

In a perfect world, yes.

[stya]

Free them bots ! A lot of boring "blablabla" coming below, read at your own risk.

I'll probably hanged for my opinions but as a Hearthling living in a Jorbtar democracy I want to share my ideas.

I started last world as a poor shitty noob hermit, yes there were old old factions, skilled players etc... I was a little shit, not even a fly or a mosquito. I met some "nice" people after being slaughtered by ruthless people killing noobs afk in fields (I was young, innocent and didn't have a bwall or even a pali).
I received a home near these poeple, they helped me, taught me how to play and I started my own real hermitage with their help. At some point I didn't need their help anymore, but I was still a piece of shit, I had nothing of value, was raising pretty slowly.

And then I discovered bots and it was for me like a new game that begun, I had this script engine using js and I started reading about bots and reading their code... It was a really funny experience, I discovered new best practices like "while(true) do something" and I felt I had to do something.

I eventually wrote my own bots, including a custom-optimized pearl bot that made me rich, at least rich for a noob, rich enough to buy the best stuff from traders, to give away pearls to the people who helped me, I could use pearls as curios and speed up LP.

Botting at least for me is the part of h&h where there still is a lot of creativity for players, I have read things about projects from Xcom for example that were amazing and were only possible with bots. I had a lot of fun working on my bots, fixing stuff, making them quickier, more efficient, resilient.

And no it doesn't just make the gap between veterans and newcomers bigger, it also makes it possible for newcomers to be equals on some level with veterans. A bot is a bot no matter how many thousands/millions of LP are used around him everyday, no matter who owns it. It also made it possible for me to stop being a noob-noob and become a mid-noob.

And an argument you won't like, who is developing this game ? A dev. Who is making the nice custom client you are using ? A dev. Who is using the most bots ? A dev. Free devs, free bots, let us have fun !

Also if you don't agree, please be constructive.

[Bowshot125]

Botting needs to be purged, you've been asking for money for a decent game on sub's. Like guy above me said, buying everything with pearls he botted for. Ruins the economy, gives unfair advantage to big factions or secret scripters, etc. Purge them or make bots available to all. If only big factions get to use them then small factions get to too. Let bots run the world once more, but I mean its not really an issue unless it hurts your funding directly right Jorbtar? ;S

[barra]

Botting needs to be purged, you've been asking for money for a decent game on sub's. Like guy above me said, buying everything with pearls he botted for. Ruins the economy, gives unfair advantage to big factions or secret scripters, etc. Purge them or make bots available to all. If only big factions get to use them then small factions get to too. Let bots run the world once more, but I mean its not really an issue unless it hurts your funding directly right Jorbtar? ;S

It's at least an interesting question, now that Haven is a business. Huge companies like Blizzard probably know the same as our devs that fighting bots is a losing battle, but they fight the battle anyway. Why do they do that, especially since it obviously costs money to do so? Does pushing botters underground save them money in some way? Jorb and Loftar can see the metrics, so they'd know better than us.

... but all other games ban bots?
They may be trying to. Whether their efforts match the results is another matter entirely.

Could the devs please expand on this, since it was written when H&H was F2P?

[pedorlee]

Free them bots ! A lot of boring "blablabla" coming below, read at your own risk.

I'll probably hanged for my opinions but as a Hearthling living in a Jorbtar democracy I want to share my ideas.

I started last world as a poor shitty noob hermit, yes there were old old factions, skilled players etc... I was a little shit, not even a fly or a mosquito. I met some "nice" people after being slaughtered by ruthless people killing noobs afk in fields (I was young, innocent and didn't have a bwall or even a pali).
I received a home near these poeple, they helped me, taught me how to play and I started my own real hermitage with their help. At some point I didn't need their help anymore, but I was still a piece of shit, I had nothing of value, was raising pretty slowly.

And then I discovered bots and it was for me like a new game that begun, I had this script engine using js and I started reading about bots and reading their code... It was a really funny experience, I discovered new best practices like "while(true) do something" and I felt I had to do something.

I eventually wrote my own bots, including a custom-optimized pearl bot that made me rich, at least rich for a noob, rich enough to buy the best stuff from traders, to give away pearls to the people who helped me, I could use pearls as curios and speed up LP.

Botting at least for me is the part of h&h where there still is a lot of creativity for players, I have read things about projects from Xcom for example that were amazing and were only possible with bots. I had a lot of fun working on my bots, fixing stuff, making them quickier, more efficient, resilient.

And no it doesn't just make the gap between veterans and newcomers bigger, it also makes it possible for newcomers to be equals on some level with veterans. A bot is a bot no matter how many thousands/millions of LP are used around him everyday, no matter who owns it. It also made it possible for me to stop being a noob-noob and become a mid-noob.

And an argument you won't like, who is developing this game ? A dev. Who is making the nice custom client you are using ? A dev. Who is using the most bots ? A dev. Free devs, free bots, let us have fun !

Also if you don't agree, please be constructive.

Devs and coders, those god-like creatures.
If you want to be the best or be better than other players by your coding skills, I strongly recommend you Codecombat and similars.
Haven and hearth is a sandbox based in another kind of gameplay, it's not about coding.
If you change the subject of your writting to Battlefield 4 or Rust, you are justifing using wallhacks and autoaim, just because you have acces to that kind of knowledge. Coding those scripts its very creative and allow a bad player to get the same level of a good player and kill a lot of other people etc etc etc

[jorb]

Could the devs please expand on this, since it was written when H&H was F2P?

No, it wasn't. We updated the page when we redid the webpage in general. To expand on it: A lot of people spend a lot of effort and energy on preventing botting, and they are failing at it. I can download a bot for WoW, Eve, or any other MMO by simply googling. We don't see any point in trying, as has been explicated earlier in this thread.

[jorb]

Botting needs to be purged, you've been asking for money for a decent game on sub's. Like guy above me said, buying everything with pearls he botted for. Ruins the economy, gives unfair advantage to big factions or secret scripters, etc. Purge them or make bots available to all. If only big factions get to use them then small factions get to too. Let bots run the world once more, but I mean its not really an issue unless it hurts your funding directly right Jorbtar? ;S

Bro, I would love to "purge botting", but I am informing you that it cannot be done.

[barra]

No, it wasn't. We updated the page when we redid the webpage in general. To expand on it: A lot of people spend a lot of effort and energy on preventing botting, and they are failing at it. I can download a bot for WoW, Eve, or any other MMO by simply googling. We don't see any point in trying, as has been explicated earlier in this thread.

Sorry for the mistake, I remember you or Loftar saying something similar to that years ago and I got confused. My question is why are those games spending effort and energy trying to prevent botting? They haven't eliminated botting in their games, but I reckon they've reduced it and in some cases forced it underground where the persistent bots or hacks are paywalled. They're big companies, their teams are smart enough to see incomplete results, but they continue doing it. Why? Is a reduction in bots (or a show of effort to fight them) creating benefits somewhere else, like in subscriber numbers? Could this reasoning apply to Haven and Hearth?

This is anecdotal, but I've have trouble persuading friends to try a game where botting is sanctioned, even friends who love permadeath pvp and aren't intimidated by high risk high reward. I wish Haven had more players.

[Sevenless]

We don't have much coding power barra. Two people, and I was under the impression Jorb can't code. To get any effect on anti botting, they'd have to significantly cut back in updates. And as Jorb points out, that effect still might be nil.

If it's a question of developing the game and trying to minimize the benefits of botting, or having the game sit at a progress standstill isn't it better to tolerate the bots?