Botting discussion

[shubla]

Combat bots are cool idea, but Im pretty sure that if somebody ever makes a successful one that will cross the line and devs make changes which makes all the work go in vain.

[kabuto202]

Combat bots are cool idea, but Im pretty sure that if somebody ever makes a successful one that will cross the line and devs make changes which makes all the work go in vain.

The line seems pointless and arbitrary. Also, I imagine combat would be one of the easiest things to actually bot given how much of it is just raw number checks.

[shubla]

just raw number checks.

From what I've heard and seen pvp is actually just running and maybe numberchecks if you run good enough. So bots would have to be able to move without it being too easy to trick them etc.

[kabuto202]

just raw number checks.

From what I've heard and seen pvp is actually just running and maybe numberchecks if you run good enough. So bots would have to be able to move without it being too easy to trick them etc.

Ah, for PvP you're probably right. Sounds you're going to have to implement that flowfield pathfinding algorithm from Supreme Commander so you can swarm you enemies with hundreds of bots using optimal coordinated movement.

[Saetia1]

Bots ruin games, I've been playing this game since w3 and they've always made playing seriously seem moot.

There's always gonna be some guy that is botting 24/7 that will just kill you and take everything you have.
This game is a fun nostalgia kick then you remember that you will never stand a chance vs the no life cheaters.

[insanechef]

Bots ruin games, I've been playing this game since w3 and they've always made playing seriously seem moot.

There's always gonna be some guy that is botting 24/7 that will just kill you and take everything you have.
This game is a fun nostalgia kick then you remember that you will never stand a chance vs the no life cheaters.

I agree that when the bar is that low PvP accomplishments don't seem too great.

[Varralien]

Bots ruin games, I've been playing this game since w3 and they've always made playing seriously seem moot.

There's always gonna be some guy that is botting 24/7 that will just kill you and take everything you have.
This game is a fun nostalgia kick then you remember that you will never stand a chance vs the no life cheaters.

I have to agree too as a hermit player. It seems pretty lame that i could just run a few bots and kick in the teeth of my equivalent (non botting) player next door.

I'm not sure how practical/possible in reality it is to remove bots but if something was implemented to nuke them all i would be heavily in favour. Putting everyone on a more even playing field is something i think is pretty important for MMOs.
I personally never use bots but I think if they were going to get removed something should probably be put in place to help with some menial tasks people commonly bot though.

[VDZ]

Bots ruin games, I've been playing this game since w3 and they've always made playing seriously seem moot.
There's always gonna be some guy that is botting 24/7 that will just kill you and take everything you have.
This game is a fun nostalgia kick then you remember that you will never stand a chance vs the no life cheaters.

You wouldn't stand a chance against no-lifers cooperating as a large group even without botting. Hell, considering you're complaining about this you'd probably even get your ass kicked by sufficiently hardcore hermits.

I have to agree too as a hermit player. It seems pretty lame that i could just run a few bots and kick in the teeth of my equivalent (non botting) player next door.

You can already do so, without any bots. Most players progress very slowly and without focus; if you were to focus on PvP from the start you could easily grief the hell out of most players even as a hermit. Hell, by now if you've been playing well enough you can even grief most players with an unfocused character.

Bots are not a magical auto-win button. They're tools to make the things you're already doing more efficient. If you're not already no-lifing and progressing optimally, bots won't put you on the same level as no-lifers playing well without bots.

[Archiplex]

Bots ruin games, I've been playing this game since w3 and they've always made playing seriously seem moot.
There's always gonna be some guy that is botting 24/7 that will just kill you and take everything you have.
This game is a fun nostalgia kick then you remember that you will never stand a chance vs the no life cheaters.

You wouldn't stand a chance against no-lifers cooperating as a large group even without botting. Hell, considering you're complaining about this you'd probably even get your ass kicked by sufficiently hardcore hermits.

I have to agree too as a hermit player. It seems pretty lame that i could just run a few bots and kick in the teeth of my equivalent (non botting) player next door.

You can already do so, without any bots. Most players progress very slowly and without focus; if you were to focus on PvP from the start you could easily grief the hell out of most players even as a hermit. Hell, by now if you've been playing well enough you can even grief most players with an unfocused character.

Bots are not a magical auto-win button. They're tools to make the things you're already doing more efficient. If you're not already no-lifing and progressing optimally, bots won't put you on the same level as no-lifers playing well without bots.

I can't speak much for the last world since I didn't participate, but I've never been a fan of botting. This game constantly has to design around botting being abused for almost every core mechanic, and that's because it gives you a massive advantage- even just off something as simple as foraging bots can catapult you lightyears ahead of people who 'no-life' the game, and that's not even considering the many more advanced types of bots that have been developed over the years.

The idea has always just been sort of the same: If you want to be relevant politically/realmwise, you need to bot and you need to have a really large group. I can get over that with the large group aspect of things, as that's sort of the point of realms and lawspeaking in general, but I don't like the necessity of botting. I don't really care much about dominating others, but I love the combat system in this game and I hate the fact that, especially later-game, I essentially need to resort to this in order to ever have a chance at even having a mildly equivalent fight with anyone.

Bots are not a magical auto-win button. They're tools to make the things you're already doing more efficient. If you're not already no-lifing and progressing optimally, bots won't put you on the same level as no-lifers playing well without bots.

...Isn't efficiency half the game? I don't understand this statement very well. If I have even one bot running on minimal resources while I play on my main character as they gather up even basic forageables such as daisies, berries and strings, is that not already a pretty significant advantage? Yes, a normal player would already be able to gather those same resources... at the cost of a lot of time on their part, which only serves to slow their own progession. Not to mention that these same bots can trivially capture certain mobs, have no importance on whether they live or die, and can also be used to excavate large portions of land.

Even assuming we use alts to do these things, managing all of this simultaneously isn't really something any typical person can do, much less with multiple accounts at a time. Bots free up a whole lot of time, they incredibly increase the pace and efficiency of which you progress in the game- if that's not an 'auto-win' button, what is?

Naturally the problem is that fighting botting is a matter of design for our devs, rather than effort (admittedly though, the point of refusing to make anti-macroing tools because they dont want to wage an arms-war against botting feels a little lost when they've effectively waged a war of game design vs bots, but... oh well! ). I think that sort of design can still work, especially if we analyze the things people bot and for the purposes

At least for the specific answer of foraging bots and global/local pools/fated curiosities, I think that one can be handled in a way that doesn't really stop botting persay, but might discourage people. Obviously, people use alt accounts that don't really matter much if they die (as you only really need like what, 50*50 to see most valuable forageables, and maybe 50 survival to cap most of them out early on?). If you nerfed most of these curiosities and created new 'forageable' things that don't actually grant an item, but rather an 'automatic' curiosity/buff that gives LP after a certain amount of time, I think it would definitely serve to discourage botting while also encourage people to venture out on their main characters to find these curiosities. Yes, people 'can' still bot them for sure, but I imagine someone will be more hard pressed to automate their main character venturing around the wild overnight than just some trashy alts. Unless people have already discovered a way to automate combat, I guess.

[Potjeh]

Botting is just a symptom of the problem that is infinite progression of quality and stats. This makes player skill totally irrelevant compared to characters/gear. IMO PvP should be more like Rust, where even though no lifers have a massive advantage you still have a chance to take out a guy with metal armor and AK with just your trusty waterpipe. In Haven terms I guess that means they ought to bring back movement combat as it used to be (ie you take full damage if you get hit while moving), and this time it'd actually work even with inferior gear thanks to armor penetration.