Botting disscussion.

[Shanksie1337]

Re: Botting disscussion.

Not really sure whether to agree or disagree tbh.

On the 1 side, botters do greatly depreciate what "humans" find as a bot will undoubtedly find more of the basic uniques - Shakos / HoZ's and whatnot.

On the same note I assume they will also find more Deaths Fathoms, Griffons etc, and thus help lower then price of these by the same logic.

So for humans, Bots make items more affordable, but also lessen the value of what you find yourself.

I don't really bother mf'ing, runes / keys / pgems / socketables, even gambling are all a much better source of steady income that's augmented by the special finds.

I didn't really mean to imply that there were no dupes, i just meant that the major "supply" of hr's comes from bots now, instead of dupes.

I guess we all have a different acceptable level of "grind". For me, last ladder was just too easy 1 hr = 2 Ists was silly low considering Ists come from Hellforge, so with just a few rushes you could get a few HR's and be in an enigma.
Getting my first enigma this ladder cost me ~25 Ists and whilst the wait was a little longer, there was certainly more feel good factor associated with it.

Gone a little OT here again

I'd never say bots were a good thing, but with D3 on the way I can't see D2 ever being botless so I've just adapted how I play / generate wealth.

I'm not agreeing with bots, but for those interested in PvP i can see the attraction, PvP is not for the poor - at least that's my take on it, i hate d2 pvp. For pure PvM i really can't see why anyone would want a bot to play the game for them and generate silly wealth they didn't need. All a bot would do is "condense" all the good moments until they became meaningless because the uncommon has been made commonplace.

 

[BKC]

Re: Botting disscussion.

OT:
it all starts by letting some thoughts go:

"enigma is needed for certain builds....." that is just a load of bull crap and it really is!

Enigma is only needed to play the game the way it shouldnt be played!
/OT

now more on topic i condone bots, i condone the self use of bots, i condone people that use bots, and i definitly condone the sites that created bots (forum X anyone?) and i hate it that it has such a big influence on the way our diablo economy works... i mean if you find a Zod rune (probably one of the rarest finds in the game) the second you find it its worth 5 ists... just because the market is flooded by botted zods :S thats just weird!

 

[nurman]

Re: Botting disscussion.

Fishymancer + Enigma = Yay.

 

[juju]

Re: Botting disscussion.

Items are still duped - just not with the same frequency as before - look at how often East and Europe still spawn Dclone.

They sell sojs in non-ladder :wink: Why would some1 really sell ladder sojs when they are 3 times more expensive :scratchchin:

And i havent seen any dupes (yet) in this ladder :surprise:

 

[theredpredator]

Re: Botting disscussion.

Fishymancer + Enigma = Yay.

that is if u can get the 27 ists needed to even get a Jah and a Ber.

 

[michaeljay]

Re: Botting disscussion.

With the new season, with so many bots running rampant, just getting the "basics" (runewords like enigma end up being basic as they're required for a number of builds) was a struggle. Without a lot of help or a lucky find, you were in for a long grind.

You've got this backwards. If you eliminate duping and botting, then no one is going to trade their high runes because those high runes will be extraordinarily valuable. You're SOL in trying to trade for the parts to make a high-end runeword. No one is going to hand a Ber over for some keysets or for an Arach's. The only chance you'd have of getting an Enigma would be by finding the runes yourself, or by finding some equally rare item like Death's Web that you could flip for a HR. Players trade their HRs for odd items because they have so many of them - diminish the quantity of HRs, and they have no incentive to trade them. Sure, they may want your 20/11 small charm, but when they only have two high runes, they're going to use those to make elite runewords. They'll buy your SC for a fraction of what you could get otherwise. I'm not a botter but this ladder I've found Zod and Jah. When those are the only instances of Zod and Jah that I have, I'm sure as hell going to use them on my characters and not trade them for something dumb like 12 keysets. But if I had say 8 of each, then I'm definitely going to trade them for the sake of convenience.

This ladder has been "harder" to acquire wealth because as far as I know the mass duping has stopped. High runes have become tradeable only because 1) bots are flooding the market with them and 2) rune drop rates have increased. In past seasons, not only were bots flooding the markets with items, but dupers were doing their thing.

 

[SeCKSEgai]

Re: Botting disscussion.

OT:
it all starts by letting some thoughts go:

"enigma is needed for certain builds....." that is just a load of bull crap and it really is!

Enigma is only needed to play the game the way it shouldnt be played!
/OT

now more on topic i condone bots, i condone the self use of bots, i condone people that use bots, and i definitly condone the sites that created bots (forum X anyone?) and i hate it that it has such a big influence on the way our diablo economy works... i mean if you find a Zod rune (probably one of the rarest finds in the game) the second you find it its worth 5 ists... just because the market is flooded by botted zods :S thats just weird!

If you hate the effects, than why would you condone the use of bots? (I'm guessing that was just misuse of the word)

Would hdin's be as popular since the implementation of Engima - Nope.
Actually the majority of other builds would lose their appeal with the loss of teleport. Merc and\or minionsrunning around stupidity? Unless you're a sorc you can teleport him into place.

Pvp - would be primarily sorcs and zons - the teleporter vs the runner, tho it basically be bowazons - DFlight builds for sins would be a lot more popular tho.

Don't get me wrong, teleport on everyone changed the dynamics of the game. But it also gave way to a lot more builds and gave people an alternative to a sorc (for teleport).

As for botting -

Why it hurts the market - Yes, they find more items/runes etc as they're more efficient.

The problem is they're used primarily for real money sale (and fg can be treated as real money as well, since people do spend real money for it as well), so the market is unbalanced. If botters simply flooded the market, then prices for everything would be down - but that wouldn't make sense, as they don't reap any rewards.

People bot for self-gain. Aside from an ethical standpoint, it's kind of hard not to blame someone to be willing to earn real world money by just leaving their computer on and paying the utilities. Others do it for the FG and general accumulation of wealth. Either way, its not for the sake of bettering the economy for everyone.

You've got this backwards. If you eliminate duping and botting, then no one is going to trade their high runes because those high runes will be extraordinarily valuable. You're SOL in trying to trade for the parts to make a high-end runeword. No one is going to hand a Ber over for some keysets or for an Arach's. The only chance you'd have of getting an Enigma would be by finding the runes yourself, or by finding some equally rare item like Death's Web that you could flip for a HR. Players trade their HRs for odd items because they have so many of them - diminish the quantity of HRs, and they have no incentive to trade them. Sure, they may want your 20/11 small charm, but when they only have two high runes, they're going to use those to make elite runewords. They'll buy your SC for a fraction of what you could get otherwise. I'm not a botter but this ladder I've found Zod and Jah. When those are the only instances of Zod and Jah that I have, I'm sure as hell going to use them on my characters and not trade them for something dumb like 12 keysets. But if I had say 8 of each, then I'm definitely going to trade them for the sake of convenience.

This ladder has been "harder" to acquire wealth because as far as I know the mass duping has stopped. High runes have become tradeable only because 1) bots are flooding the market with them and 2) rune drop rates have increased. In past seasons, not only were bots flooding the markets with items, but dupers were doing their thing.

If HRs were more valuable, they'd hold more buying power. The two main factors in establishing an item or rune's value is its usefulness and rarity. "Usefulness can be a bit subjective", but rarity is straightforward.

As for players trading their hrs for odd items, not sure I follow you there. If an item is useful and very rare, like a perfect 3/20/20 or a pcomb 45 lifer, they're extremely high value because of the sheer rarity and extravagance. Let's say you need a car to travel from point a to b. You've got many to choose from at varying costs. While it be nice to have a Bugatti Veyron, you don't need everything that it comes with to accomplish your main goal. A little Civic or Ford can get you from A to B.

It's not that people wouldn't trade their HRs, its the fact that the HRs would take more of an offering to separate them from their original owners. While it makes it harder to acquire runes you need, it also means you get a lot more value for runes you don't.

 

[michaeljay]

Re: Botting disscussion.

When I say that traders wouldn't trade their HRs, I mean that, yes, it'd take a lot to pry the runes away from them, more than it would now. That's my point, that if you're having trouble creating runewords in the current economic climate, then you'd have an even harder time doing it if no one had botted. Like you said, you would get a lot more value for runes you don't need - but you have to find those runes in the first place. That's one of the main complaints about the D2 droprate, even in 1.13; it's written in such a way that only the most hardcore - or illegitimate - players are able to make the elite RWs. In the current economy, you can go about acquiring wealth in different ways. You can key hunt. You can get crafting packs. Etc. In a non-duped economy, it'd be very hard to put together an attractive key package to get a HR.

Suppose you're a player in non-duped, non-botted economy, and you have in a season found Lo, Ber, and Jah, as well as some stuff like Vex and Ist, whatever. What are you going to do with those runes? Because they're all you have, and because you want to complete your characters, you're not going to trade them. It doesn't matter if someone offers you 10 perfect azure small charms of vita; you need to make an Enigma and a CtA. Now suppose instead you've got 6 Los, 5 Bers, and 4 Jahs. You're in a situation to trade these runes for other stuff like PCombs. You don't NEED these runes anymore because you've already made your elite runewords. They're just rotting in your stash, and they're very valuable to other players. So while a PComb lifer may be as rare as a HR (I don't know if it is; for the sake of argument let's assume so), it is certainly not as useful to a player who does not have RWs. The fractional gain afforded by a PComb lifer is totally overshadowed by the gain afforded by a completed Enigma (or another elite runeword).

I think you're misunderstanding the cause of the season's economic change. When you say it's tough to build wealth in today's ladder, what you're seeing is the difficulty brought on by a lack of duping. This has never happened (to my knowledge) in ladder history. Usually we get to the point where an Ist is worth basically a Vex which is worth basically a Ber. That's not happening. Instead you're seeing a more realistic portrayal of runes, where a Vex is say 3 Ists and a Lo is 8 Ists and a Ber is 12 Ists. This change isn't because of botting. Botters do not just sell their finds for real money; they sell them to actual players for FG and for other items. Just look at JSP...tons of those guys bot. Many guys on this forum bot, too...

 

[SeCKSEgai]

Re: Botting disscussion.

I made the switch to SP out of frustration with the greed on Bnet, amongst other things.

I think your comparison is lacking because you're not understanding the rarity and how 1.13 changed the dynamic of runes.

Since i made the switch, I've actually found an excess of HRs, yet i'm still looking for a green set sacred armor as it was one of those items I've had in the past but through trade - its actual usefulness is next to nothing for me, its purely for collection and the satisfaction of finding one of the few items to never drop for me in my entire history of D2.

It should be pretty obvious people wouldn't trade their first HRs until they had their main runewords (or needed to trade hrs for other hrs). If my SP stashes were on Bnet, I'd easily be able to trade multiple HRs, but not nearly as many as season 5 - my griffon's alone was 13 hrs, and I had a mule full of them on top of all the runewords I had.

Key running didn't pave the way for my wealth, Ubers did, so I in fact was buying keysets - why? Because I basically doubled my investment for each run selling unid. I would have had the potential to make a lot more as the 20/20 ptorch I had found sold for over 2000 fg i think, but I hate JSP and my torch buyer covered runes that poofed on me, so I was more comfortable with that.

A pcomb 45 lifer is far more rare than a HR, hence their value. A player who wants this will need to spend a lot, and a person who sells this should be getting a lot. If a player sells such a rare item, it's because they have need of something else, or many things as that covers quite a bit.

It's not a misunderstanding - it's basic logic for price to go up when the market's no longer flooded. But you are completely oblivious to why botting is a problem. If botters did not sell their finds for real world money, why is their so much spam about websites selling d2 items? It actually got worse with the new season. In order for it to get worse, that means that there must be something keeping those companies profitable (people spending real money on d2 items).

With duping no longer rampant, automated bots have become the norm. Bandwidth and electricity isn't free, someone has to pay for it. The money has to come from somewhere. Afterall, why go through all the hassle unless there was money to be made.

JSP is full of bots with everyone trying to build up that FG - you do realize that people spend real money on FG too? But away from JSP, there are a LARGE number of sites selling d2 items, and all for real world money.

If no one botted, or next to no one, then finds would have more buying power - so the individual who actually spends time playing the game is rewarded and not cheapened by others cheating the system.

 

[michaeljay]

Re: Botting disscussion.

With duping no longer rampant, automated bots have become the norm. Bandwidth and electricity isn't free, someone has to pay for it. The money has to come from somewhere. Afterall, why go through all the hassle unless there was money to be made.

Yeah, they pay for their botting like they pay for everything else - with a job. In 2010, bandwidth and electricity are so cheap that you can leave your PC on 24/7, download six torrents simultaneously, and never pay more than $70 a month. In the winter months I pay about $60 for electricity/cable modem. Clearly you don't need to sell items you find in D2 to accommodate the overhead it takes to bot. It uses as much power effectively as browsing the Internet. And of course botters go through the trouble not to make money but to gear up. I'd assume that most elite PvPers bot so they can afford their high-end equipment.

I'm not oblivious to real market stores. I have 'n' on my trigger finger in public games. But you're seriously overstating the influence that these real market stores have. Most D2ers, whether you like the site or not, come from JSP. I won't say most - because that implies >50% - but many of JSP's players bot. This site's similar. These guys aren't trying to flip their Bers for $1.50 a piece on an item store hosted in China. They're gearing up to try a new build or to amass FG or to complete their primary dueler.

If no one botted, or next to no one, then finds would have more buying power - so the individual who actually spends time playing the game is rewarded and not cheapened by others cheating the system.

If no one botted then the individual who actually played the game wouldn't ever acquire the runes to make Enigma and he would skip right quick to SP. How can BOTS be the reason for why it's harder to accumulate wealth this season when bots have ALWAYS been with D2, and in fact have been worse in past seasons? Why do you say it's worse this season? Because there are fewer real players, so the perception of botting is worse. In past seasons more bots worked than they do on this season (I'm not getting into *that*), and more players botted than they do now (based on the simple fact that more people played the game than they do now).

The only changes have been drop rates - which will make runes MORE available, so clearly that cannot be the problem - and a lack of duping. That is the issue. No one dupes, and no one's able to get the HRs they want for cheap uniques like an Arach's, and no one's able to flip his Ist for a Jah. What you're seeing is exactly what you'd expect to see in a non-duped economy; higher runes are tougher to get than lower runes. Demand also tweaks the prices, so Bers trump all other runes (being used in so many elite RWs), and Zods lose their value.

It should be pretty obvious people wouldn't trade their first HRs until they had their main runewords (or needed to trade hrs for other hrs).

Yup, it is obvious. Not sure what we're disagreeing about since you seem to agree that you'd have a very very hard time getting a hold of HRs in a non-botted economy.

I'll quote Black Lotus from this thread who already nailed it:

Virtually every player owns enigma, some even two for different str reqs and defs, and there are many other yammie runewords like Last Wish, and I have just only one simple question: are all of them self-found? If not, they must have bought them from other sources. The some kind of "Oh I don't need all that Jahs I found to meet my demand on enigma, faith, dream and such!" source. So I was curious to know if there are many living people who did self find more Bers(+Surs) or Jahs than they actually utilized, to have an opportunity to sell it to those who didn't...Possibly, I made my posts weird with the word of 'dupe', but I just wanted to show that without botters we could never buy our first enigma so easily, and especially pay 20bers for some crafted gloves.

 

[SeCKSEgai]

Re: Botting disscussion.

Ok, you seem to be missing a correlation -

Do bots make your finds more or less valuable?

How do bots affect supply/demand?

Are self-found HRs difficult to obtain?

How do values change when demand > supply?

I've been the guy with multiple enigmas and other runewords I didn't even bother to use. I never spent a single cent of real world money to pay someone for items - to me that defeats the purpose of a game like this entirely. I did over 100 torch runs to acquire my main wealth back in season 5, so I'm familiar with the higher end market.

What we're disagreeing on is that it wouldn't necessarily be harder to get hrs - rare charms always stay at a premium value (as in high resale) and uniques would be more rare and maintain more value so their buying power would be increased, not decreased. Found a 5/20, only the richer folk would be able to afford it should you put it on the market. That off number griffon - as rare as they are people become less concerned about a few percentage points.

If there are fewer real players, then botting is effectively worse, as they make up even more of the economy - so for people actually choosing to abide by the EULA and TOS, they're getting cheated. The fact that it has a negative impact on people who actually play by the rules is the biggest issue I have. Considering how people who ran chaos and baal were actually present during the runs and playing, that tells me it's worse. All one has to do is browse through the game list and pick a baal/chaos run to find a bot.

Don't get me wrong, I've been playing d2 long enough to see how automation would help in the repetitive nature, but why bother? You can attain all the wealth you want and more on SP without affecting anyone else.

The one thing bnet has over SP is pvp - and even then you still can't be sure opponents aren't being assisted by third party programs unless they're terrible. If interacting with people was important, you wouldn't spend so much d2 time afk. I personally don't see the point of investing THAT much into d2 pvp when there are better newer alternatives.

 

[Danebread]

Re: Botting disscussion.

To me it's just a moral issue: botting is cheating, and I don't cheat. Simple enough.

Other reasons listed above are also very valid. If I just typed "There is no cow level" three dozen times, I could beat the original Starcraft campaign (since we're discussing 10-year-old games here ) but there would be very little point to it. The whole fun is in playing the game, not just watching the end credits roll. Well, I guess you would see the cinematics too, but that's hardly the reason why I play Diablo, honestly.

 

[BKC]

Re: Botting disscussion.

If you hate the effects, than why would you condone the use of bots? (I'm guessing that was just misuse of the word)

yeah i guess :S anyways keep the botters away thats the message... :thumbup: