Don't blame the bots, blame the buyers!

AreoHotah

I blame both.
Oh, and Akon.

dr_zed

Thulsola wrote: »

I think that many are suffering from a case of "post hoc ergo proptor hoc" here: After, therefor, because of it.

I don't like X thing in the game.
X thing can be solved by buying gold.
Therefore X thing is responsible for the cheating.
Fix X thing, the cheating will go away.

I agree with @dr_zed, if the ability to cheat exists, it is going to happen no matter what. So while everyone may have a legitimate point about X being broken or poorly designed in the game, it isn't really directly relevant to how to deal with cheaters. I do think though, @dr_zed‌, that all you can really do is make it harder for cheaters to cheat. There is little you can do to stop it all together.

In fact, playing the blame game - despite how I titled my initial post - probably isn't all that productive either. At this point if we want to see the game improved it is in our best interests to make positive suggestions and support Zenimax in their efforts to fix the game.

@Thulsola‌

Of course. You can never guarantee 100% cheat-proof in a game, just make it harder. Much harder by good design of things. I played GW2 for over a year and never encountered any bot or any people cheating. I'm not saying it's impossible to do it in that game, just that if it happened, It went barely unnoticed.

In this game, for a massive boss to spawn exactly in the same spot, exactly every minute and give good exp and loot each time it is killed, it's like having a giant "GRING HERE" sign over his head. Same for dungeon bosses, for example. I mean, how can someone WOULDN'T notice that people were going to bot there when that mechanic was design. The people is ZOS who design that clearly didn't play many mmorpgs in their lives.

My suggestion, as I say before is that every boss in the game -including dungeon bosses- can only give exp and loot once per day per character. You can kill the annomaly every time you want, but you will only get 1 chest and the exp per day.

GreySix

Borrowing from another poster, many people are like water in that they seek the path of least resistance - whether we approve of it or not.

So if you have gold-sinks in a game and gold is perceived as hard to come by - well, then there will be those with real money to burn who will seek the path of least resistance - i.e. buying gold.

Does that equate to approval? Perhaps in Bizarro World it does. Its simply a statement of fact.

So if we want fewer folks seeking the path of least resistance in regard to obtaining gold, then the answer is to eliminate or minimize in-game gold-sinks.

Else, you'll continue to see posts like this (borrowed from a popular hack/botting forum):

I purchased 300k towards the end of April (not through the spam chatters) which was sent to me in one mail and the account did not get banned.

I've bought 4 or 5 times since last night. I'm like a teenage girl with a credit card on that game.

I thought it was bullsh*t, but I, just to test, bought 100K or so off [gold-seller website], those guys that constantly spam chat and inboxes with advertisements. I expected not to get anything but 10 min or so later I got an inbox with the gold attached! Hope this helps.

If high-value items have to be earned in-game instead of purchased with gold, then we'll see fewer gold-buyers.

Korah_Eaglecry

Thulsola wrote: »

Maverick827 wrote: »

I blame Zenimax for placing harsh gold sinks on integral utility features in 2014.

So... to paraphrase your answer: "I don't want to play the game the way it was designed, so I'm going to cheat."

That is more then paraphrasing. That's insinuating that someone is cheating because their opinion lays the blame on the company. Who, ultimately are responsible for the ease to which gold spammers and bots can access this game in mass.

Korah_Eaglecry

tanthil wrote: »

Thulsola wrote: »

McDoogs wrote: »

Drug dealers wouldn't exist if there weren't addicts. Kill the addicts!

Addiction is an illness. Cheating is a choice. See the difference?

AIDs is an illness, i bet the people with it wish they could stop having AIDs just by choosing to stop having it.
CANCER is an illness, i bet the people with it wish they could stop having CANCER just by choosing to stop having it.

Please tell me addiction is an illness again... please

Such ignorance, please dont compare something people choose as a lifestyle and can leave behind them to something that that strikes without warning and kills you.

Funny you mention others being ignorant in an obviously ignorant post. Addiction is an illness. Its genetic. One of the reasons why Doctors ask about family medical history which involves alcoholism and drug addiction.

Its not some fairy tale sold to the masses to ease them of their responsibility.

Censorious

I see it like this:-

There will always be people who want to cheat at games. Some people even cheat at Solitaire. It's the job of the game designer to make that difficult if not entirely impossible.

Where actual RL money is involved that becomes doubly important because that cash going to the gold sellers is disposable income that should have gone into the pockets of the game owner.
Not only that, but the game by it's very existence is funding the activities of the parasites.

So, in order:
The foolish victims are the least culpable. They are spending money to cheat themselves out of playing a game.

The parasites - are doing what they have to do to feed their families by stealing crumbs from the rich man's table. I actually pity them.

The game corporation - it's a calculated loss on the balance sheet. 'How much effort do we need to put into this to reduce the losses to acceptable levels?'
They are the ones with the final say in the matter and ultimately bear the responsibility.

SadisticSavior

Thulsola wrote: »

Just saying - gold seller bots wouldn't exist if people didn't buy from them.

Blame both.

We can't see who is buying. But we CAN see the bots. Thats why the bots are a target.

Attorneyatlawl

Thulsola wrote: »

But I don't see anyone talking about the people who are cheating by using gold seller services on the forum. Maybe I missed it. There must be a significant number of people out there buying from the bots/sellers to justify the number of bots in the game.

And FWIW, I actually fully understood the comment he made - but justifying cheating by blaming the game mechanics is a ridiculous argument, and that was exactly what he was doing - whether he cheats himself or not. If you don't like the game mechanics, find a different game.

Quoted for truth.

Cogo

SadisticSavior wrote: »

Thulsola wrote: »

Just saying - gold seller bots wouldn't exist if people didn't buy from them.

Blame both.

We can't see who is buying. But we CAN see the bots. Thats why the bots are a target.

Yes, a good point. Still if we could change peoples mind or have some way to track down who doing the buying. We cut the cord there.

But yes, the goldsellers are quite impressive in their way to hide/make it difficult for the game to trace them

One of WoWs way to stop this, was to block an entire country for accessing the game. It wasnt china. I THINK it was thaiwan or something.

I read this in a "How to stop goldfarmers" article lately.