Do people release public profiles to keep people away?

[HBfanboy1980]

I was wondering if anyone ever wondered why some people release so many public profiles? I love the collaboration so to speak, but I am also protective of what I have in some aspects. I mostly mean towards keeping my accounts unbanned and not in game materials or anything in game really.

Should we be cautious of public profiles and learn to create our own or should we just use whatever is available because blizzard doesn't care? Not looking for a flame war or any "specific" finger point. I just wanted some discussion on the issue if people have time while the servers are down.

 

[zeress]

Some people like sharing and/or creating. Same reason why modding communities exist for games (I actually take time to translate a mod for Crusader Kings 2 into German, as well as have my own mod for that game). In general though nothing is going to beat the satisfaction of watching your bot do its' thing with your own handmade profile (I find anyways). It seems to be unanimously agreed upon that custom paths are better alone for the reasons of people not having identical paths at the very least. This problem can be seen for example in BGs where (afaik) you can't change the BG profiles and are stuck having a certain percentage of people always walking the same path.

 

[HBfanboy1980]

yea I totally agree. I love watching my bots run flawless paths I created and tweaked for them. Do you generally try to avoid all combat when creating your paths? I can't be sure which is more effective. A bigger path... thus greater anonymity, or a smaller one with no combat whatsoever if at all possible.

I am pretty sure there were custom BG path profiles available a few months ago and there way a project to create better ones, but I don;t see how they work after the randomizing addition they added.

 

[zeress]

Afaik they removed the ability to use custom profiles for BGs, but yes they did exist at some point (before HB2 I believe). As for combat and paths, depends on the class, what you are trying to do, and what the area is. The number of stuff you are fighting shouldn't really be an issue of "botiness" so to say, but just how big of an area you are working. Even then, sometimes it would still make sense even for a player to not deviate from a spot too good if you are farming (I do this by hand sometimes for example with insta-spawns in high pop areas)

 

[DaSoul]

If you are using a public profile that is a bit larger and use randomized hotspots you are pretty safe.

Most of the people just use public profiles. When there was no randomized hotspot function you could clearly see bots flying in a chain one after another. Right now, even if still a lot of people use public profiles, the random hotspot function does a quite good job.

I think most of the profile writers just want to support the community.

 

[hDyz]

My personal opinion for GB2 at least is make your own profiles, numerous times in cata I would be using a public profile and be on a 310 flyer and pass someone using the same profile on a 280 flyer. While I don't report other botters (because it's hypocritical) I don't know if the people I'm passing on the route feel the same way. Thus I create my own safer routes that only I follow.

 

[Kamilche]

My personal opinion for GB2 at least is make your own profiles, numerous times in cata I would be using a public profile and be on a 310 flyer and pass someone using the same profile on a 280 flyer. While I don't report other botters (because it's hypocritical) I don't know if the people I'm passing on the route feel the same way. Thus I create my own safer routes that only I follow.

Yeah, I make all my own routes too. I have certain optimization routines I use, to make it more lucrative.

The ONE time I cheaped-out and used a pre-made route, was for a family member. They were at a different level than me, and I didn't want to make a custom route just for that level. The next day, they were banned. It got lifted, but it DID drill home how dangerous it was using a pre-made profile!

It seems grinding profiles are more dangerous than questing profiles, in that respect. At least with the questing profiles, even though we all use the same route, it's because normal players are using the same route too - EVERYone's going after Baron Gedde in Hyjal when they have a certain quest item, so you can't tell bots from normal players.