Good times with a GM

[CHUNTA]

Alright so I just spent the past 30-45 mins talking with a GM about botting and automation of the game mechanics.

As we all know, Blizz bent us over and took advantage of us without lube. I personally lost 4 accounts. Of course leaving the bot on overnight farming dungeons probably wasn't the best idea.

However, I brought up an interesting point with them about automation of the game. I purchased the Zygor guides years ago and kept them updated. If some of you don't know about zygor guides, it's a questing addon that shows you the best route to take for max xp gain while questing. However, there are features in the addon that are automation. Such as auto accepting and turning in quests, picking the best reward, auto equipping gear, sells items, does your talents etc.

Which, even though I move around and do the rotations by hand, is still a form of automation.

So I brought this up with a GM, while using the starter edtion on my banned account(s). He laughed and admitted that I had a good argument as far as to comparison of zygor and HB. However, he stuck with the line about being able to fire up HB and walk away. Stating that I still had to manually move my character etc. I asked him what the difference is between using the CR's of HB while manually moving my toon around to quest, fight etc. His reply is that he honestly didn't know, seemed unsure about that question as I explained that I still had to be at my keyboard, run the toon around, accept the quests and turn them in. I still have to hit at least one button to start the CR, therefore it's not full automation.

He said he was going to look into that and get back to me and I brought up a valid point. So they might change their policy as far as using CR's. I'm not holding my breath of course, but I think it would be a nice win of sorts if they allowed us to at least use the CR's.

I will keep you guys updated when he gets back to me.

 

[Trixiap]

They probably will not update their policy.

Right now, botting is for them anything, that do multiple actions via one key press/button. Funny thing is, that Zygor is also in this category, but Blizz also have in EULA/ToS that using anything that is not explicitly permitted by Blizz can be tagged as "using 3rd party program" and can lead to ban. So Zygor is probably permitted.

 

[OnehitB]

Honestly, if I was blizzard I would only care about PvP botters, the rest, they are harmless to the community really. They won't break the market and make everything cheap, that is a fact.

 

[CHUNTA]

The other thing I brought up is the fact that Zygor is the only paid addon that I know of. Which I seem to remember was not allowed as of a few years ago.

 

[Trixiap]

1) Zygor addon is not paid - you pay for guides. Zygor Guides Viewer (addon that you use ingame) is free
2) There are other paid addons - for example Tycoon

 

[CHUNTA]

Huh, good point.

 

[kuskner]

I see your points, but unfortunately they are weak. (I don't mean to offend you) The GM had clearly limited knowledge about what Blizzard thinks of bots - automated helping tools. Zygor runs/uses macros that does thoes thing you talk about, if Blizzard wanted to remove the macros, they can easly. Zygor is a plugin that are within Blizzards control area. But if they dont like HB they can not remove it, because it is outside of Blizzards control area, ergo "Warden was born".

Let me answer the part about the CR argument:
It gives you an advantages vs other players. Lets say a class has 5 attacks and 2 CC's, and a program helping you spam the most optimal rotation within 1-5ms is an advantages because you dont have to think about a part of the game, and you will do more damage than a normal player would be able to do in the same situation + your CCs will last longer because the CR can calculate the best time to cast it etc. It might be true that a pro player would be able to do the same kind of dmg, but he will never be able to outdo the CR. A CR will remove a lot of factors so you can focus on other things in the fight, which again is an advantage over other players. And blizzard is not to fun of advantages they cant control.

 

[CHUNTA]

I see your points, but unfortunately they are weak. (I don't mean to offend you) The GM had clearly limited knowledge about what Blizzard thinks of bots - automated helping tools. Zygor runs/uses macros that does thoes thing you talk about, if Blizzard wanted to remove the macros, they can easly. Zygor is a plugin that are within Blizzards control area. But if they dont like HB they can not remove it.

Let me answer the part about the CR argument:
It gives you an advantages vs other players. Lets say a class has 5 attacks and 2 CC's, and a program helping you spam the most optimal rotation within 1-5ms is an advantages because you dont have to think about a part of the game, and you will do more damage than a normal player would be able to do in the same situation + your CCs will last longer because the CR can calculate the best time to cast it etc. It might be true that a pro player would be able to do the same kind of dmg, but he will never be able to outdo the CR. A CR will remove a lot of factors so you can focus on other things in the fight, which again is an advantage over other players. And blizzard is not to fun of advantages they cant control.

Lol Blizz doesn't let us have any fun....

 

[frosticus]

but he will never be able to outdo the CR.

thats just not true. maybe on a patchwork fight, but we havent had a true patchwork fight in years.

 

[kuskner]

Lol Blizz doesn't let us have any fun....

That is true! Still no casinos in WoW. But I hope you can see the point now. You have a semi valid point. But imagen you dont have the money for HB/CR would you think it was fair for others to use it vs you?

thats just not true. maybe on a patchwork fight, but we havent had a true patchwork fight in years.

I am no PVE hero so I have no idea what you are referring to, sorry. But are you saying that 2 players with equal gear, the same class, no RNG: with thoes stats; that the legit player outplays the CR in dmg?

 

[Aion]

He said he was going to look into that and get back to me and I brought up a valid point. So they might change their policy as far as using CR's. I'm not holding my breath of course, but I think it would be a nice win of sorts if they allowed us to at least use the CR's.

You seems to forget what a Game Master stands for.

They are just front-end support staff, dealing with petitions/live chat/phone calls with predefined methods and policies. Some of them probably have never played WoW (As players).
Not to mention, several years ago, Blizzard had outsourced part of their Customer Support work to a 3rd party company! "Hello, you are speaking with Indira from India, how can we help you?"
No. They had outsourced it not to India (Surprisingly!), but to Ireland based company instead

So technically, nothing depends on the Live GMs.

From your conversation, you confirmed for yourself that this GM have no idea even what these bots are capable for, and he don't need to.

 

[Slashed]

thats just not true. maybe on a patchwork fight, but we havent had a true patchwork fight in years.

You'r mad

Best CR with good parameters/config OVERTUNE proplayers. Check Method, Best guild, but low dps ranked. Thanks to others players/guilds using CR .

 

[Captshiznit]

Honestly, if I was blizzard I would only care about PvP botters, the rest, they are harmless to the community really. They won't break the market and make everything cheap, that is a fact.

*rolls eyes*

Yeah i'm sure they shouldn't care about all suicide farming bots, gathering, rep grinding bots, bots grinding mobs for BoE epics in WoD.

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh oh course....

 

[pontius001]

That is true! Still no casinos in WoW. But I hope you can see the point now. You have a semi valid point. But imagen you dont have the money for HB/CR would you think it was fair for others to use it vs you?

This would be a good argument if the game was not already set to give advantages to players in other ways. The game has always been designed to give advantages to players that spend more time in the game or have more money in game. If they did not, you would not have crafted items that are decent or heirloom gear. Not to mention any other buff's or bonuses such as xp buff potions. So, you will never have "fair" competition with the game the way it is without bots.

Bots are predictable which make them easier to beat than actual players. Human players tend to do some things that throw you off guard which at the time can be pretty stupid but ends up working to their favor. A bot will not do that as they are following a certain routine.

 

[pontius001]

*rolls eyes*

Yeah i'm sure they shouldn't care about all suicide farming bots, gathering, rep grinding bots, bots grinding mobs for BoE epics in WoD.

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh oh course....

The problems with all of these are really so many people do not do them in moderation. Take farming for instance. People doing a farming bot will do the same area for numerous hours and get pissed if anyone else attempts to farm in that same area. Or grinding bots, you end up with one person going around killing things that others might need to kill for a short period of time as they are leveling or they are wanting to get that epic also. So, this is where you get your friction from these bots as people get mad because they cannot do what they want to do because someone else is already doing it.

 

[klepp0906]

Honestly, if I was blizzard I would only care about PvP botters, the rest, they are harmless to the community really. They won't break the market and make everything cheap, that is a fact.

Whatever you need to tell yourself. They destroy the economy and give users a huge advantage in most aspects of gameplay. No way to logically put on the rose colored goggles for that one.

 

[kuskner]

This would be a good argument if the game was not already set to give advantages to players in other ways. The game has always been designed to give advantages to players that spend more time in the game or have more money in game. If they did not, you would not have crafted items that are decent or heirloom gear. Not to mention any other buff's or bonuses such as xp buff potions. So, you will never have "fair" competition with the game the way it is without bots.

Bots are predictable which make them easier to beat than actual players. Human players tend to do some things that throw you off guard which at the time can be pretty stupid but ends up working to their favor. A bot will not do that as they are following a certain routine.

You only comented on one of my many points, any way:

Actually they dont need an argument (their game, their rules), im just presenting an idea to show you how Blizz thinks and acts. Ofc they dont mind the avg advantage, eg. if you play more, you get more. But again all the advantages you mention is something blizzard control! They can do what ever they want with in the game, but HB is a 3th party program they cant control

Yeah bots are predictable, and sometimes awful! But we are talking about the CR's

Lets test 2 scenarios as a DPS: (this is very black and white)

PVE: do max damage, dont stand in fire, know your role = profit.

PVP: do max damage, dont LOS healer, dont break cc, swaps, coordinate cc, coordinate interrupts, coordinate CDs, telling your team what you do = profit

PVP is diffrent each time, PVE is not. PVE got 1 tac PVP dont. So in PVE a CR is always better if you (the player) dont stand in the fire.

PVP CR i would argue is also better than 99% of the players, coz bursting out most dmg is better than less dmg. But if you hope your PVP CR will do all for you, you will never get higher than 2k, eg controll CC, interrupts, bursting and so on. In pvp a lot is depending on you as a player to have knowledge about other classes and setups, and keep track of cds, cc and LOS. But having a CR that does max dmg while you handle the rest, is an huge advantages

 

[tonicfan]

Its a good argument kind of. Remember PQR? Well there was a 3+ day banwave on that and that was Free too. That did combat routines and interrupts and that pissed off blizzard to the point where if you use it now its a guaranteed ban. Im not even sure they even update PQR anymore anyway. I stopped bothering with it when I got a 3 day ban for using automation. But that was quite some time ago. The only automation I was using was the CR that PQR had.

Now I use HB for CRs which are better anyway

 

[Mr McGibblets]

If you look back to vanilla you use to be able to use the LUA that was given to create addons for automation. One such addon that was decursive. You could create complex logic for whatever the hell you wanted to do (main use was decursing). So this trivialized everything. You keybinded the function and basically just spammed your decursive macro and it was set remove debuffs off people in order of priority.

You could then add to this, healing, buffs (paladin buffs lasted 5min and it was single cast per person in a 40man raid), decursing. So you could then take this and give it the logic to know when it absolutely needs to remove a debuff, then it will heal whoever needs it and lastly buff when need. all you are doing is spamming this keybind.

Blizzard removed this form of macros from the game mid vanilla. The response was basically that they didn't want macros making decisions for the player and casting for them. Sound like a CR?

 

[Gleeky]

Man why do people hold the opinions of GMs in such high esteem. They are the equivalent of call centre workers. Like the guys you call up to complain about your gas bill. They are not privvy to any special information, they are running to a script, with little or no capacity to make their own decisions. This guy thought you had a point, no matter, he's on $8 an hour working in a call centre....