Question: Should botting & use of macros be allowed?

[romi impi]

i somewhat agree that 24/7 botting isnt good for the game. but then again i dont have a solution for this. if its only mayhems this could be partially solved by putting in a time limit ( like it used to be ) with mutliple checkpoints. if you killed xxx mobs and yy hours then you get stage 1 complete after xxx times 2 kills you get stage 2 reward.
then it doesnt matter if someone bots or not time spend is the same for everyone.

but then again, why isnt it ok to go autofire with hunting ? but if you craft select 5k clicks and go afk for 2.5 hours is ?

i hear nobody complaining about "remove the select amount of clicks button for crafting, i want each craft needs to be clicked separatly"

 

[ChairmanEdgewise]

MA is playing into this.

there's a reason why you need 150k points in redulite now ( and all others too ). 50% more , more people start botting more money for MA.
botting doesnt make you magicly make you profit.

except in mayhem, it kinda does

 

[romi impi]

except in mayhem, it kinda does

for some sure, for most certainly not. Then you come on another subject like know what your doing. its not only click mayhem click bot make profit for everyone. botting alone isnt the magic tool.

 

[GeorgeSkywalker]

I've not had the chance to read the latest replies. Will do that tomorrow and update table in first post accordingly.

I've added the following edit to the first post. In the hopes that people label their responses with pros and cons. Doing so would help me a lot to fill in the table more accurately and also so that we stay on topic. Thanks.

Edit:
Please try to stay on topic and only list pros and cons of botting (by botting I mean automated play, macros and use of bots).
If you could label your response with the headings pros and/or cons that would be very much appreciated. Thanks you.

 

[GradenFoss]

i hear nobody complaining about "remove the select amount of clicks button for crafting, i want each craft needs to be clicked separatly"

I think we both remember the times when you actually had to mouseclick for every single craft you made.
Basic Filters and Basic Auxiliary Sockets galore...

 

[Jhereg]

I think we both remember the times when you actually had to mouseclick for every single craft you made.
Basic Filters and Basic Auxiliary Sockets galore...

There was once a time when auto use tool did not exist...

 

[Pi-]

They should add a pill to the TT that selects next target once current target dies, that + autoloot pill fixes this entire debacle. No matter what you do ANYTHING CAN and WILL be automated, no reason to make rules against it, just give the tools to every avatar at the Trade Terminal.

I think we both remember the times when you actually had to mouseclick for every single craft you made.
Basic Filters and Basic Auxiliary Sockets galore...

Ever heard of an auto click macro? Just because you single clicked doesn't meen everyone did.

 

[The Mind]

It would be quite hard to automate if autolock wouldnt exist. And no visual confirmation, like crosshair changing colors, etc.
Would need to rely on HP bars, but that would probably open a massive "opportunity" to be exploited by players, by stealing mobs from bots.
(unless its all inside the instance ofc)

 

[Pi-]

It would be quite hard to automate if autolock wouldnt exist. And no visual confirmation, like crosshair changing colors, etc.
Would need to rely on HP bars, but that would probably open a massive "opportunity" to be exploited by players, by stealing mobs from bots.
(unless its all inside the instance ofc)

There are very powerful automation tools out there, removing autolock will only hurt the average player. For a game like Entropia where money is constantly involved you need to accept that automation is here to stay. Giving the players the tools they need to compete with automation is the answer(This is the original purpose of auto-use tool being added among other changes).

 

[The Mind]

There are very powerful automation tools out there, removing autolock will only hurt the average player. For a game like Entropia where money is constantly involved you need to accept that automation is here to stay. Giving the players the tools they need to compete with automation is the answer(This is the original purpose of auto-use tool being added among other changes).

If you have access to such tools and ability to costomize them, for Entropia, you probably wasting your time and resources here.

 

[Gopher]

In its current state - yes. A blind chimp could play this one button slot machine game. All a bot would have to do basically is just hit F.

A hunting bot doesn't affect other players in any meaningful way. The complaint would be no different than someone with a full time job complaining that an unemployed bum has an unfair advantage because they don't have to go to work. Bot or not, your still churning peds.

It affects other players potential MU, so yes it does affect players in a meaningful way.

 

[Goldenboy24]

just give an example of a game that was doing horribly bad untill boting became "legal", and then the game flourished, becouse i can give you countless examples of either boters or any other type of cheater not beeing punished leading to death of the game, or at least death of the activity where bots dominate

 

[Dibbler]

At the end of the day MA have the final say what is/isn't allowed.

However i can't think of any game that improved from widely used bots/macro, maybe i wrong though.

 

[atomicstorm]

Markup would go up, turnover across the board would take a massive hit

and funny enough, mindark would be in same financial constraints it was in when it introduced explosives.

There's 2 types of people in entropia, someone who understands the situation from the TOS change and thinking a bit deeper on how mindark is milking it and the other is someone who still creates these threads several years after the fact wondering what's up.

 

[atomicstorm]

just give an example of a game that was doing horribly bad untill boting became "legal", and then the game flourished, becouse i can give you countless examples of either boters or any other type of cheater not beeing punished leading to death of the game, or at least death of the activity where bots dominate

Thrones of Liberty has this built in as a feature.

 

[Dibbler]

Thrones of Liberty has this built in as a feature.

I think they recently removed the autoplay feature as game was failing in Korea launch, and players cried out about it afaik.

 

[jambon]

It affects other players potential MU, so yes it does affect players in a meaningful way.

In the same way that having other people playing the game does perhaps. But really it doesn't...

 

[Msturlese]

Social interaction is a big component in massively mutiplayer games.

Can we just appreciate that EU is a solo game with a remote server for 99% of time?
actually "social interaction" is for world bosses
( SK, Hussk, matriarch, spina royalty, vanguard bosses )
map and instance monsters are pure solo content apart FFA and RDI.

Team hunting is avoided by most of players because if they are on the downturn sinewave basically they risk to "giveaway" their realignment hof
(yes, yes, there is not personal loot pool LOL)

personally speaking i would LOVE a "press F8 to activate F autorepeat" in game, so that we have an "F masher"
logitech keyboard series 6** allow autorepeat,
windows allows it. most of gaming mouses or pads do the same so it is just a "engage next" that should be in game mechanics.

i dont support "advanced botting" that is AUTOIT, WASD, AUTOHOTKEY macroing for swapping to arso every 20 second, to rebuff a resto chip, ro repair a weapon when it is low on conditions (yes the yellow line in system window can be read by a "color pick" by an automation software, and so on.
those are unfair...
recycle of shrapnels,
buff application
weapon switch
repair

should require player presence

 

[GeorgeSkywalker]

Markup would go up, turnover across the board would take a massive hit

It's not possible to make sense of this opinion without making assumptions. So would appreciate it if you clarified under what circumstances these things would occur. Thanks.

 

[Goldenboy24]

this is in regard of thrones of liberty

thrones of liberty afk - Google Search

and second, the reason people in any game will have an issue with bots is the folowing, if you play legit, and you spend 12 hours per day killing shit, and somebody else can just use a macro or a bot (there is little diffrence), then it diminishes the EFFORT the legit player put in, if entropia was built in such a way that a legit player would have better outcomes then a bot (befor loot 2.0), then the legit player would still be rewarded, if he was doing that task, im talking about overkill

you dont see people having a prolbem with bots and qutiing the game as a consequence as a potential cost, all you see is, more bots is more money spent

as a principle, you should also want these bots to accualy play on 10 accounts simultaniously, and bot on all of them, becouse this will increase how much money is beeing spent, and yet somehow, MA punishes that behaviour

also look at the mayhem points needed, you think its reasonable to expect somebody to hunt all day for 3 weeks to finish ? or do you think the score needed is given with boting in mind.. becouse il agree, MA wants this, they want this for the same reason you think its great, then dont see any cost attached to it, as if players consatntly talking about this isnt enaugh evidence that its a problem, and il tell you this, sooner or later they wont talk about boting anymore, becouse everybody who had a problem with it will quit, and everybody else who was on the fence will accept it, and probably do it themselfs, and at that point, ANY NEW PLAYER WANTING TO JOIN EU, will see, low playerbase, game played only by bots, and extremly pay to win... how many new players you think will stay

 

[Xen]

I don't know why this needs to continue to be discussed. It is obvious what MA intends. Use that stuff between your ears and read between the lines.

MA cannot fully condone automated play for public perception reasons.

MA also makes much more money because of automated play.

This is not hard to figure out.

 

[Goldenboy24]

MA cannot fully condone automated play for public perception reasons.

why tho, what is the negative consequence if they wouldnt

 

[jetsina]

Possible negative consquence of allowing:

apparently EU is not seen as gambling because of many skill elements integrated into the game. This was some time ago.
It may be that officially allowing bots would counter the argument of skill being used (even if it debatable) - and relying more on luck (or sheer amount of time) for desired outcomes. MA may not want to be too obvious, but still want to secretly see more and more botting.

Also, I like

you dont see people having a prolbem with bots and qutiing the game as a consequence as a potential cost, all you see is, more bots is more money spent

I think he's saying MA doesn't see how many people would be playing and staying in an environment without bots. I think it is probable that many people still see bots in the wild (non-instances) and read of their presence, enough to maybe make people quit. Some may also see official event targets as being too high for them as human players, and also as proof that bots are well-established and unofficially encouraged.

However, EU also has a problem of a growing skills gap for its balancing. But, allowing 24/7 autoplay surely cannot be a solution for newer players to catch up. They are only catching up and overtaking the at-keyboard players. Something else needs to be done for this problem.

 

[Goldenboy24]

if skill was really the determinning factor, or if it had a big impact on results, all the ubers wouldnt be boting, in fact, we would see the exact oposite of what we do, and yes, since a bot will overkill and a human might use a finisher, this would potentialy increease your DPP, which in return gives more MU, but if doing that gives you a 0.001% better result, its a who gives a fuck

and if hiding the truth is the path forward, i can only say, remember the times in the past where EU allready had issues, but the atittude of the playerbase was, bruh, why you mentioning all the problems the game has, dont you know that will reduce the ammount of interest in the game,

how did that work out in the long run

also, if it is the case, that EU requieres no skill, that the bot can do whatever a human could, why would MA even be lying about that and not accualy make a game where skill matters

 

[The Mind]

if skill was really the determinning factor, or if it had a big impact on results, all the ubers wouldnt be boting

Wouldnt this be the opposite?
People with skill would be incentivized to bot due to better set up vs everyone else?

 

[jetsina]

Two meanings of skill here...
Golden and I mean human skills, whereas avatars gain in-game points.

Botters would still bot if they perceive the in-game skills to be worthwhile, or they genuinely are once mus have been considered.
The real skills have indeed become less relevant now that overkill is compensated for in tt, although not in loot quality. For a lot of mobs that quality difference seems to be unknown in the long run anyway. Loot waves are possibly advantageous for at-keyboard players, but almost as an opposite to 24/7, where players aree online but online active for short periods, which is crazy too.

 

[The Mind]

Two meanings of skill here...
Golden and I mean human skills, whereas avatars gain in-game points.

Oh, Ok. I do agree that there is no human skill involvement left in the execution of gathering profs.
There is still something in preparation (mob/equipement sellection). But... ye....

 

[The Mind]

The real skills have indeed become less relevant

Honestly i cant think of any.

Overkill is compensated.
Armor is compensated (+leeching).
0 targeting and aiming value.

Whats left?

 

[Kristoliquid]

Once I was saving peds because I would just dmg the mob to a little more than half and the macro man or botter would kill it for me and I would loot. And I even profited. I did that all night long. In this kind of situation I think it’s ridiculous.

 

[Goldenboy24]

preparation like you said, what gear to use on what mob you pick, and avatar skills, which a botter will always have more off