Bots. Is there a thread?

Recently i've seen a video on youtube of bots doing Chaos runs, shenk and nihlatak fully automated. Also there is an opensource solution on python, which makes customization extremely easy.
Also i've noticed how FAST loot is being picked up on cow and baalruns. Is there a mass trend of bot usage and am I the only one who still don't? I mean there is literally no chance of getting smth dropped from

Baal\diablo if there are some other players on the run.

Have you seen smb using bots? Or at least suspected?
Were there any wipeouts? Or will there be ones?

There was 2 officially announced ban waves and that it.

It really is annoying. I played a couple pub games and was having a blast, getting a ton of XP, but then loot dropped and it was like "where the fk did it go??"

No more pub games for me so long as botting is still rampant. Blizzard has never seemed to care too much about them unfortunately. Ban waves don't seem to do much, other than get their servers DDoSed for a few days after. And I'm guessing the revenue from botters is too much for them to really try and put a stop to it. Felt similar back when I played D3 and people having insane paragon levels + billions of gold. There was even an exploit that let you dupe gold quite easily, and no roll back or anything. Economy went to shit, and only people who duped could afford auction house items after. I chose not to in fear of ban. Big mistake!

I used to bot in Runescape back in the day (2000-2006), but that's because that game was dogshit compared to Diablo. This is too much fun to spoil with botting, IMO. Or maybe I've just matured enough where I don't have any desire to cheat.

not a threat per default.
bots are destroying the "market" on the long run.

but blizzard doesn't remove bots from the game, hasn't done so in more than 20 years, so there is that.
blizzard knows what's going on and somehow tolerates bot usage.

if they decide to remove bots some time in the future, no one knows.
they haven't in the last 20+ years, so prolly not.

I've been in bot games and it was weird. the people try to make bots act naturally and since blizzard doesn't care you gotta live with it. it is what it is.

I genuinely don't understand what the botters get out of it? What's the point in acquiring all this stuff without actually playing and enjoying the game? Is the idea to sell for real money? All the more reason to avoid trading sites that involve real money I suppose.

Janet the Java wrote: 2 years ago

I genuinely don't understand what the botters get out of it? What's the point in acquiring all this stuff without actually playing and enjoying the game? Is the idea to sell for real money? All the more reason to avoid trading sites that involve real money I suppose.

indeed it is real money as it is an existing business model.
these dclone walks are the result of botting. they aquire so many sojs that they can make an event that is VERY RARE pop up all the time.

the botters sell the sojs (or promo) to streamers and they organize the walks.

If there is no threat, then why ban waves?
Janet, I've found two reasons:
1. money. dozens of sites like aoeah sell stuff for money. guess where their stocks come from)
2. time. some bots are free, so players leave them overnight and don't spend hundreds of hour looking for desired loot.

Janet the Java wrote: 2 years ago

I genuinely don't understand what the botters get out of it? What's the point in acquiring all this stuff without actually playing and enjoying the game? Is the idea to sell for real money? All the more reason to avoid trading sites that involve real money I suppose.

Back in the OG days, botting ended up being extremely common amongst basically everyone for a number of reasons:
1) Truly convenient trading (such as here) didn't really exist yet
2) When you did trade for something, you had a very good chance of it having been a dupe and simply vanishing as soon as you join another game
[so you were basically forced into SSF even online but had to get that gear to be able to compete because PvP was much bigger back then as well]
3) You were able to run as many instances of the game (and hence bots) as your PC was able to handle without having to buy another license so even random school kids had 4+ bots up 24/7

Nowadays, real-money trading is all over the place and while some streamers claim "we just got super lucky this week! [for the 10th week in a row...]", many (most) of them just flat out buy their walk-SoJs. In fact, it seems to be only the American streamers who actively try to hide it. Many of the Asian streamers do the opposite and buy mid-stream with you there watching the SoJ-dropoff to plug their item-site sponsor.

As a result:
- Botters get stupid amounts of SoJs that they can sell to streamers with literally no limit along with stupid amounts of HRs for the same streamers to do giveaways with = easy money with your bots doing all the work
- RM trading sites get free advertisements from streamers by delivering SoJs mid-stream
- Streamers buy stuff to walk/give away in their streams to get viewers which in turn becomes more revenue than they spent on said items
- Everyone else gets walks and free giveaways
- Market barely even collapses (see SoJ prices still holding at

Lo+ even on ladder) because streamers are indeed a never-ending hole of item-buying

So basically, everyone wins because enough of us watch the walk streams.
Well, except for folks trying to still sell ladder annis..they most definitely do not win. ^^

As for blizz, they haven't given a crap in 20+ years and they won't start now. Bots have always run rampant in D2. They've always run rampant in WoW. And they'll always run rampant in D2:R. And more likely than not, they will in D4 as well. They just do the occasional "maphack banwave" so they can claim they're doing something and working against cheaters, all the while also completely ignoring the (sometimes extreme and significant advantage offering) overlay mods and such displayed openly by many a streamer.

*Yes, I know there are walk hosts who actually work(ed) with legit community donations and didn't buy anything..but those are far and few between.

Fair enough. I think I don't want to know any more, it's a part of the game that I have no interest in understanding, I'll just carry on killing

The Countess. Thanks!

Janet the Java wrote: 2 years ago

Fair enough. I think I don't want to know any more, it's a part of the game that I have no interest in understanding, I'll just carry on killing

The Countess. Thanks!

Pretty much that.
Not a fan of it myself (though my opinion admittedly different in the OG days when you literally couldn't trade safely) but it is simply a natural and ubiquitous part of any blizz game.

subaridji wrote: 2 years ago

If there is no threat, then why ban waves?
Janet, I've found two reasons:
1. money. dozens of sites like aoeah sell stuff for money. guess where their stocks come from)
2. time. some bots are free, so players leave them overnight and don't spend hundreds of hour looking for desired loot.

up for interpretation, I guess. or if you you're more of an esotheric nature: dreaming.

blizzard knows everything that's going on with bots, dupes and so on. what do they do?
symbolic ban waves.

they could get rid of the stuff entirely. why don't they?
no one knows, except blizzard.

Crispin wrote: 2 years ago

subaridji wrote: 2 years ago

If there is no threat, then why ban waves?
Janet, I've found two reasons:
1. money. dozens of sites like aoeah sell stuff for money. guess where their stocks come from)
2. time. some bots are free, so players leave them overnight and don't spend hundreds of hour looking for desired loot.

up for interpretation, I guess. or if you you're more of an esotheric nature: dreaming.

blizzard knows everything that's going on with bots, dupes and so on. what do they do?
symbolic ban waves.

they could get rid of the stuff entirely. why don't they?
no one knows, except blizzard.

Hm. I'm starting to think that because they don't see a threat to online games.
Ok, botting doesn't ruin other players ingame experience (except pickup bots).
Ok, botting 'ruins' market. Is Blizzard a part of market? NO. So they DON'T have to care.
What they care now is - new chalenge and minor content changes that will discover more of the game potential.

hm hm... blizzard made the game.
how can they not be part of the market?

I've been playing Diablo since it was first released back in the 90s, always with friends and never public. Just joined this site and it's been a real eye-opener. I didn't even know about bots, but I saw the entry where someone stated something about multiple licenses to run more bots. I think herein lies the answer to why Blizzard hasn't put a stop to the bots.

@Crispin: I believe he meant part of the in-game market (i.e. doesn't care if trading gets impacted heavily).

@Donya: Kind of. Except back in the old days, you didn't need multiple copies and they still never cleaned up bots so...tradition of failure/just not caring more than anything else.

Hell, I'd even argue that regularly banning botters would be solid income for Blizz. The game is so cheap (and some easy-to-bot items so expensive) that even if you get your bot accounts banned once a week, you'd still come out with a solid plus despite buying new copies of the game over and over.

Crispin wrote: 2 years ago

hm hm... blizzard made the game.
how can they not be part of the market?

they made a game, gamers made the market

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Hell, I'd even argue that regularly banning botters would be solid income for Blizz. The game is so cheap (and some easy-to-bot items so expensive) that even if you get your bot accounts banned once a week, you'd still come out with a solid plus despite buying new copies of the game over and over.

HWID bans make botting far more complicated and expensive. I doubt botters have income that allows them spend 40$ for new acc every week. Don't forget that you have to level up and equip bot 1st. What is 40$ in items? 6

Jah's?

subaridji wrote: 2 years ago

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Hell, I'd even argue that regularly banning botters would be solid income for Blizz. The game is so cheap (and some easy-to-bot items so expensive) that even if you get your bot accounts banned once a week, you'd still come out with a solid plus despite buying new copies of the game over and over.

HWID bans make botting far more complicated and expensive. I doubt botters have income that allows them spend 40$ for new acc every week. Don't forget that you have to level up and equip bot 1st. What is 40$ in items? 6

Jah's?

A decent bot can lvl and gear itself. Hell..if you're so inclined, you could automate the ban recognition and new license purchasing on top of it and not care one way or the other. All that happens is that every so often, you'd lose $20-40 (give or take..depending on sale timing - can easily pre-purchase during a solid sale to mitigate) and lose a little bit of farm-time as the bot re-gears itself.

Can't say I'm an expert on RM pricing (nor do I care to be) but just a quick google search says that it'd take something like 10-15 crap annis to pay for a license or one high-end one. At the current rate of walks, you can literally get yourself banned every week and pay for the buy-back in annis alone, not counting any of the drops you get between said walks.

I'm obviously neither condoning nor suggesting folks do that (since I still wish they finally just get rid of bots for good) but I fully expect that even if they did actually ban them for once - and even if they did so repeatedly - it wouldn't be enough to keep them from coming back and would instead end up just generating more income for blizz.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

@Crispin: I believe he meant part of the in-game market (i.e. doesn't care if trading gets impacted heavily).

@Donya: Kind of. Except back in the old days, you didn't need multiple copies and they still never cleaned up bots so...tradition of failure/just not caring more than anything else.

Hell, I'd even argue that regularly banning botters would be solid income for Blizz. The game is so cheap (and some easy-to-bot items so expensive) that even if you get your bot accounts banned once a week, you'd still come out with a solid plus despite buying new copies of the game over and over.

yeah, thought so. just seems like a wild idea to separate the game from the game.
doesn't care is more like it.

Ppl looting

Baal faster is probably your lag / their better ping, other than that I heard about hack making runes click-box bigger and easy'er to pick