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Cryptic protects pvp bots?!
apokalupsis2012
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users Posts: 123 Bounty Hunter
From the patch notes:
"Players may no longer be kicked from PvP maps unless they are disconnected."
OK...so maybe this was done because leaders were being ******s and booting people they just didn't like (I pvp a lot however, and never saw this happen, maybe I just wasn't paying attention?). That's the only reason I can see for this change...to protect those who should not be kicked. But again...I never saw this happen and I pvp quite a bit, so I am skeptical as to how big a problem it really was.
What I have seen however, at least in every other match it seems...were leaders doing the right thing and kicking bots. Bots are usually very easy to identify.
1) They never mount (or at least, I've never seen one do so).
2) Their gear is extremely low for their level
3) They have missing gear.
4) They run to the center cap and stand there until an enemy comes w/i their zone.
When these characteristics are noticed, leaders will rightfully, kick the bots. Botting should not be encouraged nor rewarded.
Yet...Cryptic decided to protect bots now. There is no way to kick them. This means that:
1) There will be more bots (as it is now more worthwhile to do).
2) Player experience will suffer (as it means being forced to play with bots).
3) Players will leave (and find another match) once they recognize that bots are on their team (bots = loss = less reward due to changes in patch: see below)
IMO, this was a very bad decision and is going to greatly impact PVP in a negative way.
This is what is going to happen:
As soon as players recognize that bots are on their team...they will leave. Why? Because now they gain LESS reward (also due to the recent patch change)...and having a bot almost guarantees a loss (if the other team has fewer or no bots). Why play a match that is almost guaranteed to be a loss when players can just quit and attempt to find another match w/o bots?
PVP in Neverwinter has always had it's hiccups...but with this recent change...it took a major nose dive and I'm quite surprised the devs didn't make this realization.
----
A better solution, albeit flawed, and assuming there just had to be a change, would have been to have a "kick vote." Of course, the bots would either not vote (or script be added to have them vote "no"), at least it would help out in situations in which there were only 1-2 bots in the match and the rest of the players recognized them as such.
Another solution (from kvet): Put a CAPTCHA in the queue process for PvP. It's a pain in *** for legit players, but it will pretty effectively stop bots in most cases. The only case it won't is when a human is prepping the bot for every individual match. As such, it wouldn't stop ALL bots, but it would at least prevent fully automated botting and make it at least an inconvenience for someone to run a bot because they'll always have to check on it. That will mean fewer bots, even monitored ones, because the person probably won't be watching the entire time.
Side Rant...
I have no idea how to bot, never had an interest in doing so. But now, I can see it's temptation. Run the game, run the bot script, go off to school, work, or play...and gain free exp, glory, loot...all without any risk of punitive action.
So the issues are then:: Given the fact that Cryptic has decided to protect botters, and outside of one's subjective moral compass...what is the downside to doing so? Why shouldn't more players simply bot and gain free levels, glory, and loot*?
* if their primary interest is the end game, farming, or selling (vs playing and having fun w/ content)
"Players may no longer be kicked from PvP maps unless they are disconnected."
OK...so maybe this was done because leaders were being ******s and booting people they just didn't like (I pvp a lot however, and never saw this happen, maybe I just wasn't paying attention?). That's the only reason I can see for this change...to protect those who should not be kicked. But again...I never saw this happen and I pvp quite a bit, so I am skeptical as to how big a problem it really was.
What I have seen however, at least in every other match it seems...were leaders doing the right thing and kicking bots. Bots are usually very easy to identify.
1) They never mount (or at least, I've never seen one do so).
2) Their gear is extremely low for their level
3) They have missing gear.
4) They run to the center cap and stand there until an enemy comes w/i their zone.
When these characteristics are noticed, leaders will rightfully, kick the bots. Botting should not be encouraged nor rewarded.
Yet...Cryptic decided to protect bots now. There is no way to kick them. This means that:
1) There will be more bots (as it is now more worthwhile to do).
2) Player experience will suffer (as it means being forced to play with bots).
3) Players will leave (and find another match) once they recognize that bots are on their team (bots = loss = less reward due to changes in patch: see below)
IMO, this was a very bad decision and is going to greatly impact PVP in a negative way.
This is what is going to happen:
As soon as players recognize that bots are on their team...they will leave. Why? Because now they gain LESS reward (also due to the recent patch change)...and having a bot almost guarantees a loss (if the other team has fewer or no bots). Why play a match that is almost guaranteed to be a loss when players can just quit and attempt to find another match w/o bots?
PVP in Neverwinter has always had it's hiccups...but with this recent change...it took a major nose dive and I'm quite surprised the devs didn't make this realization.
----
A better solution, albeit flawed, and assuming there just had to be a change, would have been to have a "kick vote." Of course, the bots would either not vote (or script be added to have them vote "no"), at least it would help out in situations in which there were only 1-2 bots in the match and the rest of the players recognized them as such.
Another solution (from kvet): Put a CAPTCHA in the queue process for PvP. It's a pain in *** for legit players, but it will pretty effectively stop bots in most cases. The only case it won't is when a human is prepping the bot for every individual match. As such, it wouldn't stop ALL bots, but it would at least prevent fully automated botting and make it at least an inconvenience for someone to run a bot because they'll always have to check on it. That will mean fewer bots, even monitored ones, because the person probably won't be watching the entire time.
Side Rant...
I have no idea how to bot, never had an interest in doing so. But now, I can see it's temptation. Run the game, run the bot script, go off to school, work, or play...and gain free exp, glory, loot...all without any risk of punitive action.
So the issues are then:: Given the fact that Cryptic has decided to protect botters, and outside of one's subjective moral compass...what is the downside to doing so? Why shouldn't more players simply bot and gain free levels, glory, and loot*?
* if their primary interest is the end game, farming, or selling (vs playing and having fun w/ content)
Post edited by apokalupsis2012 on
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Comments
Can't think of any downside now, given this change. Perhaps if the losing team got nothing then this would work, but as it is all this does is ensure that bots will have a free run....
As soon as players recognize that bots are on their team...they will leave. Why? Because now they gain LESS reward...and having a bot almost guarantees a loss (if the other team has fewer or no bots). Why play a match that is almost guaranteed to be a loss when players can just quit and attempt to find another match w/o bots?
Yes, well what else did you expect? Look at all the other perfect world games -.o
Yes, I realised that. But my thinking was that if this happens all the time, then bots will end up with zero reward so it will be pointless to bot........
However, I don't know that it would work out as well as you think. If there is no downside to doing so but there is a small possibility of gain (through win)...then botting would still be viable. It would not be as productive as playing live of course...but for those who go off to work or school or something else? Why not? It won't be nearly as much as a win, or even as much as pre-patch...but there's a chance that there may be something. And if there is zero risk, and zero downside...it seems like a given that botting will still be prevalent in pvp.
I even explained that in my op.
Bots will run to the middle cap. This means that if there is no opposition, they will cap it. Bots also engage enemies that attack them or are within a certain radius.
Bots do participate. Bots do get a score (through capping, assists, and kills, if they so happen to get the last hit).
So the bots are turning PVP into PVE - its just a different AI people who actually play, will have to play against.
This.
Bots should have been the focus of PVP changes IMO.
The issue of botting > the issue of bad leaders unjustly kicking players (since it just doesn't seem to happen much at all).
Yes, and yes to all those questions your asking yourself inside about perfect world.
(not so perfect world)
Let me throw in a better explanation for some whom are blinded by the truth;
Are you ready to hear this?
I mean think about... here you got two company, one will make money by selling their product to another company. While the other company makes money from us!
A better example?
Company A(creators) sells it's product to company B(marketers).
Company A will get it's shares, while company B will twist the contents the way they seem fit to make money of their own. Aka...bots, goldsites etc...
While the creators don't generally agree to this, after suking on a few thousand dollars coming in from those reveniews, they pull the "blind eye" trick and look the other way.While company B keeps making their own profits by continuously frustrating the gamers with "cheated" weaknesses to force them to believe they need to buy gold or cheat themselves in order to WIN!
See the loophole now? Grab a rope and hang on, it's gona be another bumpy ride!
And as explained in my op, having a bot on your team almost guarantees a loss for that match (if the other team does not have any bots, or has fewer bots). This means that the actual players on the botted team will receive considerably less reward (due to the changes of the patch). This in turn, means that players will be leaving the imbalanced matches w/ bots...for matches w/o bots.
There are no penalties for leaving. So if you happen to be someone who stays anyway...you may be alone w/ the 1-2 bots. Just twiddling your thumbs for 10-15 mins...and end up with extremely low exp/glory. Why do that when you could have found an actual pvp match?
I haven't seen a bot in a level 60 pvp match in a long time.
Saw tons of them while pvp'ing during leveling up though.
With no gain on a loss AND a proper bot report function then it would become valueless to PvP bot.
Perhaps require a CAPTCHA any time a given character's team lost their previous match? So, if you are legit and on a good team and win more or less consistently, you won't bugged by a CAPTCHA every time.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Having been kicked from a pvp match for no reason other than the fact that I wasn't a CW, healer or rogue, I fully support this decision. Everyone has a right to play this game. There's no reason why some overly competitive gamer should ruin it for others.
It would not. Even bots win sometimes, when the enemy has more bots. The benefit would be less so there might be less bots but it would not work as a final solution.
Like many people here have said, people tend to quit when they see bots in their team, despite there being bots in the other team. So, the team who quits first gets a loss (for the bots and people who didn't quit) while the other team (along with the bots in that team) gains a win and therefore rewards.
Bots do participate. Bots do get a score (through capping, assists, and kills, if they so happen to get the last hit).
That sux, but it seems isolated. I have 2 level 60's and I pvp a lot w/ them both now and while I was leveling up. I never saw a single person be kicked due to class.
As I said...the issue of botting is a much more serious and prevalent issue than the issue of unwarranted player kicks. So it would make more sense to address the bigger issue (than the lessor).