Trade bots: allowed?

The game is full of trade bots, especially on the currency market. People get extremely rich this way without even being near their computer. These are most likely AutoHotkey scripts set up to buy low, sell high. They run 24/7. They're the players you see in leagues with 25000 glass baubles, 1500 Harbinger Orbs etc. They are easily recognized when you interact with them, it's very clear there is not a player running the character as they can only process specific input and always provide the same output.

It's a disgrace to people farming things like a Headhunter, they invest tons of hours whereas these botters can buy a new Headhunter every day without playing.

I have reported many of these bots and nothing has happened to the players in question. GGG does not comment on moderator actions against players. Does that mean it's allowed to run a currency trading program? If so then I'd like to know, I wouldn't mind making hundreds of exalts worth of currency in my sleep. Thank you.

GGG does care but they are likely limited on resources to investigate every single report.

What usually happens is a massive ban wave rather than incremental smaller bans.

If they were to illuminate 95% of them, the remaining 5% would get even richer and the problem wouldn't be solved. So they can't just selectively go after those that they can spot. There's not a particularly feasible solution.

If this really bothers you, you need to stop trading. The prices you're paying for stuff is based on the bots farming chaos, and the trade bots working them up too. The whole trading game is affected and the only solution out there that works is to remove trade all together.

They're not going to do that.

No but they can't do anything abbout it. Blizz who's way more rich, more staffed, charge 60 bucks for game, and more experienced couldnt do anything...well except pull the plug on trade finally.

Don't give me nonsense about a lack of resources. Go spout some forbidden words in chat, within 5 minutes a GM will mute you because someone reported you. They have plenty of time and the bots are easy to spot, moreso after a report.

Trade bots are far worse than farming bots. Trade bots print money at an alarming rate, if you wait in a bot's hideout for 5 minutes you'll see tens of players come and go. Their earnings increase exponentially the bigger their currency stockpile grows. Hell, they can probably buy multiple headhunters per day. The bot I saw with 1500 harbinger orbs.. that's 100 exalts worth of just a single rare currency. He has over 12000 chaos! 1 month into the league!

If GGG doesn't take action then I might as well run one myself. As a casual player it would be fun to finally have all the currency I need to max out all my builds and actually play the game without hundreds of hours of braindead farming!

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Shagsbeard написал:

If they were to illuminate 95% of them, the remaining 5% would get even richer and the problem wouldn't be solved. So they can't just selectively go after those that they can spot. There's not a particularly feasible solution.

If this really bothers you, you need to stop trading. The prices you're paying for stuff is based on the bots farming chaos, and the trade bots working them up too. The whole trading game is affected and the only solution out there that works is to remove trade all together.

They're not going to do that.

Good drop rates are perfect SSF. It would probably rain like Blizz made it after pulling the plug on trade.

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Tr0gledyte написал:

Don't give me nonsense about a lack of resources. Go spout some forbidden words in chat, within 5 minutes a GM will mute you because someone reported you. They have plenty of time and the bots are easy to spot, moreso after a report.

Trade bots are far worse than farming bots. Trade bots print money at an alarming rate, if you wait in a bot's hideout for 5 minutes you'll see tens of players come and go. Their earnings increase exponentially the bigger their currency stockpile grows. Hell, they can probably buy multiple headhunters per day. The bot I saw with 1500 harbinger orbs.. that's 100 exalts worth of just a single rare currency. He has over 12000 chaos! 1 month into the league!

If GGG doesn't take action then I might as well run one myself. As a casual player it would be fun to finally have all the currency I need to max out all my builds and actually play the game without hundreds of hours of braindead farming!

Investigating a bot is way more hard than looking at a chat log and seeing someone used inappropriate slurs or whatever. Mainly because they mimick legit trading behavior. Many players flip tones of currency and items.

I'd like for people to consider a hypothetical. Imagine, please, that there's a nefarious cheating RMT botting scammer out there trying his best to figure out how best to expand his business. He knows there's the company site where lots of people go to talk about the game and wants to tap that market. Would he:

a) come here and advertise his services openly?
b) come here and complain about his service and how it was unfair that all these other players benefited from it and he (boo hoo) felt cheated because he would never ever do anything like that!

Actually the bots compete with another and keep currency margins low. All profit.
I'm not a botter but i dont mind trading with bots cause theyre fast and uncomplivcated. Thats why i would like to have an ah too.

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Tr0gledyte написал:

The game is full of trade bots, especially on the currency market. People get extremely rich this way without even being near their computer. These are most likely AutoHotkey scripts set up to buy low, sell high. They run 24/7. They're the players you see in leagues with 25000 glass baubles, 1500 Harbinger Orbs etc. They are easily recognized when you interact with them, it's very clear there is not a player running the character as they can only process specific input and always provide the same output.

You are allowed to use a macro that spits out a text message reply.

Getting a, "Your item is ready to pickup..." reply from some of the currency flippers is not evidence of a bot.

They have it setup on a single keystroke so they don't have to type it out all day.

And that kind of message macro is allowed since the message is a single server action. It cuts the details out of your message to them to build the reply.