I don't get the hate for bots, what's really wrong with that?

Botting is cheating, against the TOS, and against any sort of honesty in playing. You're gaining an unearned, unfair advantage over players who do not.

If you do not like the game so much that you'd rather use external tools to actually play the game for you, I'd strongly suggest you look at other games and play something you feel is worth playing. If you don't like grind games (ED, Diablo, Path of Exile, WoW, Destiny, Division, Anthem, and so on), then go play a game that more suits how you like to game. Maybe looter games aren't for you? That's okay and there are plenty of other flying games out there for you to play instead of this one. There is nothing in this game that can't be earned with time, and the lessons that come along the way are worth the effort. There is no excuse for cheating.

I'm not even sure how this gets to be a thread here, as if circumventing the TOS and general rules of basic fairness is something that needs to be discussed and debated. Gross.

Do better.
 
I believe this is the argument to having PP open only.

His next post suggests an even better idea make PP console only. If there are no bots used seriously for breaking the terms and conditions except for PP and no console bots then console only PP should be bot free and the only ones on PC will be the ones written by people who want to prove they can do it even if it is against the terms and conditions.

And I only mentioned cheating once.
 
Oh, wait... I'm on PS4. We don't have bots... RATS!!!! Somebody figure out how to write a bot for PS4! You PC gamers get ALL THE FUN!
Presumably all they need is an emulator...
you could sit all day and night crafting and while doing that gain XP, you could walk into a town and just see hundreds of toons just sitting doing nothing, no conversation, no interaction, nothing. Also botting in combat, you could earn combat points while playing normally that allowed you X amount of time to walk away and have your toon fight by itself, usually gave you an hour or so of botting, then five minutes to build the points up and more botting, the entire game was designed around it. You could also send expeditions out that would site and fight over resources.

It got all auto-battle, auto-craft and auto-level silly.
This should tell you something fundamental about botting...
 
People could do it enough to severely limit the effectiveness of the bots, the real reason it wouldn't work is that instancing is broken so bots would just either block every player they see or fiddle with their network to avoid being instanced with others.

Or simply pay the rebuy and continue, if grinding credits is easy for a player, I can't imagine how long it'd take for the bot to hit its return on investment not to mention the fact that you are distracting and taking time from the enemy.
 
Now that's an assumption that's not backed up by any evidence.

If the bot in question is already sipping up your time, it's already done something against you, besides, the botter can block you to prevent instancing, is that enough for you?

There is no real solution to this problem, as you might already know it from other games. It's an evergoing game of cat and mouse.

Indeed, yours is simply far too insuficient.

If bots play in solo, it's impossible to fight them, detect them and report them, unless they're using EDSM or similar software so their routes can be tracked on 3rd party websites. If they are forced to play in open only, then they can be shot and then they can be easily reported to FDev so they can be banned.

Individual instances, you can gather stats to deduce the use of bots. You are also assuming that FD cares very much about bots which they don't.
 
Lets's face it - Elite IS very grindy and some routines are really boring. So I can't blame people using bots to farm merrits. I don't approve of it, as I've seen way too many bots during my WoW days, some were great to kite and jump to their death (yay for mind control), but they did ruin the economy to some extent. So if you see a bot, you can take the hit for Notoriety and mate sure the owner has a nice rebuy screen. Wait and repeat.
Those who have the money just buy the merits and don't worry about it anymore.

To top it off, FDev only fixed the beneficial loop holes. Bot issues are not beneficial, so they can be left aside.
 

sollisb

Banned
Can you provide some examples of multiplayer games where botting is accepted?

Flight Simulator for one. Multi-Player, even has built in FMS, Auto-Pilot etc etc I don't think there is much I have not automated for it.

Elite is by it's nature, a flight sim, with gamey, randomised grind work. Let's address some of that shall we?

Why are we grinding? To get better modules. OK. Why do we have to have 'hands on' 100% of the time while flying from A to B? There is no reason. Any reason that frontier can come up with is pure hand-wavium. 'reasons'.

Is it logical to think that ships in the 33rd century do not have auto-pilots? Robots? I'd be more inclined to believe that ships then, would have the full ability to fly from A to B completed under computer control, and the actual 'pilot' would be a mere manager of it all.

The failure with 'Elite' design paradigm shift, is it is just unbelievable. The paradigm is utilised because the rest of the content is either non-existent or grindy and boring as heck. And even, it is randomised to hell and back.

Is it actually believable that in the 33rd century, ships will not have GPS and be able to navigate to co-ordinates? No it's not. yet all we get from frontier, is more hand-wavium.

The problem with your question is that, Elite is not a game. How do I win? How do I lose? Where are the levels? Where is the balance? I know..more hand-wavium.

Leaving aside the broken BGS... Give me one good reason why we shouldn't be able to automate our flights, eh?

As for multi-player, even that doesn't work in Elite. If I bring a player trhough some dungeons in Elder Scrolls online [a real MMO] the player gets experience, equipment, mats for crafting and whatever else. If I bring a player exploring in my ship in Elite, what does he get? all is the answer.
 

sollisb

Banned
Botting is cheating, against the TOS, and against any sort of honesty in playing. You're gaining an unearned, unfair advantage over players who do not.

If you do not like the game so much that you'd rather use external tools to actually play the game for you, I'd strongly suggest you look at other games and play something you feel is worth playing. If you don't like grind games (ED, Diablo, Path of Exile, WoW, Destiny, Division, Anthem, and so on), then go play a game that more suits how you like to game. Maybe looter games aren't for you? That's okay and there are plenty of other flying games out there for you to play instead of this one. There is nothing in this game that can't be earned with time, and the lessons that come along the way are worth the effort. There is no excuse for cheating.

I'm not even sure how this gets to be a thread here, as if circumventing the TOS and general rules of basic fairness is something that needs to be discussed and debated. Gross.

Do better.

That's not entirely true tho is it ?

Cheating is using something to do something, while someone else does 'not' have the ability to replicate how you do it. If we both have access to the automation, and you choose not to use it, and I do, means exactly that. Choice. You chose your method and someone else chose theirs. If a Lufthansa pilot decides to fly his jet liner completely hands on from New York to Hamburg, and the Delta pilot uses auto-pilot, is one of them 'cheating'?

I know you're going to throw in the TOS here as it in some way is the holy grail of all. But that's really not the answer is it? From what I'm reading, you and many others, want to be the arbiters of how I and others play. And if it doesn't conform to your special beliefs, well the toys go out of the pram. Well here's how relevant your TOS are... A year or so back, we had this discussion about auto-pilots etc, and everyone was 'noooooooo' it's against TOS, it's illegal, it's bad, and here we are, with Frontier themselves, spending time to code up an auto-pilot!

Is it really up to you to decide how others play 'their' game?

If I decide not to use EDDB, INNARA, Spanish GPS and a myriad of other 'tools', does that imply that those who do use them, are cheating? If you choose to navigate to the station the 'slow' way and I choose to use the fast way, does that imply cheating?

The simple fact is, if you decide to choose one way and me another, infers absolutely nothing. We both have choices. Your choice does not effect mine and the results do not change.

The proviso here is the BGS obviously, but that being a piece of buggy junk, negates all relevance to it.
 
Ignoring all the examples given in this thread will not win you a convincing argument.

That’s a bit like saying that tackling should be a valid play in football, because that’s how we Americans play it (where we call the other football soccer).

The fact that other games have a culture of botting, or even have it built into its basic design, does not alter the fact that in this game, it is cheating.
 
Flight Simulator for one.
That's not botting.

Botting is very specifically defined as the use of 3rd party algorithms to automate elements of gameplay.

Are real pilots 'botting' when they use the real autopilot systems that are simulated in flight simulators? Have you flown any of the aircraft that don't come with autopilot systems? Because you have to actually fly those. Unless this flight simulator is more of a game than a simulator?

Have you played DCS? I'm quite proficient in the Mirage. Its autopilot systems are relegated to altitude and heading hold, as well as approach hold for landing. It won't land for you, you have to take control for that part, but it'll put you on short final. Ideally, you want to do short final manually. Approach mode WILL take you to threshold, but that's a bad idea, because the aircraft will be so overtrimmed that manual control will be almost impossible by that point, and you'll likely stall and, at best, collapse the landing gear, if you don't crush the airframe completely.

Botting isn't even remotely accepted in DCS multiplayer. Using tools made available in-game is not botting. Flight Simulator isn't exactly a competitive game, so I can see it being more reasonable there, but it's completely pointless. Why would anyone play a simulator to end up botting it?

Is it logical to think that ships in the 33rd century do not have auto-pilots?

No, it's not, because we don't have a clue what we'll have in the 33rd century. You're assuming we'd even still exist. The fact is, Elite is a fictional representation of a possible future reality, which it attempts to emulate according to a set of rules. Those rules are based on the fact that it is a video game, not a simulation of reality, which makes IRL logic completely irrelevant.

Is it actually believable that in the 33rd century, ships will not have GPS and be able to navigate to co-ordinates?

GPS relies on satellites that are in orbit of the planet you are present on. Why would any of the barren worlds we can land on now have anything of the sort? Why would they need it? The fact is, our ships are doing something incredibly advanced by mapping out latitude and longitude as it is, and providing our position without any satellite reference to speak of. That's amazing. The next best technology we have to satellite GPS now is inertial guidance, and that has to be updated every hour or so of flight because the earth is round, and spins. The reality is, what we have in our ships is almost a hybrid between GPS and INS, without the need to update.

When it comes to planetary navigation, there is little chance technology will get better than what we have in the same way that piston engines aren't getting any better: because there is a peak to all technology that there is no way past. When you are at your best, there is no getting better. Are you telling me you play flight sims and know next to nothing about navigation? Somehow, I believe you ARE botting them, if that's the case, because you're learning nothing from them.

I both agree and disagree with your assessment of Elite being a game. It isn't one, in the truest definition of the word 'game'. A real game, like chess, has failstates. One great example is XCOM - you really can lose, if you're not save scumming. However, we also have to accept that language evolves, and Elite IS a game in the sense that it is interactive entertainment. Whether you, personally, are entertained or not is irrelevant. I think, at the very least, we can both agree that it is not 'fun' that defines a game.
 
"GPS relies on satellites that are in orbit of the planet you are present on. Why would any of the barren worlds we can land on now have anything of the sort? Why would they need it? The fact is, our ships are doing something incredibly advanced by mapping out latitude and longitude as it is, and providing our position without any satellite reference to speak of. That's amazing. The next best technology we have to satellite GPS now is inertial guidance, and that has to be updated every hour or so of flight because the earth is round, and spins. The reality is, what we have in our ships is almost a hybrid between GPS and INS, without the need to update. "

That's a very good point you make there !
 
I come the school of thought that bots ARE either frowned upon or reason for account deletion.

I certainly understand why people would use them for games like Eve Ongrind but for Elite it goes beyond just lazy and into unforgivable.
 
Interesting point.

Is save-scummimg cheating? What if a bot was save-scummimg? A simple bot that only saves every minute or two.

In XCOM? Yes, in a sense, because you aren't playing within the spirit of the game. It's a form of cheating that is ALLOWED, however, just as the use of EDDB for Elite is a form of cheating that is ALLOWED, but neither are botting. Botting is a very specific kind of cheating.
 
And how exactly do they ruin the game for everyone else? All they do is get rewards more efficiently, and maybe gain their powerplay faction some artificial influence that isn't changing your gameplay in any way.
Just because some faction is slightly more powerful in the statistics isn't suddenly stopping you from doing anything in the game, at all.

Besides, you can always play solo if you feel other players are ruining your experience.

When PowerPlay or BGS is where you find your fun in the game, seeing your efforts destroyed because of bots has made a number of our members stopped playing the game.

Losing against other players is fine, that's part of the game. Getting wiped out by some guy running bots you can nothing about is not.
 
...
I see the fault solely by FDev, for creating a system that encourages botting and not doing enough to make it more rewarding to actually play the game yourself by hand.

Whenever you have a system that is purely about numbers, and not skill, then you gonna have people using every tool available to maximise "their" numbers. That's just human nature.

I really can't be angry about that. The way I see it, I just roleplay it as playing against an AI race, like the borg, and enjoy the challenge (or hunt them when I see one). Because in the end of the day, the numbers are just numbers and nothing more.

I agree with that. Frontier's response to botting - bar single individuals who looked into it on personal title and interest - has been spectacularly missing and is entirely reactive, expecting victims to report possible botting, when the bots fly exclusively in PG/Solo.

And believe me, when you're in the crosshairs of bots, you won't been enjoying the challenge.
 
I seriously find this whole "bots are bad" discussion really hypocritical.
The examples you provided were a list of features available within the game.
That is, tools FD made available to the players.

There is no way that translates over into extra-game tools, or 'bots', in such a way that it could be hypocritical.

I would recommend that FD come up with an additional play option 'Bot Mode' so that all the cheaters could play with each other.
I know NPC vs. NPC fights would be riveting for some.
 
I believe this is the argument to having PP open only.

Except they log on the first bit of damage taken, and haven't been seen in Open for over a year. Finally, if you can run bots, you can run router settings that ensure you don't ever connect to another player.

Open only to fix botting does nothing at all. A leaderboard in the station with top CMDR contributions in the last 24 hours would do more. (At least it would allow victims to report something)
 
Don't care about the hate. But FD say no bots, so no bots. I'm not aware of any game (especially online games) where the devs say using bots is ok.
 
Back
Top Bottom