This season is surprisingly shaping up to be relatively decent in terms of balance. It's no season 7 or season 10, but it's got potential. The two biggest issues this game faces right now are not necessarily class balance, but instead:
a.) The classes lost some core offensive CDs/fun abilities that increased skill cap by a drastic amount and distinguished good from bad players and also made classes generally much more fun.
b.) The rampant amount of cheating that is STILL un-addressed by Blizzard.
I want to ask about (b) because it's becomingly increasingly infuriating to this game's community that a company of THIS prestige is allowing high school students in an intro CS class to circumvent this game's anti-botting guards.
PLAYER REPORTING VS. BLIZZARD DETECTION
Lore has highlighted the fact that we can report players for cheating and are encouraged to do so. He also stressed that it is imperative that players do so or cheaters cannot be combated. I appreciate Lore's enthusiasm for this community. I appreciate that he's there to communicate with us, not make the actual decisions himself. I also want to stress how terrible of a policy this is.
Imagine if the Olympic policy for performance enhancing substances of any sort was as follows: If you suspect someone you're competing against is using PEDs, submit a report to the committee detailing why you think they're using PEDs. Like what? The organizers need to have a system in place that detects this without the intervention of the players. That is exactly what they're being paid to do.
I understand the difficult nature of bot detection. I also understand that there are fundamental and undeniable avenues that could be taken to drastically cut down on it. Warden used to accomplish this, I refuse to accept that more advanced detection protocols can't be developed to combat this.
Additionally, I know for a fact that a large number of community members as well as friends of mine have reported certain notorious botters (i.e. Farmer, Lazylarry) dozens of times each, with little to no action being taken at all. Why should we take the time to submit another report when not only aren't they banned, they're on Blizzard forums making an open mockery of the company?
Here's a video of the rogue Shyokoliam, who just pushed 2600 with his botting friend Farmer, literally loading up honorbuddy on stream. He deleted this VoD but someone managed to get it onto YouTube. I'm guessing nothing will be done though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcfVA87oeVc
PENALTIES
The penalties for cheating are virtually non-existent. Most of the most notorious cheaters simply never have any action whatsoever taken against them. They make literal mockeries of this game's anti-cheating culture on streams for everyone to see. Nothing is done.
Those who are caught (i.e. Bailamos) are simply told not that they can't do it again or the "real" permaban will come. What? He literally ruined RBGs for almost an entire expansion and flat out admitted to doing so because of how dismal the Blizzard stance on RBG cheating was. Then he comes on to tell us that after what may have literally been hundreds of games of the most blatant cheats he's getting yet another chance? Bailamos represents a sort of player who perfectly understands this company -- why bother playing by the rules and limiting yourself when no serious action is ever taken?
FINAL THOUGHTS
As a veteran of this game who's been playing this game for over a decade, I'm intimately aware of how difficult certain things are to deal with and how often things are blown out of proportion. This is not. Don't make players have to wonder "do you think that player is kickbotting?". We shouldn't even have to think that after a loss because Blizzard should be so active on banning cheaters that every time I get insta locked I either think "Wow that was lucky" or "Wow that was skilled", not "wow, that was probably a bot but I'll never know".
Please open a meaningful dialogue with us about this Blizzard, and don't just talk about it, let us know that you'll actually work on doing something, and soon. It's absurdly disheartening to honest players to have to see cheaters make a mockery of how unenforced this games rules are.
Post in this thread, acknowledge you haven't done nearly enough, acknowledge it's an issue that needs work from your end, not just ours, and show some love for the players who are really trying to keep this games community something that's worth staying part of.
a.) The classes lost some core offensive CDs/fun abilities that increased skill cap by a drastic amount and distinguished good from bad players and also made classes generally much more fun.
b.) The rampant amount of cheating that is STILL un-addressed by Blizzard.
I want to ask about (b) because it's becomingly increasingly infuriating to this game's community that a company of THIS prestige is allowing high school students in an intro CS class to circumvent this game's anti-botting guards.
PLAYER REPORTING VS. BLIZZARD DETECTION
Lore has highlighted the fact that we can report players for cheating and are encouraged to do so. He also stressed that it is imperative that players do so or cheaters cannot be combated. I appreciate Lore's enthusiasm for this community. I appreciate that he's there to communicate with us, not make the actual decisions himself. I also want to stress how terrible of a policy this is.
Imagine if the Olympic policy for performance enhancing substances of any sort was as follows: If you suspect someone you're competing against is using PEDs, submit a report to the committee detailing why you think they're using PEDs. Like what? The organizers need to have a system in place that detects this without the intervention of the players. That is exactly what they're being paid to do.
I understand the difficult nature of bot detection. I also understand that there are fundamental and undeniable avenues that could be taken to drastically cut down on it. Warden used to accomplish this, I refuse to accept that more advanced detection protocols can't be developed to combat this.
Additionally, I know for a fact that a large number of community members as well as friends of mine have reported certain notorious botters (i.e. Farmer, Lazylarry) dozens of times each, with little to no action being taken at all. Why should we take the time to submit another report when not only aren't they banned, they're on Blizzard forums making an open mockery of the company?
Here's a video of the rogue Shyokoliam, who just pushed 2600 with his botting friend Farmer, literally loading up honorbuddy on stream. He deleted this VoD but someone managed to get it onto YouTube. I'm guessing nothing will be done though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcfVA87oeVc
PENALTIES
The penalties for cheating are virtually non-existent. Most of the most notorious cheaters simply never have any action whatsoever taken against them. They make literal mockeries of this game's anti-cheating culture on streams for everyone to see. Nothing is done.
Those who are caught (i.e. Bailamos) are simply told not that they can't do it again or the "real" permaban will come. What? He literally ruined RBGs for almost an entire expansion and flat out admitted to doing so because of how dismal the Blizzard stance on RBG cheating was. Then he comes on to tell us that after what may have literally been hundreds of games of the most blatant cheats he's getting yet another chance? Bailamos represents a sort of player who perfectly understands this company -- why bother playing by the rules and limiting yourself when no serious action is ever taken?
FINAL THOUGHTS
As a veteran of this game who's been playing this game for over a decade, I'm intimately aware of how difficult certain things are to deal with and how often things are blown out of proportion. This is not. Don't make players have to wonder "do you think that player is kickbotting?". We shouldn't even have to think that after a loss because Blizzard should be so active on banning cheaters that every time I get insta locked I either think "Wow that was lucky" or "Wow that was skilled", not "wow, that was probably a bot but I'll never know".
Please open a meaningful dialogue with us about this Blizzard, and don't just talk about it, let us know that you'll actually work on doing something, and soon. It's absurdly disheartening to honest players to have to see cheaters make a mockery of how unenforced this games rules are.
Post in this thread, acknowledge you haven't done nearly enough, acknowledge it's an issue that needs work from your end, not just ours, and show some love for the players who are really trying to keep this games community something that's worth staying part of.
