End of Ladder Season

[NuurAbSaal]

Arreat Summit

so...is this a good thing? A bad thing? Does it even matter?? I'm not sure, but I'll probably start all over on the new ladder once it's available. And this time ladder play will certainly be totally hack-bot-dupefree <_<

Greetins

Nuur

[channel1]

I may as well recycle this here:

To reset, or not to reset: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler on the Realms to suffer
The dupes and cheats of outrageous hacking,
Or to take arms against a sea of lamers,
And by removing end them? To reset: to cheat
No more; and by a reset to say we end
The Heart of Oaks and the thousand Stone of Jordans
That Battlenet is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To reset, to cheat;
To cheat: perchance to hack: ay, there's the rub;
For in that realm of hacks what items may come
When we have shuffled off this ladder character
Must give us pause

It SOUNDS like they are going to make the current Ladder characters their own type, when they reset the Ladder. It certainly is not what I expected, I figured they would dump them into the pool of pre-1.10 characters. That would have been fine by me, IF the current Ladder-Only features were available to the non-Ladder games.

But, with the addition of two more character types, things on battlenet will get a bit confusing. SIX different character types, JUST for Realm Expansion characters?

-rcv-

[[wcip]Angel]

I'm a bit disappointed. What's the point of playing, when your characters will be 'debunked' within a few months? I want to play ladder, but if that means having to start from scratchevery other month, I'd sooner just wait for Silent Hill 4 or another upcoming game.

I mean, what's the point of MF-running, when the items will be worthless and unusable for ladder characters when the restart takes place?

I'm all for getting rid of the dupes, hackers and the naughty people cluttering up the realms, but I wish there was a way of dealing with these nitwits other than destroying the game for the rest of us

*slightly drunk*

[NuurAbSaal]

I mean, what's the point of MF-running, when the items will be worthless and unusable for ladder characters when the restart takes place?

The more I think about it, the more I dislike the idea of losing my items (well, they'll be unusable, as you said). I, too, did some serious MFing recently and obtained some nice items (ethereal Reaper's Toll = yay), and to see them go is...sad somehow and even a bit frustrating (so I have no life, big deal). I probably would not play with my current characters ever again if I started on the new ladder (and as channel1 pointed out six character types are ridiculous).

on the other hand, maybe Blizz has a new ace up their sleeve for dealing with botters/dupers and the like and...

no wait :lol: -> :( -> :angry:


oh well, we'll see I guess

*slightly drunk*

I pretty much feel the same about the reset, maybe I'm drunk too? ;)


Greetings

Nuur

[Caaroid]

Funny to see, that I have more numerous and more powerful ladder characters than non-ladder characters, and been playing non-ladder for years (hello, there was no ladder), whereas playing ladder for only about 4 months.

Loosing all the cool characters, items and runes might be frustrating (well, it pretty much is), but hey, it's worth the prize. But....

There's always a but. Thing is, it took me months to gather the mediocre wealth that I have at the moment, and it would be cool to think that the reset will bring a clear ladder; however, it won't. We'll have to face the cheaters and botters again, and within a few weeks of the reset, we (the no-cheat players) will find ourselves at the mercy of enigma-druids (well, I am optimistic about the marrow bug, and with it gone, the druids will be the ultimate-cheese caster PVPers). By the time we (I) will gather the same kind of wealth we (I) posess at the moment, they will be so unbelievably rich, that we won't measure up.

Ah heck. I just wonder why I keep refreshing my non-ladder accounts to this day.

We'll see what happens, I root for a clean ladder.

(Darn, just when I thought that within a few months I'd have an enigma! Darn!)

On another note, it would be LOVELY if they'd fix the separation of ladder-nonladder(-plus) types. Also the mutual exclusion algorithm. Five year-olds can code better solutions, but if they're unable/unwilling to do so, they could remove the blocking "UNABLE TO ENTER GAME" messages, and send a dialog instead.

[Smoketest]

I'll be glad to see the current season end. For awhile a few of us actually dared to think we could get on the USWest ladder, and two of us did make it to the bottom of the list (HunkyJack the Barbarian and TB_Maicaila the javazon), but thanks to full time jobs and such, the rest of us didn't quite make it. And this was after hundreds of eight player Hell Baal runs.

Ah well, looks like my level 93 strafezon, Leigh, will be retiring at last. Maybe I'll re-make my daggerzon, though I tend to gravitate toward lag-safe builds when online. I get spikes and monster-warping like crazy.

[gekko]

Angel,Jun 25 2004, 06:17 PM] I'm a bit disappointed. What's the point of playing, when your characters will be 'debunked' within a few months? I want to play ladder, but if that means having to start from scratchevery other month, I'd sooner just wait for Silent Hill 4 or another upcoming game.

What's the point of distinguishing between ladder and non-ladder if you let the ladder season last for years? The whole idea behind ladder play is that characters all have to start with nothing. Once most of the ladder players have 3 or 4 of every item and runes have been duped such that everyone and their pets own a few BotD weapons, what's the point of even having a ladder?

If you want to keep your characters and items in a static state, don't play ladder characters. This end can't come soon enough, at this point.

gekko

[Obi2Kenobi]

I'd be happy with this if they either
a) Increase the difficulty of non-ladder to match that of ladder or
b) Dump the old ladder characters into a new pool of characters with the harder game.
Curse me for procrastinating on my Ironman challenge characters... I'm in Act 3 of NM on one of them.

[[wcip]Angel]

What's the point of distinguishing between ladder and non-ladder if you let the ladder season last for years?&nbsp; The whole idea behind ladder play is that characters all have to start with nothing.&nbsp; Once most of the ladder players have 3 or 4 of every item and runes have been duped such that everyone and their pets own a few BotD weapons, what's the point of even having a ladder?

If you want to keep your characters and items in a static state, don't play ladder characters.&nbsp; This end can't come soon enough, at this point.

gekko

I knew the ladder had to end sometimes, but I hoped it would be after I lost interest in the game (again). I had hoped they would've made sure duping, botting and cheating in general wouldn't be possible after they'd reset the ladder (naïve as I am), so when people started playing from scratch, it would be a good cheat-free scratch, and a new reset of the ladder wouldn't be needed, as all items and players would be 100% legit.

I guess I could play non-ladder, but I want to be able to find *all* items, as well as have *all* the runewods at my disposal. It's not really important to me if other players are playing legit or not, as I seldom play with other people (up until this week, I never had; I've always soloed!), but I would like to be able to upgrade my runes, seeing as I'll never find bers, jahs and zods out there.

I'm not sure, but I think this might just mark the end of D2 for me (for this time.) I have Ground Control 2, and I have Final Fantasy VII, both of which can keep me busy until one of the games I'm looking forward to arrives.

[Caaroid]

I'm not sure, but I think this might just mark the end of D2 for me

Well. I did say I don't care either way (reset or no reset). At the same time, a reset might actually mark the end for me too. Still. I don't care either way. Game's been around for, what, 6 years? I seriously couldn't tell. In the past X years, since being part of the original beta, I lost interest twice. Both times it was Bolty and this site that brought me back. Seeing that he's gone, if I loose interest again, it might just stay lost.

I had hoped they would've made sure duping, botting and cheating in general wouldn't be possible after they'd reset the ladder

I got three takes on the issue.
(1): the system designer's take:
While D2 and Bnet contain serious programming errors a 5 year-old could fix (like the dreaded UNABLE TO ENTER GAME message; it had caused me to think rather nasty thoughts over and over again), stopping botting and cheating seems impossible. I understand that the bots these days do not act like they used to; they are "simply" mouse-moving programs that do not directly interact with D2. That means, they are completelly undetectable (or at least I hope they are; were they not then D2 would be the greatest security risk in my system and I would gladly sue the whole company). Their performance is not better than that of standard humans, so statistical approach is also useless. (Ok, I am talking about Pindlebot here, I did not care to research Andybot as well.)

(2): the economist's take:
Um, well, um, what's the damage? No, really! IF you elect NOT to use these cheats (as I have), you will stay poorer. Jeez. How terrible! WHO CARES? I have always been a non-rich player, however it is actually MORE fun to kill/humiliate/outperform those poor players, who are really wealthy. My point is, who cares if THEY have it all? The game is the same for all of us, and unless you're REALLY serious about ladder running, or cannot accept that you just won't beat an enigma necro in duel, why make such a huge fuss about botting? (Besides, when I managed to kill an engima necro with my poor ole pvm boner, it made me happier than finding a stashful of Jahs.)
MOREOVER: Botting creates currency. Yes, it brought back the old Soj economy, so WHAT? (btw, it was fun to watch that over the past 3 weeks the number of Sojs must have quadrupled, since their price fell from 4 IST to 1 MAL. Must have made all them stone-hoarders vince :P) Having a steady supply of Stones is not really that much of an issue; the only thing it sort of ruined is lev 29 dueling, but there were only a VERY limited number of people who had the brains to know how to use them. Ok, your fireball sorceress won't do 10k damage. Wow. I can feel the pain. My lev 8x elemental druid runs around with two 10% cast rate rings, a +2 druid helm, a skin, a Bladebuckle and other "high-end" gear like that, yet I outkill most pubbies by knowing how to use the caracter. Do we really need to get so competitive? (Especially, since nobody can stop botting :))

(3): the philosopher's take:
Botting is evil. All botters should be beheaded. I know botting cannot be stopped, but they still need to be beheaded. Now.
(See? There is a reason why system designers and economists are well paid, while philosophers aren't :P).

---------------
Anyway. If I had the power to make changes for the next ladder season, I'd ask for two things.
ONE: fix the errors. Don't worry about the botters, the evil scum (apparently) ruining the game for everyone; rather fix the stupid mistakes made by Blizzard (marrow bug, Trang Oul cast rate, Bnet messages blocking access for 30 seconds+, etc.)
TWO: install a filtering service, that scans for the word NOOB, and if anyone enters it in any message, have their character deleted and account banned. Maybe do some reverse-IP-lookup and send over a team of wrestlers to explain things. Better yet, send the address to me: you_will_learn_manners@if_your_momma_did_not_teach_you.i_will.org

[NuurAbSaal]

Once most of the ladder players have 3 or 4 of every item and runes have been duped such that everyone and their pets own a few BotD weapons, what's the point of even having a ladder?

I played on the D2 ladder a lot. At least 4 hours a day, more on weekends. The highest rune I ever found was one Pul, then some Lems. Upgrading allowed me to get two times El to Lum (does this make sense?), but any of the new Runewords are presently FAR beyond my reach, I still have (had) hope to put together one by upgrading runes. Trading for runes or runewords is not an option for me as I consider all highlvl runes to be dupes (which they most likely are). If you play straight, you are screwed anyway, so why not let us keep the Ladder-only features? Oh wait, I'm complaining about the b.net #$%&heads again, not about the ladder reset. Wipe all of the dupes, the bots and the hacker-accounts, leave the rest as is. The whole idea of the ladder WAS to start with nothing, only there are (sadly) different ways to change that state for your chars.

Sorry if I'm turning this into another "OMG play legit" rant.


Greetings

Nuur


EDIT: cleared it up a bit

[Caaroid]

Nuur, I play legit, and I have 2 GUL, 2 IST, had 3 UMs and 2 MALs, and 4+ puls. Currently my high lev rune mule containst 4 lems, 5 lums and countless hels and dols and the like.

How?

Hellforge run. Yes, HotO is reachable! Maybe even CtA/Chaos. Yes, it is borring, so what? :)

And as I said before the botters cannot possibly be wiped, sorry :(. The only way one can keep a clear realm is periodically resetting it. Sucks, I know. But that is EXACTLY why Blizz is making the "third" type of characters: in essence they leave everything the same (shoving the "dirt" of the current ladder there), while providing a clean environment for those who prefer it this way. If you want to keep your wealth, you can (I think all the ladder rules will apply there; only you won't show up on the ladder; that makes most sense to me at least), the play style remains, nothing changed. If you want "fresh air", you can start anew.

IF I was a blizz programmer, I'd announce that ladder lasts, say, 3 months, and write an automated SQL script to reset the ladder every three months. No human interaction needed at all and keeps everyone happy.

[Chesspiece_face]

they can't actually stop the botters but they can take steps that would limit the use of those programs. steps which they have never had the guts to take.

Here's an idea! Start banning CD keys of all the spam bots out there. this wouldnt be hard at all. all blizzard has to do is to create their own "bot" program that starts games every-so-often and then logs what happens. It is completely obvoius that these people are using 3rd party programs in conjunction with diablo2 otherwise they would not be able to use multicolor chat AND they are advertising for their own site, buisnesses that are making money off of intellectual property that they do not own. Which leads to the wrap-up. How do you think that these "buisnesses" create their supply? they use the same bots that they use for their advertising to do runs and stockpile items that they can later sell. if you ban the cd keys of the ad-bots it will cripple both the run botters and the people making money off of diablo2 that shouldnt be.

[Munkay]

That sounds like a good idea. And it's something I would definately support blizzard in doing.

Though, I remember pre-1.10 when 'eth' items came out for the first time. I was still a big d2 player, and the bots were definately around, though they did not seem to be very influential in the *trade* of these items, rather just for scams. It was also a lot less annoying, for most people didn't know how to use colors yet. Banning the bots still doesn't end the flood of 'trade games' or trade chatrooms.

It would work to block them for a while, but the scammers and dupers have been around a lot longer than this 'chat-bot stranglehold' they have on bnet right now. And taking away the bots will only provide a temporary stumbling block.

Granted this is a very opinion based post, and it is merely my perspective on the whole hacker/duper situation. And I admittedly I don't know too much, I got scammed early on in d2, and since then I run to the high hills (mount arreat?:P ) when I see dupers or possible scammers.

-Munk

[lfd]

[Banning the CD keys of spambots] sounds like a good idea.&nbsp; And it's something I would definately support blizzard in doing.

Right up until the point where your legitimate CD key is banned by Blizzard because it's been used by a (spam|pindle|andy)botter.

The chance against may be high, but million-to-one chances crop up every nine times out of ten. :)

[Chesspiece_face]

Right up until the point where your legitimate CD key is banned by Blizzard because it's been used by a (spam|pindle|andy)botter.

The chance against may be high, but million-to-one chances crop up every nine times out of ten. :)

If someone using a spam-bot is doing so with your cd key than you have other problems to deal with. 2 seperate cd-keys are required to play D2:LoD. the original D2 key and the expansion key. each of those are exclusive so if anyone else on bnet is playing with those keys the other will not operate. if you have given your cd key to someone else that you don't know what they are doing with it than tough for you.

Banning accounts of spam botters does nothing because all of the characters on those accounts have no worth other than Ad spamming. I doubt anyone is going to be upset about losing an account full of lvl 1 characters named "lkadhguiekhje". If you ban the CD key, however, you also stop the run bots associated with that key and the "legit" accounts of the offending player thus making a severe penalty for people that break the ToS. It also effectively shuts down these pay for item websites by closing the mule accounts with the stockpiles of items.

[Munkay]

Right up until the point where your legitimate CD key is banned by Blizzard because it's been used by a (spam|pindle|andy)botter.

The chance against may be high, but million-to-one chances crop up every nine times out of ten. :)

Very possible :)

But it's also the problem with the justice system. Its possible to be convicted of crimes you didn't commit, but strict court systems are a must. All you can do is hope that you don't get unlucky.

Oh the joys of life in a distopia :D

-Munk

[Guest]

Is it just me... or is Blizzard stretching the players kind of thin?

First all the Battle.net players worldwide are split into 4 seperate realms. Then, these realms are split by the expansion and classic. These then branch off into Hardcore and Softcore, both with nonladder, and ladder. Now we are going to have D2 expansion/d2 original/hardcore nonlad/hardcore lad/softcore lad/softcore nonlad/hardcore old lad/softcore old lad.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are only a few (dozen or so) games open per realm/game/subclass thingie.

[Stolb3rg]

Really?. Figures. I finally get back into the hope of playing diablo again, mabey it would be fun I think to myself, bot no. I worked so hard for my items and I have the worst luck out of anyone her so Mf runs were useless to me. I had to get my stuff the hard way. Sorry to spread morbid on you all like this but I guess im done with diablo. -Later-
*Stolb3rg

[Brista]

I had to get my stuff the hard way.&nbsp; Sorry to spread morbid on you all like this but&nbsp; &nbsp; I guess im done with diablo.&nbsp; -Later-

You have exactly the same characters with exactly the same items

Unless there's something you have not mentioned like all your friends going off to Ladder race, it shouldn't affect you in the least - in fact had you not read about the change on forums you might not have even noticed it in gameplay