Now that the game is dying can we just have bots for all content?

[missTori]

This thread makes me very confused. The fact that 24 people agree with it is crazy. You know we’re playing a multiplayer game, right ? You shouldn’t be asking for an mmo to become more solo. Or it could be that some people have aged out of this genre and just don’t realize it yet.

To be honest, the original posters complaint seems like something somebody that isn’t a team player would say. sure there’s only so much you can help some people but if that’s truly the case, then you just move on. And if it really bothers you that much to make a thread about wanting to bot the game then I don’t know… skill issue for real?


no one is forcing you to do savage, and it’s completely fine if some people are just not good enough for it.
I have no idea how to work on cars and small tools. I’m a girl so I don’t think I’m missing out if I don’t work on cars, because I don’t think I would enjoy it ; or be as efficient at lifting hundred pound tires.

This late into the tier, I didn’t think I was gonna clear dancing green at all. It took me 2 days this weekend to finally get a decent group who cleared dancing green in PF, but gosh I cleared it and felt happy. you’re NOT missing out on anything if you don’t do savage. some people just like to play and beat the fights. it is annoying when sometimes you have to rely on the stars aligning to clear the fight. regardless, I think it’s still kinda fun. if it’s not fun anymore, then you should take a step back, go for a walk, or just don’t do that content anymore


TLDR; Now my rant is over: in regard to the actual topic of wanting to bot the game, You should ask yourself “do i really like playing this game at all?”

[VeyaAkemi]

So...yes, it is a limitation on the game, because why in the bloody hell would SE make bots to play with people that were made anything like those kind of bots you're talking about?

Okay, look, the angle I am taking here is about deliberate choice, Trusts are deliberately made bad, they aren't an inherently broken mechanic that needs to have slow paced mechanics to keep up, no, bots can handle far more complex and faster mechanics than humans if the person making the bot wants them to, but no, they are deliberately made bad because they are there for an "if all else fails" alternative, and the devs still want players to default to playing with other people, just for solo play to be also possible.

They obviously don't want that to be the case for high end content of any kind, however, the discussion about the possibility of Trusts for high end content demands us to entertain the idea that this perspective could change, and the moment that perspective changes, so changes the goal of the bot being used, they no longer need to outright suck, in fact they need to be pretty good because of Enrages, so the quality of their play would naturally dramatically increase, since the goal around them would change.

Ultimately the point is that the perspective of "Trusts require slower mechanics" is hogwash, anyone who believes as much just doesn't understand how automation in games work, because computers can always be much faster than humans and will always handle deterministic tasks better, so the moment this is desired, the deliberate choices around the ways Trusts work would change.

[Amarande]

Incidentally, that's something some people may have forgotten about using NPCs; If you die, it's an instant wipe, which would make having an NPC practice mode for Extreme/Savage all the more of an effective training tool because the player will literally have to restart the whole fight on just their death. (IE: Quantifiable and individual "prog point" completely separate from the performance of others, bonus points if the practice mode leaves a marker everywhere they died per retry until they quit the practice duty.)

Or hell, even if they DID let players do the real Extreme/Savage with bots, the human player still can't coast if they're death alone is all it takes to reset the whole fight

This is actually a really neat idea, and I expect its only flaw will be when (as is likely) the human player community don't settle on the same strat that the NPCs teach the player.

I think Duty Support/Trust even has reduced rewards? So I could picture an NPC-powered Extreme/Savage that does the same thing. (Like say... never dropping mounts?)

I'm pretty sure that the rewards are the same with NPCs as with people, clear speed is the price you pay for using NPCs (although EX/Savage trusts would have to probably maintain the same damage output as average human players that clear, given the fact that we're talking about single fights with assumedly the same enrage timers) - it just rolls the loot automatically behind the scenes when you open coffers, so you only actually see the items that you won (Loot with NPC teammates in Guild Wars 1 worked in similar fashion).

If you could clear content with bots, how would the gatekeepers be able to maintain their self-esteem?

I should hope SE has an "eff them" stance towards those that actually gatekeep for ego.

The grumpy thing is I'm not sure that's the majority of people that gatekeep; with difficulty trending up and free time down, most likely have been put to curating their groups more tightly through experience (it's hard to "be the change" in rough content spells like this, it reminds me of Shadowlands season 1 from WoW where I started off trying to be a kinder player and invite pretty much anyone that didn't have completely paper gear, and I couldn't even reliably get my mythic+ key past something pathetic like a 4 ... eventually ended up thinking about RIOs like everyone else lol).

The fact that these people would no longer need to do so is probably something that all involved would be relieved at.

[SophiaDL]

If the game was dying it would not take 2 years to get a house lol

By that standard, you can put 1 single house in the game, have 5000 people bid on it, does that mean the game is alive and well ?

[Qyoon]

If the game was dying it would not take 2 years to get a house lol

Only on popular DC, we have servers filled with empty spots for weeks.
We have DCs with no PF running during primetime beside danceclubs ads.

This is the definition of dead.

[Sorainthy]

From which source do you see that the game is dying?
Steam Charts are stable with peaks on new expansions (normal for any MMO) and even higher as on launch.

Do you have other official sources or is it just "feeling"? Asking cause of curiousity as I do see plenty new players (sprouts) daily.
So even if they are not "new players" but "new characters" is it filled to the brim....

[SophiaDL]

From which source do you see that the game is dying?
Steam Charts are stable with peaks on new expansions (normal for any MMO) and even higher as on launch.

Do you have other official sources or is it just "feeling"? Asking cause of curiousity as I do see plenty new players (sprouts) daily.
So even if they are not "new players" but "new characters" is it filled to the brim....

The game lost from 400 000 players to 600-700 000 players following the same statistics that were used by LuckyBancho, and Steam also shows a big drop in players to the lowest point in over 3 years (iirc, 2 and a half or 3 years)

So no, the game is not dying but it is in a pretty big decline.

[Drimn]

Tl;dr hardest part in this game now is to find 7 other players who can all align their schedule to spend hours upon hours learning a script which naturally gives an unfair advantage to a certain social bracket I don't wanna call out here.

The myth that there is any ounce of skill in raiding in this game has been dispelled countless times, it's all about being able to hang out in some weird discords all day to find the required people and then it's about having even more time so you can learn choreography after choreography, where there's nothing but 8 individuals mashing their own personal rotation and then selling it as 'MMO' or 'Multiplayer' and there's essentially zero reason why this can't be bot-supported single player content other than you (SE) wanting to keep up the artificial difficulty/gating and the illusion that this game is something that it's not.

Seeing what the mechanics design is all about it really shouldn't be too hard to do the bot behavior/pathing at the same time you create the encounter, especially not for a monthly asking price of $12.99++ and added micros.

Bots like this are what killed Guild Wars 1, by the way. And considering how old dungeon content is constantly getting dismembered into FF13-style corridor slop in the name of making it more accessible to their bot AI, it's probably harder than you think it would be.

[Uncle_Jafar]

I find it ironic: The devs bend over backwards for the hardcore players but the game STILL in decline despite keeping them ‘happy’. Gee, I wonder, who the real customer base is. Could it be the people that <gasp> enjoy the story?

[JuicyHeals]

I find it ironic: The devs bend over backwards for the hardcore players but the game STILL in decline despite keeping them ‘happy’. Gee, I wonder, who the real customer base is. Could it be the people that <gasp> enjoy the story?

I think the years of same old same old is more the reason for the decline.