Hey @yuexn thanks for the comment. I realize we would probably disagree on this issue. I respect you and your opinion, and certainly respect your right to vote how you feel is best.
The one thing I will say is I did think this through very carefully. I will be glad to have a discussion with anyone on the purpose, the impact, the risks/rewards, and of course why it is a big deal. Just because you don't understand where this comes from, doesn't mean I didn't think it through.
I have been here for a long time, run a guild with more than a dozen sub-guilds, engage in SPL daily, and of course have many many individual convos with players that play the game in all capacities and all sizes. To dismiss my idea as not thought through is of course your decision though.
I do appreciate all the work you do and if you ever want to discuss this in more detail, feel free to message me on discord and I will be happy to spend the time to discuss it with you out of respect for your valuable contribution to our game.
Sorry, if i came off harsh. That wasn't my intention. And i said i understand 100% where it comes from.
And my point on not being thought through comes from the technical side of things. It's impossible to enforce this, cause it's just the leniency of the operators you are relying on.
There is no technical solution to either detect it (if the operators do it rihgt) or prevent those solutions.
And even if it is in the TOS and they still offer their solution. How would you want to stop them? Sue the shit out of them? Good luck with that. Depending on their country of origin even more so. (+ the whole anonymity thing here)
And that's not even talking about the rise of the private solutions if this goes through.
Its ok, I recognize you are passionate on this issue so I didn't take it as a personal attack :)
And I've answered in many places the reason for defining the Terms of Service and not focusing on the enforcement.
The community creating its "will" is very important when setting the rules. Determining that will does many things.
While you and many programmers understand there are "bad actors", you are also dismissing the implications from many other angles. Are the top guilds going to go rogue? Will the popular bot/battle helper providers go rogue? If not, then that would cover probably 90% of the playerbase.
So if we have 90% of our institutions following the will of the community, then it will be much easier to police/enforce the other 10%.
But the central issue comes down to this. We can not ever implement anything to help players that want to play human vs human without aids if we don't try. According to you and others that make this point, its impossible.
I don't agree. I know there are many other games out there that do encourage human vs human competition without outside assistance. I think anyone that is honest with themselves would understand this is a good goal to achieve.
So do we try by starting with defining the will of the community?
Or do we just say it can't be done and tell ALL those that want to have human vs human competition without outside assistance to go elsewhere because we can't do what other companies do?
I agree its hard @yuexn, but just because its hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
Again thank you for the respectful conversation. While we don't agree on this, like I said I do appreciate all you do to make this game better!
I can't understand why the players find bots a problem, think buddy. what rules this game are strategies, combination of cards, observation of the opponent's previous battles, mastery over the random variables of each match. Besides, we all know that we only improve by playing with better players, we only improve when we look at new strategies, we only improve when we see something that we wouldn't do happen. therefore bots are game liquidity tools as well as player improvement, ie banning bots is a disservice to the ecosystem.
In chess bots (chess programs) are nice training tools (to improve yourself) but it is strictly forbidden to use them in human tournaments. And I completely support that ...
Sports/games are about who is the best player not about who is using the best tool.
In addition making superior bots available for everybody makes 'skill' a completely useless ability.
we just disagree. I have answered many comments here with my thinking, but its ok if you have your own thoughts Bloodofking. That's the beauty of the community being able to vote for what they want collectively. These type of disagreements can be decided by the will of everyone collectively.