Post by Azherae on 2022-09-22 19:12:09
We have not received permission from Goalid to share the quoted post.
We're technically viewing this from opposite sides in a way.
Bots aren't as much of a problem as 'underpaid real RMT' or 'bot monitoring groups'.
Because those are the ones that are hard to distinguish from normal players. I'm not saying that one should just 'not fight bots', I'm moreso talking about a type of 'entrapment'. Bots must always be 'found' and 'trapped'. And while that is happening, they are having their economic effect.
I'm saying that 'funneling them into something where they don't have as much impact and they are easy to deal with' is better than 'causing them to seek niches where they could do much more damage before they are caught'.
But the Corruption system as it stands, explicitly incentivizes players to be MORE similar to bots with their gathering alts and whatever else. Bots don't benefit from the corruption that other players gain for attacking them, for THEM it's often pure loss. But the way corruption is implied to work, 'staying low level' is the best bet for gathering alts and similar, so it gives bots more chance to blend in, causing community outcomes that I personally view as negative.
When gathering is easy enough, the difference between a 'real player' and 'a bot monitored by a player who is doing something else or semi-afk' is pretty hard to know, these days. But that's a different, often-discussed question.
tl;dr Easier Lower Level gathering will almost always be low profit too, so bots existing in that space is LESS harmful IF you can't stop them easily.