You are not stopping the botters. They are still out there, and unless the system gives ZERO returns after a certain amount of things killed, they are still going to be botting for hours and hours on end. If you have code that expands it to include other creatures, they will just adjust their botting path.
You are just punishing the players.
Like me, for instance!
I can’t go out there and happily eat my magic food, and do my best trying to get as much reward for my effort in the field (crafting materials, bags), because there is anti-farming code which explicitly says that this is a no-no. Why? If the game doesn’t make me farm, and we have a trading post, and if I choose to go out there of my own time and gather the ingredients I need to craft what I need, for as much effort as I am willing to put in the game, why should the game tell me that I can’t?
It makes no sense. The botters are still out there, they just make less, but you know what, your players still make less, are more frustrated by this than a botting program that has all the time in the world to deal with your drop rates and no emotion for when it draws no rewards.
What happened to FUN? When I first got GW2 I thought that this game might be over way too fast, but ArenaNet you are so stiffling our fun and keeping such a rigid, iron grip on the amazing world that you have created, that players can’t relax and actually ENJOY it! They are hit by under the hood mechanisms that are not apparent to them and frustrate them. You are pretty much telling US what fun means.
You have to go after the botters, not frustrate your playerbase -because- of the botters. And if you do have anti-farming code, then why are our crafting costs so high, and when we go out there to farm them after we figured hey, this item drops from killing this type of creature, and we get nothing but frustration because of your code… Who are we supposed to turn to? The botters! These are the only people who can sell this stuff on the trading post and are actually making money off of the inability of players to be self-reliant. Just because they have a program running doing this for them.
And as long as farming is not enforced, it can definitely be fun as a diversion to other game play (which there is a ton of), and with dynamic events being able to pop up anywhere, it’s never been LESS dull to be out there in the field, just killing things for fun and hoping to get something good on this kill or the next. But with this code, you know that won’t happen, and that ruins the fun of it. A lot of it is the IDEA that you can do it, but when you have code specifically implemented to stop you from attaining that next ‘tiny claw’ or ‘supply bag’ or insert random fun drop, it’s not really fun anymore and just becomes tedious. So it’s really one less thing that you can do in the world. No fun/random stuff.
Anet, you guys have to stop ruling this game with an iron fist, and let it stand on its own merits, and work on improving and adding new elements to the dungeon bosses and the world, create events, and just keep at it, making it more alive (and fixing the stuff that is broken). Not making the dungeon trash that is already one shotting you, erm I guess one shot you harder. Making travelling harder, it’s actually a chore, repairs are really high, and all of it just seems so un-necessary. I mean, the game doesn’t need it. It’s so alive, so different than anything else out there that you could stick a pink flamingo pony pinata for a repair mechanism and players would rejoice.
You’ve done an amazing job, please don’t start on being tyrannical with your player base. Not punishing the player or really abusing their time in the game.
Let us decide how to play and what that means for us, dictating to us how the game should be played is not the right way to go about creating a truly fluid game, a masterpiece. Those are my thoughts on the issue.