Great Bot So Far, a Few Nit Picks Though...

[waldodamon 12]

Hi everyone!  I just got back into playing WoW.  I was very active in botting when GPBot and EZBot were being developed.  I actually made friends with a couple of the developers and had a hand in creating some of the fight class books, good times they were! 

 

Anyway, having paid for a one month subscription for this bot, I will be purchasing the lifetime key once this sub is up.  I do enjoy the bot, it has its quirks here and there, but without us letting you know what they are, how would you look into it, right?  Honestly, great work so far with all of this, I love absolutely everything about what this bot is and what it offers, the following list is of six things that I feel need a little research and development:

 

1) In gathering, I created a profile and shared it here (in the Pandaria section of gathering profiles on the site), but this happens with all profiles regardless, if combat initiates before the node is mined or herb picked, after combat, the character mounts and flies away, completely disregarding the node which was initially to be farmed.  This happens, from what I have observed in watching the bot run for 4 hours straight, once every 4 nodes in which the bot is attacked before farming. 

 

2) "Unstuck", "Collision detecting", whatever it is you would like to call it (Getting stuck in a crevice or running directly into the face of a mountain), for ground mounts, needs some improvement.  I created a grinding profile in Frostfire and also tested using other peoples' profiles to be sure it wasn't just mine, and I watched this bot get my character stuck in places the bot shouldn't have put him in to begin with...that is, with my grinding profiles, I never even went NEAR the general vicinity of the zone my toon got stuck in, so why was he even traveling to that area to begin with??  I observed this witrh both path randomization turned on (1.25) and turned off, did not seem to make a difference at all.

 

3) Back to gathering, this time for pathing.  Again, this was tested with randomization on and off, I varied my randomization from 1 - 2, increments of .25.  Regardless of whether the option to "go back to path" is ticked, the bot has the character fly back to the point where it was before it detected the node.  This looks very "bot-like", and it is one of my greatest concerns.  Again, I have tried checking, unchecking, randomizing, not randomizing, and saving and closing/reopening both WoW and the bot every time I made changes to ensure proper conditions were met if necessary. 

 

4) This sort of ties in with number 1, however, in gathering, I have noticed the bot literally just skips nodes altogether.  This was not during a vendor run (which works FLAWLESSLY, by the way, THANK YOU for that!!!), and there were literally no players or NPC enemies anywhere to be seen.  I have seen this bot skip roughly 30 nodes per profile run.  This isn't earth shattering, but something to be looked into.  To make sure it was not user error, I checked the distance to scan (I generally keep it at 350) and seriously, the nodes being skipped were almost being touched by my mount as I flew over them, WELL within 50, let alone 350.  As far as enemies, I set the max mobs (in Pandaria) to 25 since I am 93 right now and basically one shot normal mobs, and again, regardless of what I set the "Is player around" value to, without a player even being there, it would just decide not to farm some nodes...

 

5) I see no way to blacklist certain nodes, ie nodes used for questing.  For example, Kafa'kota in Kun Lai Summit and Eternal Blossom in Vale of Blossoms, they are absolutely useless, they respawn very very quickly, and the bot just keeps circling the area and picking them.  Understandably the bot is doing its job, and well, but with the respawn rate (especially of the Eternal Blossoms) being so quick, it's an endless loop of staying in that area, I counted, for over 45 minutes before moving on.  It would be very nice to be able to blacklist particular nodes, whether by name or by item ID, whichever is easier to incorporate.  If this function exists already and I have simply overlooked it, please let me know, I am human, of course, and I am not immune to "user error"...

 

6) This doesn't have to do with the bot, per se, however, it is relevant to it.  The tutorials here in the forums are quite outdated, some were created in 2012, for example, others in 2013, and that's about the latest, 2013.  The bot has obviously undergone many revisions since then, which is a good thing I am sure, but some of the menus shown in the tutorials do not even exist within the bot anymore.  I know my way around programs and menus and what not, and again, having botted in the near distant past I can figure "most" things out on my own, but maybe this list I have put together is comprised of work-arounds that already exist in the bot, but there is no new and relevant material here to let anyone know. 

 

Other than those 6 "qualms", honestly, this is a wonderful bot!  I hope you don't take that list of those 6 things as negative, because I am only offering that as constructive criticism.  The vendor and mailbox adding/handling within profile creation and actual execution are the best I have seen in any bot I have ever used!  Despite the fightbooks being a little outdated (I am using a Blood DK), I am confident I am rewrite updates versions and share them here on the forums, and even then the out dated fight books still work very well!

 

This bot is already awesome, but I also see a lot of potential in it for the future, progress, however, can only be made if people come forth and give feedback, and that is what I am doing here.  Thank you all for your time!

 

Waldo

[BetterSister 366]

Welcome to the forum!

All the things mentioned here are known issues

Blacklisting nodes:

[waldodamon 12]

I'm an idiot.  Do you know how many times I have looked directly at the box you pointed to above and read those words and was completely oblivious to it?  Wow, I feel pretty stupid right now, seriously, but thank you for pointing that out.  Had it gotten any more obvious it would have bit me in the face, ha haaa.

 

Good to know you guys are actively working on the development of this bot.  I prefer smaller more close knit communities over the larger entities like Bossland and what not...there's a much more personal feel to everything and a closers relationship to not only the community, but the bot itself.

 

If you need me for any testing, please let me know.  I love testing new facets and I notice that fight books can be written in C language, so I am going to start working on any fight books that may be needed or updated.  

 

Thanks for the warm welcome!

 

Waldo

[BetterSister 366]