Put it this way. They're doing what they can, and always have been. They say anything more elaborate, they jeopardize their efforts. The simplest and kindest way they can say "We're on it, but you can only expect so much".
No offense to Kauza, but his statement on botting is one of those that made me say, "well no shit." I don't think anyone in this forum thinks that botting is really a legitimate activity in the game. I think they want more frequent action taken to reduce its use.
I think a more meaningful statement would have been talking about things like YOLO Mouse and TurboHUD. There are always discussions posted here where the player base is split on if it is legit and/or punishable to use tools like that. He could have made a powerful statement by posting a much more encompassing statement on this clause within their terms of service.
However, I am glad to see that they have a new leader running the team and hope that he does some great things for their community.
I'd go on to say "The only way you'll really get their attention on bots, is if thousands and thousands of players start quitting for simply that reason." Then of course they'd HAVE to focus more of their efforts on stopping bots.... However, I'd near-guarantee you that thousands and thousands and thousands more players would probably stop playing once the content/seasons or whatever else had to make a cutback to put more effort into this department affordably. Also, unlike some people, I don't envision these people sleeping on bags of money at night, but instead working tirelessly and hard to create this.
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I'd be more likely to suggest that a Grindy Beat-Em-Up RPG (or whatever you end up wanting to call Diablo games, Action RPGS too sometimes) are the culprit in themselves. You cannot derive joy from playing a game like this for too long. You can't create complexity without ruining the simplicity of the beat-em-up style. People want to smash through things, but ask for a challenge. Regardless of what you add to these games, it will always be lacking "something" after a bit, and you'll forever be free to fill that "something" with what fills your imagination I suppose.
But, a few alterations or additions should be enough to sooth individuals over for small periods of time.
After all, it's just a game.
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However I've taken into consideration the poor choice in naming this mode. "greater" would technically imply it's better, but it's not. It's different. Challenge Rift or what have you may be somewhat more appropriate and cause less misunderstanding.
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1. Diablo Ladder system is dictated by things like RIF (among other persistent things like Clans having obvious advantages, people working together to glorify a single person) and everyone continues to enjoy standard Softcore (if people even still end up doing it as much)
2. No more RIF. Ladder is now strictly dictated by people excelling through concerted efforts (another perceivable problem) and everyone else in Softcore goes back to playing the game the longer/drawn out way and the developers (or people making decisions) will adjust 'gear acquire times' and difficulty based on the wealth of complaining in the forums, and their own personal preferences.
We can argue what we prefer. We can... attempt to argue what's "proper" (Hint: No 100% Good solution, must choose BEST POSSIBLE solution). But in the end, I think we know what we can likely expect. I'd imagine it'll be nerfed in some way such as Rift bosses are now entered events like normal bosses (except you can revive) and if you die in the fight at any point you're no longer "guaranteed" blood shards and excellent loot. Players only get one shot to kill him. (typically not a problem, unless you're undergeared or trying to cheat! or testing your limits; which to me aren't problems) Only seems appropriate in a scored competitive environment. Otherwise they probably should just give up on the Tiered Rift system because I'm sure this would ruin the true competitive spirit of it entirely. I can only imagine the hundreds of posts per day complaining about how people are cheating the system to get ahead in the Ladder.
Edit: Forgot to mention botting, botting will be an obvious challenge in the success of the Ladder system. Once you begin looking at all these problems... it starts to make sense why it takes so long for these things to get developed. If only they had someone on the team who could accurately foresee most (if not all) of the problems and concerns regarding most of the changes and fixes they work effortlessly on to apply. No one's perfect, some people suffer more shortsightedness than others in this regard... so I guess we can only hope for the best... or hope someone's listening so they don't make these (what I hope would be obvious) mistakes.
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That being said, when the competition arrives (Tiered Rifts), it may become a problem THEN. Because then we'll have ladders and such to match how well people can do a Rift, but it doesn't really work if everyone's cheating the Rift and being carried through the gearing aspect. That is, if people continue to pursue the RIF system within the Ladders. I imagine they're working on a feature to undermine RIF in Ladders (and probably the entire game as a result) in order to finally implement real competition in the game, and sadly as a result it may be a feature that will inevitably be undermined and fully removed.
One must consider how RIF would play out in Ladder Seasons within the current implementation.
Step 1: Choose and create a character.
Step 2: Find someone to carry you if you're late, or find a group to level with.
Step 3: Hit 70, farm gear in whatever difficulty is appropriate; gather rift keys and gold; optimize gear for Rifts and higher difficulties
.. and here's where it begins to look a bit funny...
"optimize gear for Rifts" translates to "Find someone capable of Rifting at a high tier already, or if you are that someone get someone else to open the Rifts for you."
Which becomes an unimplemented, chat related, and community driven aspect of the game.
The CORE aspect of the game, the CORE competition that now exists in the game, exists entirely within a chat community system. If you don't do RIF, you lose. So now suddenly, EVERYONE (who wishes to compete) is forced into not actually playing the game most of the time in the sense that it's actually supposed to be played.
Solution to THAT? Either complete removal of RIF (through direct nerf), or a form of real in-game implementation that supports it. Either are fine by me. (Though the latter can be likened to the Dungeon Finder system that was introduced in World of Warcraft, simplifying the game for everyone perhaps a bit too much, and removing the community aspect again as well.) It's funny how life works. Regardless, someone has to lose in this debate... and it entirely comes down to how the developers want their Competitive Scene to play out.
Edit: For the record, I've never done RIF and probably never actually will (which if it remains an aspect of the game in it's current state, would ruin the Ladder system entirely for me). But in the glorified Practice Mode we call Softcore, I enjoy some Single Player Role Playing, which would be defined as giving my character a pre-defined role (Ice Mage) and forcing myself to follow my own predetermined rules and try to make it to T6 by myself. Game becomes more interesting for me personally if I create my own challenges, because look at this game; there's absolutely no properly developed mechanic to actually challenge and reward you accordingly. (Like the Skulls system in the Halo series) Imagine if it was an actual option upon character creation, like Hardcore... if only Hardcore mode wasn't broken.
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I really wish people would stop convincing themselves "things worked this way before, let's just keep doing this forever" When reality shows there's even better methods to develop! But most people screw it up which only continues to perpetuate these fears. So please, let's try to open our mind to greater possibilities.
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No, it's not! This ISN'T the auction house. Inferno was designed to take a year to beat. People who designed Diablo 3 were complete idiots. Please let's stop comparing anything to ANYTHING they did in Vanilla. Design and balance a new class (pretty easy to do for a PVE game). To give a shitty example since I seem to need to make this much more clearer, 100,000,000 gold for the Necromancer, or 10 bucks. Takes like a week to get 100,000,000 gold with average play. A week of playing the game and NOT buying gems to unlock a class that you might want to try? OR 10 dollars to skip that week and continue allowing yourself to upgrade your gems and get that extra 200 strength in your gear for that extra bit of optimization? (Which could be translated into 10 dollars for 200 strength if you wanted to stretch it that far) But, in the end... WHAT are you optimizing that gear for? There's currently nothing you're even matched up against? There's no competition, just artificial made-up competition. Make up a few additional rules to your made up competition if you want, I don't care... In the end, none of this would even apply to the REAL competition (Seasons/Ladders Tiered Rifts). Current Softcore mode is nothing more than a glorified practice mode with Hardcore mode having always existed in a non-functional state (server connection issues killing characters), so currently, everyone who plays Diablo 3- Strictly plays it to waste their time whether they realize it or not.
I'm trying to discuss what's actually meaningful for a game being developed, not what's important in the vast majority of underdeveloped minds.
Edit: And to keep things clearer. Remember, a class as a suggestion is a subset of the game. Not everyone will be interested, most probably won't be. Therefor, it is just to 'charge' those who do SPECIFICALLY want it.
If I were to ever suggest that perhaps a new set of maps and enemies to explore and slaughter can be unlocked to you for strictly paying $10 (EA routinue), that's strict dumbassery. Some people will pay, some won't. You've just split your consumers and made your life more difficult.
If I were to suggest adding in new more powerful items. (Kind of like how the Auction house SERVED, but not acted) That would be Pay-to-Win. Undermining the goal of the game (become powerful) buy allowing direct paid access to the end. It's backwards design. The Auction house was pure idiocy, everyone working on Diablo 3 vanilla presented that. Whoever did Reaper of Souls either learned from their mistakes (bravo, few people do), or were just simply much better at their jobs.
Final Edit: I think it would be worth noting that if Blizzard DID implement Micro-transactions and maintain a fair atmosphere, they should reduce the price of Reaper of souls by 50% and make Vanilla free. They'd probably make more money, and we'd probably pay less.
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I never ONCE said Pay-to-win was a good idea.
It strictly promotes PLAY-TO-WIN traditional gaming.
Pay is there as an option, mainly a deterrent and game lengthener. People who play a lot, get rewarded equally so for those who work a lot and can't play a lot. What's wrong with that?
Every suggestion I made was with "Pay money, OR unlock in game!" and NOTHING, was regarding maps, or EXCLUSIVE game content- because that is terrible, it seperates the community which is bad. Buy SKINS (cosmetic), buy classes (similar to buying an expansion pack, but more regular and smaller and cheaper)
Every class comes with some extra game content (available for everyone for free!) that would be included with every patch, but to get the class or that fancy new part of the game, you're going to have to continue playing to unlock or (or unlock it with all that stuff you've saved up since the last patch) OR, pay with some real money (if you want to support our company) if you don't feel like playing this much or if you devalue the time it takes to manually acquire it in game and value your Real Life time more.
All valid, all representable, all fair.
Sometimes I work a lot. Sometimes I LIKE to be able to just fling 10 bucks down to get something new to do tonight before going back to work in 10 hours for another 12. SOMETIMES, I'm not doing anything for months, making no money, with a lot of time to blow. Would be nice to have something great to build and play towards in game. I can understand and feel both sides of the argument, and I support both. So let's have both damn it!
And keep in mind people, what other people decide to do with THEIR characters, and in THEIR games, has NOTHING to do with YOUR characters and YOUR game. It's all just false enemies built in your mind. Now when it comes to Open and Public games, there's some slight overlap sure. However we've all experienced public games enough now to see that really, you're frequently matched between so many different people that you probably couldn't tell the difference between someone who's bought the Necro class, or someone who unlocked the Necro class... and when it comes down to it, does anyone REALLY care if that random in your pub group bought or unlocked? Do you? Do you REALLY?
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$10 to buy a Necromancer class or skin for the Witch Doctor, or 100,000,000 gold, or materials. (Comes with additional character slots) (Imagine having to put in 50 Forgotten souls, 500 blue and white crafting mats, +10,000,000 gold to create an item that can be used to summon a boss, kill the boss and it drops a hand in (if you did the first step) and voila! New class to play!$3-5 for extra stash space or more gold, more expensive than current slots.
Additional character slots, and options to spend millions of gold every new Ladder Season for a new slot or so.
Numerous other classes, Druid/Rogue/etc, always options to unlock them in game through either Achievements, Difficult Quests or Grinding (or free if you've been playing a long time and managed to save up ridiculous amounts of Resources to unlock these characters).
Microtransactions are acceptable as a suplement, not as a main gating mechanism. Allow the rich or those without time a chance to experience everything in the game, but obviously not for nothing. You're either going to play the game to get unlock these additional FEATURES (not content), or fork over a few bucks so you don't have to. It's often the difference between dedication (cheaper for the individuals who stick with the game), more expensive for people who burn through everything and then put the game on the shelf till the next content patch or something. That's what I see.
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But...
a) Is it what I expected? No not at all.
c) Do I want to keep playing it? No not at all, why? Because of no end game? Maybe, I think more so that there's really nothing that stands out in the game. It's like every other game of the series with a few of its own unique quirks. Yet it has a childish retconned story, annoying end-game play. A not-so-interesting or fun F2P system. Even the leveling isn't even really that fun, too many restrictions not enough freedom in this game. So, mediocre.
d) Could they have done better? I expected so, but I guess from their recent history I should've expected this.
I can't even load the game up anymore. I tried about a week ago or so, I got to the character selection screen and just closed it. I look at these patch notes and they're the furthest thing from interesting now. Bleh...