This could be an unpopular opinion, actually I know it is among senior EB users, but I think 3.0 is a great opportunity for the EB staff to start fresh with the EB forums and the user friendliness of the bot itself. We have had multiple discussions about the steep learning curve on EB, and drudging the forums that are in disarray among so many plugins and profiles that may or may not be supported still is a chore in itself. I think this huge upcoming downtown for 3.0 is a good time to really evaluate some of the core mechanics of the bot (more/different routines, explinations, etc.). More importantly, it could be really awesome to just flat out archive the vast majority of the forums and start fresh with new plugins (user or staff made, doesn't matter) and attempt to keep things in a bit of order for new users to find their first grounds to stand on. I know the staff is limited, this isn't a knock on the hard work ya'll do to keep things going, or the community members who have dedicated significant time to helping new people or sharing profiles/plugins etc. This is merely a suggestion since the timing could be right. It has taken me two seasons to get the bot to do the basics that I have needed to, maybe with 3.0 and a little revamp that time could get cut down significantly.
While I totally agree, I have two things: 1) It's been said by pushedx and others that there's a reason for the long history of posts/threads in the forums. The idea of 'cleaning up' the forums comes up time and time again and there's a reason it hasn't happened. 2) I'd much rather see the functionality of the bot be improved - routines, pathing, etc. - rather than use developer's time on friendliness, GUIs, documentation, etc. Maybe it's just my opinion, but those who struggle with the basics of getting the bot running are the same people who don't put in the time and effort to figure things out on their own. Many have the bot running just fine and they all had to go through the same learning curve that any new user will have. I agree it's not the most user-friendly bot, but it's not high on my own personal list of 'to-do's'.
For forum stuff, I do want to archive the current board and get a new clean EB section setup for 3.0 stuff. However, there's no point in making those changes until after all 3.0 stuff is actually done, because of what's going to change will affect how the forums are organized. However, we'll never be able to solve the issue of people not wanting to read or take the time to understand how things work. I see tons of posts of people complaining about information not being available on things that are directly talked about and linked from the stickies, so I'm not to worried about that issue. While it'd be nice to always keep all content 100% up to date, the game and project changes too frequently for that to be a reality. When users point out useful and common information is missing, we'll gladly get that taken care of as soon as possible, but most most things I see are just a result of people not reading the forums or not understanding the game. There's no way we can document the game and explain all the random issues it causes for EB, so those get answered when inquired upon on a per-thread basics. I say that because if I have to keep answering the same question over and over, or keep helping people with an issue in EB itself, then it's far less work in the long run to provide the common thread or make the EB change. The whole motivation of the current ThirdParty system in place was because I got tired of having to help people solve issues of plugins who used different folder names than they should have, along with any number of other issues the old system kept having. The new upcoming system will continue to expand upon that and so on. If you have examples of something common that isn't actually mentioned anywhere in the main threads that'd help people out, please feel free to point it out! Obviously I'm the person most familiar with everything here, so it's easy for me to overlook something just because I'm so familiar with it. For non-forum stuff, a lot of things are already planned and being worked on, but more information will come later when it's ready. However, I will say with where some of the non-API core changes at currently at, devs will be extremely happy with the way things will be working, and the next evolution of EB will allow things to reach new highs than were ever possible with the current setup. On the topic of "user friendliness" though, I see people throw around that term, but they don't really explain what they mean or give concrete examples that make sense in context of Path of Exile. So, what do you mean? I feel a lot of people who say EB isn't user friendly really mean "EB doesn't do what I want it to", which is fine in itself, but obviously isn't productive. Our position on most of those issues is, do it yourself or find someone in the community that can, because we're more focused on cases of "EB can't do what I want it to". That distinction is what sets most of the Buddybots apart from others, although it frustrates our users a lot, but it's for a very specific reason. The project ceiling in terms of capabilities and potential is only bound to the game itself when you invest into an API like we do. We're always working towards new and improved ways to do things so the project can evolve alongside the game, while providing the platform necessary for it to grow and expand. The alternative in focusing on specializing the bot and features provided is more commonly done by projects in general, but for a game like Path of Exile, it requires an unrealistic amount of resources for the frequent maintenance and changes, so it's never been a practical approach to even consider. Anyways, what I'm getting at is there always has, and always will be a massive gap between the improvements EB makes that users can see (being the minority) and the ones users can't see (being the majority). There's a lot that is possible to do in EB now, that simply wasn't possible a year ago. A lot of the things possible a year ago, weren't possible the year before, and so on. The current stuff being worked on right now is (hopefully) going to make significant things possible soon that have always been talked about, that just weren't feasible in the past. This in turn will allow us to actually solve the problems that contribute to "EB doesn't do what I want it to" in a way that we can actually manage which should help improve "user friendless" issues people bring up.
It is unfortunate that even being on and off on EB, I still post about people complaining this isn't "USER FRIENDLY". I have no coding experience and have not been able to do custom stuff until a few leagues back in Prophecy but my goodness... all it took was little effort on my end and I was able to open up a whole new channel of things to do with the bot. But even before that, when I first started using EB back in 2014ish? I was able to get the bot to function the way I wanted it to (with some kinks) without constantly posting about the "difficulty" of the bot. Sure, I am not using this to make money like those of you in the community, and that may be the case why I am not so nip picky, but it seems that I am having similar results nonetheless. Every league I am able to gear up all the toons I want to play with BiS gear and burn currency crafting stupid crap for funsies.
Personally.. Ive been disappointed by EB.. I see lots of potential here.. but its not there yet.. I liked demonbudy and I liked Honorbuddy.. but with the amount of time ive spent trying to get this thing to work well, i might as well just play the game myself. My biggest complaint is class/routine/skill support.. Ive started several builds just to watch the bot suck at them horribly just to abandon them. OldRoutine is what it is and its decent for leveling.. but I don't want to pay for a bot to level my characters.. I want to pay for a bot that can handle The skills I want to play with and that I can let farm T10+ maps while im asleep.. Or let it go for a while and actually break level 90. The only build I got anywhere near close to farming end game content was a coc-discharger that I hated but its all I could get work decently thanks to WiNs hard work making the routine. Ive probably read every post in the EB forum more than once.. Ive spent hours at a time reading wins posts to configure my flask helper, item filters set up, playe with danger dodger an chicken ect.. but when it comes down to it with EB... if you on't know how to code at all, theres only so much you can get out of the forums.
Don't lie, you most certainly have not read every post. The bot doesn't work for you because you need your hands held through every, single, step. Aint no one got time for that. EB requires someone who has actually wants to figure things out.
If there was a way to track it, youd be able to that I have in fact read every even remotely relevant post, and plenty that weren't, in every EB sub section except maybe support.. and i still read a lot of that. Ive downloaded every even somewhat working plugin on here and done my best to figure it out.. AIF and Flask Helper took me a long time to figure out.. but I did.. Just because I don't know how to code and have no idea what to do with a combat routine to get my skills to cast correctly, doesnt mean I don't want to figure things out or have tried for that matter.. Hell ive even looked into learning how to.. I have several friends that do it and one of my best friends from high school just got picked up by raytheon.. but with my ptsd I dont have the attention span for it and after a while everything becomes a jumble of letters on the screen.. Im not saying that trying to get sympathy or anything like that.. thats just how it is for me.. I still have a sub dont I? Just because im disappointed by it sometimes doesnt mean I still dont enjoy using it.. It sucks that im paying for something that I lack the skills to use it to its full potential, but what are my other options? I was merely defending the user friendly complaint. This is how EB is advertised on the sale page.. Our opinions of "Easy to setup" must be wildly different. 1 Session - 1 Month Farming on Act 1-4, fully clearing areas Efficient town runs and stash Intelligent loot filters Works with Windows Vista - W8 Easy to setup WE HAVE OVER 259.000 REGISTERED USERS AND OVER 2.0 MILLION POSTS OUR FAST AND ENTHUSIASTIC COMMUNITY IS THE EASY WAY TO GET ANY HELP & SUPPORT YOU NEED
t/;dr What's your issue? Are you upset about routines not being tailor-made for every build you'd like to try? That's tough - here's a suggestion. Have you ever thought to tailor-make a build around what works well with the bot? It just MIGHT be easier to "recode" your build rather than "recode" the bot. I know that's some reverse engineering type of stuff, and it may be too complicated for you to comprehend, but it's just a suggestion.
Best advice I can give you: - Read through the Botting efficiency & theorycrafting post, lots of useful information there - In general, the best advise is: Go for a a build that doesn't require anything fancy or complicated. One direct spell gem / attack gem and you're mostly good to go. I'm still using HoWA ST from last league on my bots and most are 97+ without a shit ton of investment in fancy gear or anything the like (except HoWA) - OldRoutine works very well with simple and easy builds, so chose a build that fits OldRoutine instead of chosing a build that requires extra work to make things work.
The main problem in my opinion is searching a bunch of different forums to find all the plugins you need. Some are in the Com Dev forum, some Plugins, some Routines, some General. It takes me a while to set up a fresh copy of the bot and I know exactly what I'm looking for, it must be a nightmare for new users.
That indeed is a problem. If someone had the time to make a comprehensive writeup of the "must-have" plugins that would help, but with 3.0 looming I don't think there's much sense to do that. Also people asking questions in every different forum and not just support also makes it a bitch to find information. It would be a good thing to have additional moderators in here to help clean up the mess.
The nice thing though is that most builds will use all of the same plugins - routines are typically the only thing that changes. Once you get the plugins once, you're much better set up for the next build you'd like to try.
I've told forum staff I will be doing some revamps soon of the EB forums, and am waiting to hear back on making it happen. I agree though that the forum setup has never matched EB's setup, and I want to make more of an effort in actually fixing those things.
