Has botting in PvP gotten out of control? No going back?

[Hb]

Blizzard doesnt care..

[zenga]

Blizzard doesnt care..

Funny statement ... while Blizzard has banned a couple of 100k players less than 24h ago.

[Bakis]

Funny statement ... while Blizzard has banned a couple of 100k players less than 24h ago.

Think he meant that they do a banwave once per expac and let people cheat pretty safely for the other 18 months falls under the 'dont care' department.
Of cos they do care and the question should be how little (in my view) do they care

[Johnkie]

Ye its retarded 80% of the BG's is bots, and it is so obvious who is bots and who is not.
Blizzard i am volunteering to spectate BG games and search for bots.
volunteering with pay obviously!
Usually i BG'ed alot if i did not like the current arena.
Well in mop entire arena have been trash imho.
So i could do BG's instead, but noooo thats even more trash.

[Verain]

The inability to fix bots is a huge blight on battlegrounds. Botting has always been out of control, but recently it has become moreso.


There's a few reasons for it. Some are the fault of the designers:

1- A fresh 90 is about as geared as a 62 was back in BC. The item level gap is insulting, unnecessary (there are other ways to make a power delta in raids besides having 100+ ilvls), and makes for a massive gear treadmill even for non raiders.
2- PvP gear is a huge step up from baseline crap gear.
3- PvP is unplayable without some pvp gear. If you go in without honor gear, you may as well be botting. Your CC will be the only contribution you bring until you have plenty of honor gear to step over your terriblues.

Some are the fault of the developers, programmers, and GMs:

1- It's still too easy to bot. There's no way to kick a bot.
2- Blizzard is unwilling to ban in the numbers required. This is a bigger issue in the non-US realms, but remains a problem even there.
3- Bots proliferate and go a long time without there being any punishment. Bots go for so long unchecked that the average player actually assumes botting is a safe activity with no repercussions- an impression not entirely false. When the banwave finally does happen, the players are indignant and offended in much larger numbers.

If bots were banned weekly, no exceptions, players would be mortified to use a bot. The punishment for being caught botting once should likely be a week suspension, and with such a softer glove you gain a lot of benefits. First, you don't need to be 100% sure like they apparently are today. Second, your pissed off SO who can log into your account can't get you permabanned with teleport hacks and bots, and you get a strong lesson in account security. Third, with such an aggressive posture many borderline botters would be dissuaded.



I hate random BGs because of the bots. It makes me feel like I'm a sucker for not botting. The bots need to be banned quickly and reliably. The level of service is not where it needs to be to stop this.

[Reddbull23]

The inability to fix bots is a huge blight on battlegrounds. Botting has always been out of control, but recently it has become moreso.


There's a few reasons for it. Some are the fault of the designers:

1- A fresh 90 is about as geared as a 62 was back in BC. The item level gap is insulting, unnecessary (there are other ways to make a power delta in raids besides having 100+ ilvls), and makes for a massive gear treadmill even for non raiders.
2- PvP gear is a huge step up from baseline crap gear.
3- PvP is unplayable without some pvp gear. If you go in without honor gear, you may as well be botting. Your CC will be the only contribution you bring until you have plenty of honor gear to step over your terriblues.

Some are the fault of the developers, programmers, and GMs:

1- It's still too easy to bot. There's no way to kick a bot.
2- Blizzard is unwilling to ban in the numbers required. This is a bigger issue in the non-US realms, but remains a problem even there.
3- Bots proliferate and go a long time without there being any punishment. Bots go for so long unchecked that the average player actually assumes botting is a safe activity with no repercussions- an impression not entirely false. When the banwave finally does happen, the players are indignant and offended in much larger numbers.

If bots were banned weekly, no exceptions, players would be mortified to use a bot. The punishment for being caught botting once should likely be a week suspension, and with such a softer glove you gain a lot of benefits. First, you don't need to be 100% sure like they apparently are today. Second, your pissed off SO who can log into your account can't get you permabanned with teleport hacks and bots, and you get a strong lesson in account security. Third, with such an aggressive posture many borderline botters would be dissuaded.



I hate random BGs because of the bots. It makes me feel like I'm a sucker for not botting. The bots need to be banned quickly and reliably. The level of service is not where it needs to be to stop this.

Perfect! couldn't have put it any better. People need to have real fear about using botting programs and not think that they will never get caught.

[zenga]

If bots were banned weekly, no exceptions, players would be mortified to use a bot. The punishment for being caught botting once should likely be a week suspension, and with such a softer glove you gain a lot of benefits. First, you don't need to be 100% sure like they apparently are today. Second, your pissed off SO who can log into your account can't get you permabanned with teleport hacks and bots, and you get a strong lesson in account security. Third, with such an aggressive posture many borderline botters would be dissuaded.

I hate random BGs because of the bots. It makes me feel like I'm a sucker for not botting. The bots need to be banned quickly and reliably. The level of service is not where it needs to be to stop this.

Bots are banned weekly, daily. If you check one of the main bot programs their forum ban section, you will notice that every day a good amount of banned reports come in.

The problem is two-folded imo: on one hand bots get more and more sophisticated after every ban wave, on the other hand Blizzard is restricted as to what they can scan on your computer due to privacy laws, and thus crippled in the battle to beat bots. The ones that are being banned on a daily basis are because of reports from the player base and/or because repetitive offenders.

And the main issue imo is that bots are - in theory - capable to score world firsts and get rank 1. It just require someone to put the time and effort into it. But a bot beats any human when it comes to flawlessly repeating steps. Be it on a car production line, or be it in wow. And nothing blizzard can do about that, it's just the way technology works.

The only reason I believe they can win the fight is by taking the incentive to bot away, which requires them to change the way gear is acquired. But as long as players need to go through a painful honor grind, more and more people will start to bot since it's a snowball effect.

[Saberstrike]

Just remove battleground gear grind and people won't have a reason to bot.

[Bakis]

Just remove battleground gear grind and people won't have a reason to bot.

Even that it sound horrendiously wrong I would prefer crafted non-rated PvP gear and remove it from BG honor.
There would still be issues with botting though as long as there are conversion possible between for example Honor <--> Justice points etc.
They need to fix such issues as well then and I'm sure BLZ would never do that cos it would not only punish but piss off the majority which is not botting.

[tauntor]

Botting in pvp? Remove all pvp gear from character. Botting in raid? remove all raid gear from character. This should be the new rule. The person would mostly likely stay subbed, learn from their mistake, and not have to level a new account.

[Saberstrike]

Oh let's face it, we're all used to bots in pve farming ore and whatnot, Blizz may herald as much as they want about their victories over it but pve in WoW is grindy by it's nature so I doubt bots will ever be gone for good from the game.

PvP on the other hand has been made unbarable in this expansion. It's not really enjoyable without at least ~30ish % pvp power (that's on top of AT LEAST average ilevel of 500) and it still takes hours upon hours of gear-grind to even be remotely useful. Which is why so many people bot - they want a proper competition without having to endure the drudgery.

So long as we're on the subject, a more RP-like way to acquire pvp gear would indeed be crafting as, let's be honest, and I said it many times before -- no football player in the world has to score 10 goals while wearing rags and flip-flops to earn sports shoes and proper body-wear.

[Stormspellz]

Funny statement ... while Blizzard has banned a couple of 100k players less than 24h ago.

about 6months to late, just like everything related to pvp.

[Bakis]

Bots are banned weekly, daily. If you check one of the main bot programs their forum ban section, you will notice that every day a good amount of banned reports come in.

The problem is two-folded imo: on one hand bots get more and more sophisticated after every ban wave, on the other hand Blizzard is restricted as to what they can scan on your computer due to privacy laws, and thus crippled in the battle to beat bots. The ones that are being banned on a daily basis are because of reports from the player base and/or because repetitive offenders.

And the main issue imo is that bots are - in theory - capable to score world firsts and get rank 1. It just require someone to put the time and effort into it. But a bot beats any human when it comes to flawlessly repeating steps. Be it on a car production line, or be it in wow. And nothing blizzard can do about that, it's just the way technology works.

The only reason I believe they can win the fight is by taking the incentive to bot away, which requires them to change the way gear is acquired. But as long as players need to go through a painful honor grind, more and more people will start to bot since it's a snowball effect.

You can also add as always revenue. It is not by chance that BLZ gladly adopted anti-cheat mechanics where the responsibility lays on the players.
We take cheating seriously,(you just have to type a lenghty report/click a button and hope some GM reads it and cares enough to look it into it apart from sending you a predefined ticket response).

;o

[Osmeric]

Oh let's face it, we're all used to bots in pve farming ore and whatnot,

EDIT: I misread that. Snark deleted.

[Saberstrike]

I'm not saying I like bots. I'm just saying some things are way too stubborn. Like roaches. If they really want to live somewhere there's bugger-all you can do even with millions of dollars' worth of chemistry / exterminators. You can stomp on them with your report-boots and deal with one at a time but they'll just keep coming. ;|

[Toralin]

If you play at 'prime time' it's never really noticeable.

[Vaelkyri]

Holy shit, this is BAD.

Link this on the Blizzard forums and tell me how they respond haha.

Knowing them, they'll probably just delete the thread.

I did, it was redirected to the customer service graveyard, all the vids were deleted and I received a warning for "naming" botters. The CS rep also told me that I should be reporting the bots instead of recording them.- Yeh, let me just sit here and report 30 fucking bots per game, not like I wanted to play or anything.

[Kazdum]

Dont hate on bots bro.
Im pretty sure if Blizzard ban all the bots today, tomorrow bg queue time goes to 45 min.

[morislayer]

The inability to fix bots is a huge blight on battlegrounds. Botting has always been out of control, but recently it has become moreso.


There's a few reasons for it. Some are the fault of the designers:

1- A fresh 90 is about as geared as a 62 was back in BC. The item level gap is insulting, unnecessary (there are other ways to make a power delta in raids besides having 100+ ilvls), and makes for a massive gear treadmill even for non raiders.
2- PvP gear is a huge step up from baseline crap gear.
3- PvP is unplayable without some pvp gear. If you go in without honor gear, you may as well be botting. Your CC will be the only contribution you bring until you have plenty of honor gear to step over your terriblues.

Some are the fault of the developers, programmers, and GMs:

1- It's still too easy to bot. There's no way to kick a bot.
2- Blizzard is unwilling to ban in the numbers required. This is a bigger issue in the non-US realms, but remains a problem even there.
3- Bots proliferate and go a long time without there being any punishment. Bots go for so long unchecked that the average player actually assumes botting is a safe activity with no repercussions- an impression not entirely false. When the banwave finally does happen, the players are indignant and offended in much larger numbers.

If bots were banned weekly, no exceptions, players would be mortified to use a bot. The punishment for being caught botting once should likely be a week suspension, and with such a softer glove you gain a lot of benefits. First, you don't need to be 100% sure like they apparently are today. Second, your pissed off SO who can log into your account can't get you permabanned with teleport hacks and bots, and you get a strong lesson in account security. Third, with such an aggressive posture many borderline botters would be dissuaded.



I hate random BGs because of the bots. It makes me feel like I'm a sucker for not botting. The bots need to be banned quickly and reliably. The level of service is not where it needs to be to stop this.

This is such the sad truth of MOP gearing in pvp. Well put my friend. I have my dual spec with all 496 honor gear and even then I feel weak. I have an alt on another server different faction in pve timeless gear (dont raid) and I'm infuriated after 1 bg how sad it is to take me out.

The item level gap in pvp IS a slap in the face to new alts hitting 90. 458 gear is a joke, 476 gear or w/e from crafted pvp is also a joke. To add insult to injury, PVE gets timeless open chest for 496 epic isle, while pvp is stuck with a 2 week grind to 496 gear. This last season needs to address ilvl bloat in pvp as their pve design drastically affects pvp ilvl.

Once you are geared, random bg's become semi fun as you can live, heal and kill effectively, Finally! Why has blizzard decided PVP needs to be gated at the 496 level this patch and not pve is absurd. I can't blame a person for botting when Blizzard instituted no method for quick catch up, and being at the 470ish level at 90 is an HK pinata.

[zenga]

This is such the sad truth of MOP gearing in pvp. Well put my friend. I have my dual spec with all 496 honor gear and even then I feel weak. I have an alt on another server different faction in pve timeless gear (dont raid) and I'm infuriated after 1 bg how sad it is to take me out.

The item level gap in pvp IS a slap in the face to new alts hitting 90. 458 gear is a joke, 476 gear or w/e from crafted pvp is also a joke. To add insult to injury, PVE gets timeless open chest for 496 epic isle, while pvp is stuck with a 2 week grind to 496 gear. This last season needs to address ilvl bloat in pvp as their pve design drastically affects pvp ilvl.

Once you are geared, random bg's become semi fun as you can live, heal and kill effectively, Finally! Why has blizzard decided PVP needs to be gated at the 496 level this patch and not pve is absurd. I can't blame a person for botting when Blizzard instituted no method for quick catch up, and being at the 470ish level at 90 is an HK pinata.

I agree that the pvp honor grind is absurd with the current amount of bots. However you forget that you get a catch up conquest cap, where you -this late in the season - can obtain pretty much all relevant gear fairly quickly, by rbg or by doing arenas. Before the conquest cap was introduced it was even worse. So they have made steps towards improving the system. And with the new cross spec gearing system in WoD, it should even be smoother for hybrids. e.g. it's most often way easier to cap as resto shaman than as ele shaman in 2s, but I want to gear ele first. First weeks I can stay on par in my 496 off spec resto gear, but once a few weeks into the season it gets problematic.

Still the crafted vs honor vs conquest gear discrepancy is too big imo. Making a few crafted pieces ilvl 496 would make a big difference, kinda like how you can buy every tier a couple of normal raid ilvl crafted items. They shouldn't make all crafted gier the same as the honor level, but a couple would be nice.