How do you know if a player is "botting" in a dungeon?

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I was in heroic Auch today and after first boss a votekick goes up for one of the dps with the reason given "player is botting". I didn't vote either way because I didn't feel I had an informed opinion on the matter. Of course the kick went through; I swear most players vote yes without even reading. Pulls were going too fast to chat at the time, but after Teron'gor went down I asked "How do you know when a player is botting? And who has time to notice, at the pace of heroics these days?" Everyone had left group by the time I typed this except one other dps, who lol'd and said he didn't know.

[Deleted]

If he did 0 dps it might have been only a play of words for using /follow or something. It's generally very hard to detect if someone is botting as a common player unless you look very closely at stuff he does that are very hard to pull off or impossible to do as a normal player. A common example is detecting cheating in pvp by observing them having a consistent and repetitive behavior in using spells, for example swiftly dispelling something important at almost the exact moment each time.

However, a technical issue with this sort of thing is that since this game is governed by a GCD for most spells, it's very hard to tell in most cases that the fast use of spells can be botting so it needs that careful observation of repetition to be done very thoroughly or observe them doing something that is actually not possible normally.

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A lame bot could generally follow the players in the 5mans around and do a basic spell attack only to pretend it's playing. Then again, it's also hard to detect because someone may be just a bad player. It might be better in this case to see if his movement patterns are weird.

[Deleted]

google it. See what bots are, see how people write scripts for them and how many people are angry because it's not running very clean. You will realize that to have a bot even following a certain group of people without standing totally out by things like reaction time is almost impossible. At least you will notice it 100%.

I get my leveling multibox alts kicked sometimes by some idiot who clearly has no fucking clue about anything, just because he sees my alt following me. Most often these players are also very bad.

[PosPosPos]

google it. See what bots are, see how people write scripts for them and how many people are angry because it's not running very clean. You will realize that to have a bot even following a certain group of people without standing totally out by things like reaction time is almost impossible. At least you will notice it 100%.

I get my leveling multibox alts kicked sometimes by some idiot who clearly has no fucking clue about anything, just because he sees my alt following me. Most often these players are also very bad.

Or maybe, people don't like multiboxers and the bad name they have given themselves in the past few years.

Not saying it is or isn't justified, just stating a fact.

[Deleted]

Or maybe, people don't like multiboxers and the bad name they have given themselves in the past few years.

Not saying it is or isn't justified, just stating a fact.

That sounds like just your (not peoples) opinion since you obviously completely ignored the topic and focused on that part.

[PosPosPos]

That sounds like just your (not peoples) opinion since you obviously completely ignored the topic and focused on that part.

/shrug

I know many players who hate multiboxers, so maybe it is you with an extremely narrow view on the situation. You might have erroneously assumed that people kicked you out of the dungeon for botting, but in actuality know you are simply a multiboxer.

Personally, I am neutral unless it hurts my friends' or my own interests, but it seems you think that multiboxers are viewed with a good light in any MMO community.

[Deleted]

This topic is about how people kick by not having any clue what a bot is. And you say they know they are no bots but just dislike the guys they kick and put the "bot" as "excuse" in? Also I am quiet certain your image of multiboxer is completely different from what I wrote about how I do it (2 chars, RaF, low level dungeon, performing wonders).. and tbh I do know why people kick and it's not that they have some agenda. It's what OP thinks: They are just clueless.

[ls-]

I have issues w/ multiboxers sometimes. Some are smart, some are dumb af. When I was levelling, I encountered many healer+dps dualboxers, who could neither dps, nor heal. We usually kicked them ASAP.

[Deleted]

You can't tell as some players won't even talk to you, that's the surest point you could make.
I don't think there is actually a reason to kick them as long as their botting doesn't affect you.
Maybe you should just openly blame him of botting in the chat and see if he reacts?!

This topic is about how people kick by not having any clue what a bot is. And you say they know they are no bots but just dislike the guys they kick and put the "bot" as "excuse" in? Also I am quiet certain your image of multiboxer is completely different from what I wrote about how I do it (2 chars, RaF, low level dungeon, performing wonders).. and tbh I do know why people kick and it's not that they have some agenda. It's what OP thinks: They are just clueless.

I got thrown in with a multiboxer once, Hills of Razorfen, Me as tank, another healer and 3 bloody hunters with almost the same name. You can't even kick them if you wanted to. Same goes for 3 player groups though.
Or how does that work?
I know a group of 3 alone cannot kick any player since their votes count as one.

[Adramelch]

I got kicked from a dungeon yesterday (me being the tank) for saying "you're going the wrong way" (which they were). I do believe that some people just vote for kicking without really bothering to even read the reason.

More on topic, some bots you can typically tell, but most are not really obvious when doing dungeons.

[Deleted]

I got thrown in with a multiboxer once, Hills of Razorfen, Me as tank, another healer and 3 bloody hunters with almost the same name. You can't even kick them if you wanted to. Same goes for 3 player groups though.
Or how does that work?
I know a group of 3 alone cannot kick any player since their votes count as one.

Well (I do RaF leveling myself) for maxing exp/h I always level 1 tank and 1 dps (pref. hunter/mage). And it seems if you premade your group you can only kickvote with 4 ppl and kicked by just 3 ppl.

[Rafoel]

I got thrown in with a multiboxer once, Hills of Razorfen, Me as tank, another healer and 3 bloody hunters with almost the same name. You can't even kick them if you wanted to. Same goes for 3 player groups though.
Or how does that work?
I know a group of 3 alone cannot kick any player since their votes count as one.

At least they focused the mobs well.


That said, it's easy to spot a botter if you know what to look for. Many players won't notice a botter even if you push him in their face. Those who had a lot of contact with similar programs in various games can spot a botter almost immediately. There are kinds of behaviour that NEVER appear in humans, but are common in bots.

[Livevil]

It was wod dungeon weekened and i was doing heroics about late summer last year. It was SBG and there are certain parts were interrupting is needed. That's when i noticed interrupts were being executed abnormally fast. Like milliseconds after the castbar gets displayed. After happening twice during the first 2 packs i switch to interrupts on recount and of course there's only one person there, the ret paladin. At first i thought "he is just using a rotation bot/kickbot" but i started watching him closely as we progressed through the instance.

He would follow the exact moving pattern as the tank but always lagging behind about 15 yards, so it wasnt a simple case of /follow but rather logging the coordinates of the tank and using them as a guide to move. This became obvious when after killing the 2nd boss the tank had to move back to loot the quest item from the Inn quests, which is just before the 1st boss. Paladin went after him in the exact same moving pattern but in a "safe" distance. Another dead giveaway was that he was using click to move. That's when i started intentionally asking in party chat " Why are you following the tank, come lets continue", then eventually all the rest members jumped in asking various questions which ofc he never answered. When the tank returned, he dced and got kicked or left (dont rly remember). The moment the tank left, the paladin just stood there in the exact same spot like he had just been switched off. Zero movement, zero targeting, no chatting.

I dont remember what happened afterwards but i think he got kicked.

[Deleted]

Well (I do RaF leveling myself) for maxing exp/h I always level 1 tank and 1 dps (pref. hunter/mage). And it seems if you premade your group you can only kickvote with 4 ppl and kicked by just 3 ppl.

But what about kicking one out of a group of 3? Does that even work?

At least they focused the mobs well.

That said, it's easy to spot a botter if you know what to look for. Many players won't notice a botter even if you push him in their face. Those who had a lot of contact with similar programs in various games can spot a botter almost immediately. There are kinds of behaviour that NEVER appear in humans, but are common in bots.

I have only ever seen one bot that I am certain about, must have been buggy though.
It was a hunter farming the ogres in Tanaris, it would run towards the next ogre but stay away a fair distance without attacking, whenever I had killed that mob it would run to the next mob and not attack it.

It was wod dungeon weekened and i was doing heroics about late summer last year. It was SBG and there are certain parts were interrupting is needed. That's when i noticed interrupts were being executed abnormally fast. Like milliseconds after the castbar gets displayed. After happening twice during the first 2 packs i switch to interrupts on recount and of course there's only one person there, the ret paladin. At first i thought "he is just using a rotation bot/kickbot" but i started watching him closely as we progressed through the instance.

He would follow the exact moving pattern as the tank but always lagging behind about 15 yards, so it wasnt a simple case of /follow but rather logging the coordinates of the tank and using them as a guide to move. This became obvious when after killing the 2nd boss the tank had to move back to loot the quest item from the Inn quests, which is just before the 1st boss. Paladin went after him in the exact same moving pattern but in a "safe" distance. Another dead giveaway was that he was using click to move. That's when i started intentionally asking in party chat " Why are you following the tank, come lets continue", then eventually all the rest members jumped in asking various questions which ofc he never answered. When the tank returned, he dced and got kicked or left (dont rly remember). The moment the tank left, the paladin just stood there in the exact same spot like he had just been switched off. Zero movement, zero targeting, no chatting.

I dont remember what happened afterwards but i think he got kicked.

Too bad the tank got kicked, could have asked him to run in circles. Would have been a dead giveaway.

[Hypasonic]

Honestly the term "bot" is just a player who is either: doing pitiful damage or is just slacking in some form or other. When they do that and simply don't talk after you ask them stuff multiple times, but they just stand there, yeah that's my definition of a bot. Ofcourse actual bots exist, but the majority of the time it's the scenario I stated above.

[Deleted]

Bots using only basic spells or following afk is big misconception. Those aren't bots. Those are simply assholes that should get booted.

Bots are usually doing almost perfect rotation, while standing in stuff and getting stuck in terrain. In dungeons they follow specific player, usually tank, and attack everything that player attacks.

The only reliable way to spot a bot is if bot got stuck in terrain. Or if you skipped some packs, bots might run into those packs repeatedly.

[Deleted]

No need to generalize. There are bots of all kinds and players of all kinds. You can stumble upon buggy bots or impressive bots or players that play like bots or not.

[Tharkkun]

google it. See what bots are, see how people write scripts for them and how many people are angry because it's not running very clean. You will realize that to have a bot even following a certain group of people without standing totally out by things like reaction time is almost impossible. At least you will notice it 100%.

I get my leveling multibox alts kicked sometimes by some idiot who clearly has no fucking clue about anything, just because he sees my alt following me. Most often these players are also very bad.

If your Alt is on follow and doesn't contribute to the group then I'll definitely votekick it.

[Raiju]

If your Alt is on follow and doesn't contribute to the group then I'll definitely votekick it.

I assume it was just doing as most multiboxers do & casting identical spells with the main char at same target, so 'contributing'. That being said I don't like multiboxers, and I'll generally not give them slack compared to not giving a shit about most. If a multiboxer messes up the run causing deaths (we seriously dont need wipes in low level dungeons) I'm more likely to vote kick.

[Fynzie]

If he seems better than the average player still running dungeons, he is probably botting.