Bots - Out of hand now?

[Deleted]

simple,
Do you
1 - Treat the symptoms (ban the bots immediately that you know of)
2 - Find a cure to the disease (Wait, Study, and Fix the way that they work so breaking them all at once)

I know that bots hurt the game, however blizzard have stated many many times that they study the bots, find out how they work, fix the game so they no longer work, then a mass ban wave comes in.

[Pann]

simple,
Do you
1 - Treat the symptoms (ban the bots immediately that you know of)
2 - Find a cure to the disease (Wait, Study, and Fix the way that they work so breaking them all at once)

I know that bots hurt the game, however blizzard have stated many many times that they study the bots, find out how they work, fix the game so they no longer work, then a mass ban wave comes in.

I'm sure if Blizzard wanted to they could buy a botting program and know everything they need to know about how it works within a week or two without the need to study it. As for mass ban waves apart from the Archeology bot bans when was the last one? I cannot remember one after the mass bannings at the beginning of TBC.

[Deleted]

Direct links if images are not showing up:

http://postimage.org/image/jro7eb8b5/
http://postimage.org/image/stsgwqdlx/

The above are just 2 out of many, many images I have taken showing how ridiculously out of hand bots are.

The first image is of me standing among a whole horde team (15 bots) and them not doing jack to me. A whole 100% of a team botting? Nice.

The second image shows a WSG where the alliance bots had broken and they were just being aoed down at the graveyard.

I have never been more annoyed at a game than right now - why should I bother doing this tedious grind over again to 90 when I could spend a few quid, go to sleep, and wake up 90 with no effort other than setting up the bot in the first place.

What is Blizzard playing at? Why don't they ban them? People say they ban in waves, but it's got worse - there used to be at least 1 person I could talk to in a BG that wasnt botting, maybe even several. Now It's literally spot the human being. It's retarded. And it's bullshit to the legit players. What gives?

You know that blizzard have shut down several bots already right? Glider was one of the biggest a few years ago and they took that down which took time due to court etc etc, then they took down Pirox, which had pretty much replaced Glider, now to my knowledge there is only two "big" bots left. Also blizzard wont simply ban a account after 1 report without any other kind of evidence. Which is a good thing, otherwise a lot of players would prob get banned without reason. Just saying relax and enjoy the times when the enemy team is filled with bots... free win :P

[cFortyfive]

Bots have become casual. There are so many people botting I am not actually sure on my server if there even is a single person farming stuff and putting it on the ah.

[Deleted]

Problem being that the only way to beat a bot, is to bot yourself (and no I do not bot)... Which is why I believe so many people do it. You report, and report, and report, and see no results at all... I know that Blizzard are working on the issue, but I feel that they really need to step up to the plate and try even harder... Cheating should not be profitable.

[Deleted]

Banning the bots is simple. Blizzard needs to know where the bots come from, get someone to buy 1 bot, see how it works and get rid of it. Simple.


That said, I never understood why people get bots. I mean let's see, you have a game, you already pay for it, and then you pay for a bot to... play the game for you? Ummm.... kind of defeats the point, does it not?

[Deleted]

So you are saying you are botting?

"a whole horde team (15 bots) and them not doing jack to me. A whole 100% of a team botting? Nice."

There is 15 man in an EotS, so you must have been botting aswell! :O

And if you look at the screenshot... I was alliance. Theory ruined.

[Ave07]

Blizzard should change the honor system and there should be less bots or no bots since people clearly don't want to grind honor.

[Deleted]

Nice keybindings

I have to agree with that! Must take a little while to unlearn the wasd simple life.

[Dristereau]

Although this is bad for the Game and Players Blizzard is determined to ban in waves. IMO the problem is more serious at max level battlegrounds where PVP is meant to be somewhat 'balanced', where you can see half of your team botting just to get honor gear. I disagree with removing honor from BGs, but I think the functionality of removing a Bot/AFK should be made quicker. It should only take three people for someone to be voted as a Bot and immediately kicked out with a Deserter Buff that lasts 3 Hours or so. Also make the AFK flag 20 Seconds instead of 60 and if removed forcefully 1 Hour Deserter Buff. A Little harsher, but what I think is needed. People who leave a BG debuff still at 15 Mins.

[Deleted]

That said, I never understood why people get bots. I mean let's see, you have a game, you already pay for it, and then you pay for a bot to... play the game for you? Ummm.... kind of defeats the point, does it not?

No, you pay for game, and then you get FREE bot that does stuff that you dont enjoy while you DONT PLAY (when you are in school, work, sleeping).
Then, when you have time to play game you payed for, you only do stuff that you ENJOY, like raiding, while not having to care about flasks, enchants, food buffs. For some people, stuff that they dont enjoy extends to farming honor, although i cant agree with this, there is nothing anyone can do about this, not even blizzard.

Btw, some people really believe in ban waves? Last one was archeology one, apart from that one, there wasnt one since TBC, only way to get banned while botting is to get repeatedly reported by players that see you, which means your bot was set up stupidly.
Need proof? In Cataclysm, there was one particular MASSIVELY spread free gathering bot, it was running for almost a year. Then Blizzard sued the company, company had to shut down, give Blizzard any info they asked for, and even then, there was no ban wave of users of this bot. I mean, what more would they need to do a ban wave, if they intended to?

[Deleted]

I have to agree with that! Must take a little while to unlearn the wasd simple life.

I use my mouse to move and q/e to strafe. It's how I play, so if you both wonna stop derailing the thread that would be nice. kthxbai.

[Belisarius565]

No, you pay for game, and then you get FREE bot that does stuff that you dont enjoy while you DONT PLAY (when you are in school, work, sleeping).
Then, when you have time to play game you payed for, you only do stuff that you ENJOY, like raiding, while not having to care about flasks, enchants, food buffs. For some people, stuff that they dont enjoy extends to farming honor, although i cant agree with this, there is nothing anyone can do about this, not even blizzard.

Btw, some people really believe in ban waves? Last one was archeology one, apart from that one, there wasnt one since TBC, only way to get banned while botting is to get repeatedly reported by players that see you, which means your bot was set up stupidly.
Need proof? In Cataclysm, there was one particular MASSIVELY spread free gathering bot, it was running for almost a year. Then Blizzard sued the company, company had to shut down, give Blizzard any info they asked for, and even then, there was no ban wave of users of this bot. I mean, what more would they need to do a ban wave, if they intended to?

This is no excuse for botting, because people only want to do "things they enjoy."

[Deleted]

This is no excuse for botting, because people only want to do "things they enjoy."

Botting is morally bad, no question about it. Thing is, no one cares about morally bad as long as there are no consequences... welcome to human race. Only thing that can change this is Blizzard stepping it up and either make botting unnecesary (remove grind), or stop caring about subs numbers and ban botters as they claim they are doing.

[Deleted]

Its because Blizzard is taking kickbacks from the gold sellers. Either that or they ARE the gold sellers. No other explanation makes sense.

If they wanted to, they could EASILY shut down botting just by simple in game steps. They wouldn't even have to fight legal battles against the sellers or websites or anything, they could just make it so unprofitable that they all shut down.

If they wanted to.

They already sued companies...but guys like you are ignoring that, I know...butthurt whatever

[Deleted]

Blizzard isn't interested in removing botters. They are paying customers and also don't impact the game in such a way as to piss off a lot of people. Sure we have occasional threads like this one, and random people whining but overall, no one cares.

[helheim]

hate to even say this because it makes me feel dirty even knowing anything about it. . . BUT. . .

i know someone who bots. i bitch at him a lot about it, but there isn't much i can do about it outside of being a snitch, and one thing we don't do in the hood is talk to cops, so.......

anyway, he recently said - like 3 days ago - that most of the bots that are your run of the mill bought and paid for variety, are not functional at this point, and those who are using them are seeing themselves being banned.

sure, it's anecdotal, but it's something. take it for whatever it's worth. or, you know, you could go to that one website where they discuss that type of thing more openly... just a thought.

[Deleted]

Oh, and talking about bots out of hand, did you knew that there is bot, that automatically uses your interrupt ability on whatever spell you set it up to, and in whatever time (0,3 sec before cats finish etc...), in both PvP and PvE? Do you have any idea how many 2k+ PvP players use it?
P.S ofc it is simply turned on and off by keybind, so you dont use your interupt when you dont want to.

[insmek]

It's because Blizzard has to investigate each and every one of these botting claims. Blizzard does not want to purposefully ban someone who's been reported for botting who's not actually botting. That causes more work and grief for everyone involved. And new bots are better adept at avoiding Warden, so their automated systems of detection have failed and it's coming down more and more to looking at each botting incident individually. It takes time to do this, and it's totally understandable to me not to want to go about the process of banning all willy-nilly like.

[UnstoppableErasor]

need to add an authentication method of some sort.