90% bots in Temple of Kotmogu - 9 bots and me; Do YOU think blizzard ban bots?

[Starving Artist]

well lets do a simple observation . Do you see the spam bots that would sit in the capitol cities in wotlk spelling out gold selling sites ?? No ? Well I guess blizz does its best to keep bots out without banning every account they suspect .

[Eazy]

Well... You're also bot it seems, because You've done nothing there.

[Draknalor186]

i had a friend that got banned for botting and he said he would never bot again, but now he is back into botting and just say "this is a safe bot i wont get banned this time" -.-

[Johnkie]

I dont think they are banning anything. As you say its bad business.
And blizzard loyalty is not with the customers anymore, its with the shareholders...
So we got 3 options.
A. Roll over and keep letting them violate us.
B. GET PISSED OFF AND DO SOMETHING.
C. "I dont care i pve only hohohohohohohoho"

[Deleted]

I dont think they are banning anything. As you say its bad business.
And blizzard loyalty is not with the customers anymore, its with the shareholders...
So we got 3 options.
A. Roll over and keep letting them violate us.
B. GET PISSED OFF AND DO SOMETHING.
C. "I dont care i pve only hohohohohohohoho"

I think you're mistaken. Blizzard is banning bots, not so many right now, but some bots get banned each day.

[Deleted]

Then simply counter them? It realy aint that hard to do

Yeah that always works.

Especially when trying to move a train and getting butchered by thousands of aoe fears. I got my own secret to deal with it, not going to tell anyone.

I sadly do not hate people who bot just to get all the gear for arena. I understand them.

[Deleted]

There are 2 misconceptions that run wild @ here and I'd like to give a little light over them:
1) NOT BANNING the bots causes less profits towards blizzard's end ( a new bot account is only 5 euros, but for each person that leaves because of just 1 bot is at least three times that sum ) and not the other way around.
2) There is a huge difference between a BOT and a person that runs a script to /auto-accept BG or Dungeon queue. While the second will just end up sitting and doing nothing, the person that runs a (respectable) bot profile will end up doing way better than 2/3 of hes entire team.
There are indeed (LOTS of)idiots out there that run the bot program recklessly, without even setting it up properly. These are the ones that ruin the fun for everyone, well they and the 24/7 greedy farmers.
But in the end, I'd rather have a properly set-up group of bots than some lousy scrubs that not only mess shit up, but also curse and act like douchebags towards everyone.

[Simulacrum]

I think you're heavily exaggerating on the number of bots. I rarely see more than 1 bot in my BG's, if that. Just because you think somebody is acting strange, doesn't mean they're a bot. And I highly doubt you did any real investigating as to watching their movements and whispering all of them. You can say you did, but you'd likely be lying.

I know this post was long ago, but damn, dude. Damn. Maybe during peak hours you'll get BGs with only a few bots, but during off-hours, or god forbid while leveling, you'd be lucky if you entered a BG with less bots than humans. I've been in several BGs with the entire opposing team all being bots.

It's not something vague like people "acting strange", it's super crazy obvious shit like, all 10 of them are standing right next to one node, "guarding" it; and they're apparently programmed to move towards players if they detect them within a certain range, but to (obviously) give up chase if they move out of that range. I've won many Gilneas fights with 3/3 nodes by walking towards the enemy team, having them all follow me, then simply leaving the entire team to afk in the middle of nowhere while the 3rd node is capped... no bots there...

And that's just the most obvious stuff. There's more stupid shit like people who INSTANTLY use interrupts/pvp trinkets/dispells the second one is detected, one of the more hilarious examples being feral druids in the presence of a DK using remoreseless winter; dat instant shapeshift spam. Then there's the stupid running in a crowd in 40m BGs; I've seen bots following bots following bots following bots, in some kind of bizzare congo line. One Isle of Conquest I was in had 3/4ths of my team running in circles at our gate; everybody /following some bot, who was following another bot, which was following another bot... it was both sad and funny. And how cann we forget the awesome guys in WSG who, when GY camped, will keep happily ressing, then attempt mounting, be put in combat, proceed to *walk* in the direction of wherever they're programmed to go (while under attack by half a dozen people), only to die, res, attempt to mount, be interrupted, walk the exact same way again, die, res, attempt to mount... you think 76 KBs in IoC is bad? Picture 120+ in WSG before the time ticks out...

...and these are just the terrible bots. The well set-up ones you can't even tell that they are bots at a cursory inspection, you'd need to actually look at it closely to figure out.

The bot problem is a fucking massive one, and it's both extremely infuriating an disgusting that blizzard allows it to continue this way, for as long as it has been going on... and it has been going on for literally years.

So when I see those assholes banning people for win-trading in RBGs... I want to punch the guy responsible for that. The bot problem is a thousand times larger than that, but no action is being taken. Their pathetic "ban-waves" do nothing; we've had several and the bots are still there, doing the same thing they've been doing for years, just as obvious as they've always been... and they crack down on win-trading... and that's just the BG bots.

[Ichy]

I know this post was long ago, but damn, dude. Damn. Maybe during peak hours you'll get BGs with only a few bots, but during off-hours, or god forbid while leveling, you'd be lucky if you entered a BG with less bots than humans. I've been in several BGs with the entire opposing team all being bots.

It's not something vague like people "acting strange", it's super crazy obvious shit like, all 10 of them are standing right next to one node, "guarding" it; and they're apparently programmed to move towards players if they detect them within a certain range, but to (obviously) give up chase if they move out of that range. I've won many Gilneas fights with 3/3 nodes by walking towards the enemy team, having them all follow me, then simply leaving the entire team to afk in the middle of nowhere while the 3rd node is capped... no bots there...

And that's just the most obvious stuff. There's more stupid shit like people who INSTANTLY use interrupts/pvp trinkets/dispells the second one is detected, one of the more hilarious examples being feral druids in the presence of a DK using remoreseless winter; dat instant shapeshift spam. Then there's the stupid running in a crowd in 40m BGs; I've seen bots following bots following bots following bots, in some kind of bizzare congo line. One Isle of Conquest I was in had 3/4ths of my team running in circles at our gate; everybody /following some bot, who was following another bot, which was following another bot... it was both sad and funny. And how cann we forget the awesome guys in WSG who, when GY camped, will keep happily ressing, then attempt mounting, be put in combat, proceed to *walk* in the direction of wherever they're programmed to go (while under attack by half a dozen people), only to die, res, attempt to mount, be interrupted, walk the exact same way again, die, res, attempt to mount... you think 76 KBs in IoC is bad? Picture 120+ in WSG before the time ticks out...

...and these are just the terrible bots. The well set-up ones you can't even tell that they are bots at a cursory inspection, you'd need to actually look at it closely to figure out.

The bot problem is a fucking massive one, and it's both extremely infuriating an disgusting that blizzard allows it to continue this way, for as long as it has been going on... and it has been going on for literally years.

So when I see those assholes banning people for win-trading in RBGs... I want to punch the guy responsible for that. The bot problem is a thousand times larger than that, but no action is being taken. Their pathetic "ban-waves" do nothing; we've had several and the bots are still there, doing the same thing they've been doing for years, just as obvious as they've always been... and they crack down on win-trading... and that's just the BG bots.

As a botter I want to know what I'm doing that is such a problem for YOU. I use it to level alt toons while I work on different things or on a max level char that I do pvp on, do it for honor so I can get the gear to be better prepaid for arenas (once gear is obtained I stop running the bot). In my opinion the Win Trading people are FAR worse then a botter, using cheap tactics to get the best pvp gear in the game, creating new teams and stomping through the brackets till they reach a 2k rating or better.

[Puri]

As a botter I want to know what I'm doing that is such a problem for YOU. I use it to level alt toons while I work on different things or on a max level char that I do pvp on, do it for honor so I can get the gear to be better prepaid for arenas (once gear is obtained I stop running the bot). In my opinion the Win Trading people are FAR worse then a botter, using cheap tactics to get the best pvp gear in the game, creating new teams and stomping through the brackets till they reach a 2k rating or better.

I'm not sure if you're really serious or just want to troll and start a flame war.
You are reducing the chance to win for non-botters in the BG, unless you want to tell me you are playing worse than your bot. Then the problem is somewhere else, and I guess l2p would be the first step.

Time is the only ressource in a mmo, by saving your time you are wasting other's. That is the problem for ME.

[Ichy]

I'm not sure if you're really serious or just want to troll and start a flame war.
You are reducing the chance to win for non-botters in the BG, unless you want to tell me you are playing worse than your bot. Then the problem is somewhere else, and I guess l2p would be the first step.

Time is the only ressource in a mmo, by saving your time you are wasting other's. That is the problem for ME.

Not trolling, again your are assuming the bot I use is "Dumb" when it comes to bgs. I figured this notion would have changed when many others have already posted that good bots perform better than most players. They go after objectives, heal players, protect objectives, etc. If anything its that player Leeching the win/honor and not really playing objectives that is wasting your time... not my bot. There are areas I could improve upon for pvp yes... but where I succeed the bot fails and where I fail the bot succeeds (interrupts on fake casts actually... interrupting). Beyond all that a program is far more efficient than a player and with that your notion that a "Human" player is perfect, and that it's all the botters' fault you loose is actually fairly childish. PS I'm not calling you childish, that would be flaming, no I'm merely stating that the idea its self is childish.

Now if you had said something more along the lines of Gold Farmers using bots to ruin the economy, then yes I would agree with you that THAT type of bot is ruining the game.

[Puri]

Not trolling, again your are assuming the bot I use is "Dumb" when it comes to bgs. I figured this notion would have changed when many others have already posted that good bots perform better than most players. They go after objectives, heal players, protect objectives, etc. If anything its that player Leeching the win/honor and not really playing objectives that is wasting your time... not my bot. There are areas I could improve upon for pvp yes... but where I succeed the bot fails and where I fail the bot succeeds (interrupts on fake casts actually... interrupting). Beyond all that a program is far more efficient than a player and with that your notion that a "Human" player is perfect, and that it's all the botters' fault you loose is actually fairly childish. PS I'm not calling you childish, that would be flaming, no I'm merely stating that the idea its self is childish.

Now if you had said something more along the lines of Gold Farmers using bots to ruin the economy, then yes I would agree with you that THAT type of bot is ruining the game.

Since you are actually claiming your bot plays better than you there is nothing for me to discuss here. I am left to wonder who has the more childish attitude.

[Ichy]

Since you are actually claiming your bot plays better than you there is nothing for me to discuss here. I am left to wonder who has the more childish attitude.

Nice twist of words. I said it does some things better than I do, interrupting... it takes a program .00001 seconds to register a player/npc casting and do the appropriate action to interrupt it, takes the human brain a bit longer. The average person will only manage a .25 seconds to register and respond to that action. Thats using this Web site from the BBC to calculate the response time.

2nd a Human is far more prone to error than a Bot is because a bot cannot get flustered. lastly I said the notion of blaiming bots because one has a bad game is a childish Idea. Again nice twist of words, but you still don't answer How my Occasional botting (leveling and some us in BG's while I working on other things in the house, say laundry, making dinner, dishes) hurts your play time by wasting it, especially when the bot is playing as good or better than 50% of the population at hand?

[Kazdum]

Since you are actually claiming your bot plays better than you there is nothing for me to discuss here. I am left to wonder who has the more childish attitude.

The average bot plays better than the average casual player.

[Vargur]

Do you think blizzard is banning bots? I don't...

I think it's simple math for this greedy company. Look on this advanced equation I did:

Bots + ban = less profit
Bots + "lie to customers" + ignore = more profit (short turn, but that's all that matters for bonus and shuffle profit to next game)

In my last battleground I ended up with 9 bots in Temple of Kotmogu. If you wonder how I can know they are bots, they all took 1 min to exit while running up and down the ramp. Finally they all exit, and run back and forth for some seconds until they finally start running their normal path. Thats left to right outside entrance. Running up and down, up and down all battleground the same path. They all moved in the same way, not like a multiboxer, but like bots. This is 100% sure bots if anyone have any doubts, it was bots, it was 9 bots in a 10man battleground.

Here are some screenshots:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s9duvrefg8sjwsi/PQ6vpoMAHV


I did report all the bots, I had nothing else to do. And like usual, while reporting many players I get DC (probably some function from Blizzard to prevent people from using this function, many people get dc for this), I got 3 DC while reporting the bots as a thank you from Blizzard.

In the end, what can we expect. This is only the most profitable game in History and we only pay around 130euro/year to play and Blizzard can't spend all (any) money on costumer support, even if that is the main reason they say that we have to pay so much to play this game, to get good support.

On top of this. When I this summer made a post of the official forum complaining about bots, I was rewarded with a Perma Ban from the forum for promoting the use of bots. So I can never again post on the official forum.

I think you're gonna get banned. You're the odd one out of your team.

[Deleted]

Do you retards honestly believe that Blizzard either don't care or even support bots due to holding on to subscriptions. They obviously don't like cheaters and they have a history or banning exploiters in all of their online games. I bet none of you have any software engineering / programming experience and don't realize what a massive fucking challenge it is for Blizzard to not only detect and ban bots, but to make the game more resistant to botting. If they could do it easily, it would have been done.

On a side note: For PVP this botting problem (and ever other problem with random BGs) could be solved by implementing random BG / personal MMR like every respectable online RTS or MOBA game already has. That way all the retarded fucks who can't play the game or bot get low MMR after a short while and everyone else can enjoy the game.

[Revolutions]

Do you retards honestly believe that Blizzard either don't care or even support bots due to holding on to subscriptions. They obviously don't like cheaters and they have a history or banning exploiters in all of their online games. I bet none of you have any software engineering / programming experience and don't realize what a massive fucking challenge it is for Blizzard to not only detect and ban bots, but to make the game more resistant to botting. If they could do it easily, it would have been done.

On a side note: For PVP this botting problem (and ever other problem with random BGs) could be solved by implementing random BG / personal MMR like every respectable online RTS or MOBA game already has. That way all the retarded fucks who can't play the game or bot get low MMR after a short while and everyone else can enjoy the game.

Just add a CAPTCHA at the beginning of every battleground!

[ebah]

I think you're heavily exaggerating on the number of bots. I rarely see more than 1 bot in my BG's, if that. Just because you think somebody is acting strange, doesn't mean they're a bot. And I highly doubt you did any real investigating as to watching their movements and whispering all of them. You can say you did, but you'd likely be lying.

Are you serious, i seen plenty of bots in IoC especially, they have the normal pattern they move and they move in groups... cannot be mistaken for a player. Reporting always every bot i see, hopily they get banned.

PS: captcha would be nice

[Ichy]

Are you serious, i seen plenty of bots in IoC especially, they have the normal pattern they move and they move in groups... cannot be mistaken for a player. Reporting always every bot i see, hopily they get banned.

PS: captcha would be nice

captcha would not work, it seems nice on paper, but it would put more of a hamper on "legit" players vs the bots. sure first few games it would be loved... but doing it every time, or even randomly would only provide annoyance and people would eventually complain and ask for it to be removed.

[ringpriest]

uggh this old chestnut..... again

1 - Observe the bots to work out how they work
2 - Make changes behind the scenes to break the bots.
3 - Test to make sure the changes break the bots.
4 - make the changes go live
5 - Ban the players using the bots in a single wave.
6 - Repeat the process all over again.


Now all of this takes time. A LOT of time. it doesn't just happen over night.

Years, apparently.

---------- Post added 2013-02-07 at 03:10 PM ----------

To answer the OP's question: No, I do not think Blizzard currently has any interest in banning bots, nor do I think they are making any good-faith efforts in that direction. They have done so in the (distant, in game terms) past and may do so in the future, if they ever believe the bots are costing them revenue. (Should that actually happen though, it will be far, far too late.)