Is it true there is a lot of bots in the sPvP?

[Orpheus.7891]

I've been asking around and a lot of people are complaining about the bots in the sPvP, how true is this? What exactly is going on and why are people botting?

[Ronald McDonald.8165]

Not nearly as much as people complain about

[Waffles.5632]

tbh I'd rather face bots than deal with more players with bad attitudes. At least with bots you can learn without people jumping down your throats because you didn't see or weren't aware of X mechanic during Y moment.

Bots also never afk, so you can play around them if you see one on your team. Afkers not only afk, but they force you to block/ignore them because they just resort to flooding chat with insults and spam.

Afkers and Toxicity in chat will be way more of an issue than bots, though they all need to go so hopefully anet starts addressing it soon, especially with the influx of new players.

As for the reason, it's pretty simple.

Anet does "light" balance in pvp, and by that I mean they will do rather big changes and then just kinda leave those changes in for long periods of time. If it's a good change, great! But if it's a bad change with unforeseen circumstances? Unless it's absolutely game breaking, good luck getting it looked at any time soon.

Months, years sometimes before buffs/nerfs patches, and in order to have a healthy and competitive pvp scene, you need balance patches every ~2weeks or so, especially in times of shake ups. They have been getting better though, but only slightly.

So what you end up with is essentially free reign, the cat is away so all the mice are out unfortunately. Remember, there was a streamer who had duped more versions of an item than had actually dropped in the entire game, and he only got a 6month ban.

There still isn't an official or actual way to even report someone for hacking, there is no "hacking/exploit" category AFAIK unless they recently changed it. It just goes to show how lax Anet seems to be with punishments. Edit : The 2 best categories are "Botting" and "Scamming" but both don't necessarily point to hacking, but hey at least there is one for botting.

Much like the gods of Tyria, Anet has gone silent for us pvpers hahahaha

Anet does more than just balance pvp however, and gw2 is more than just a pvp game so it's also important to realize that as well. PvP does get tended too, it's just bare bones atm, so it gives the impression that Anet does not care.

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by Waffles.5632

[Leonidrex.5649]

42 minutes ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

Not nearly as much as people complain about

there is as much as people claim, they are just low ranked so they are stuck with bots.
People that say there is almost no/no bots are usually plat 1/2 and dont have to deal with them.
But if you played in gold/silver you would see a bot every game, the fact that I can see bot in plat 2 games from time to time already tells me there is 100x more of them in lower ranks.

To OP, yes there is loads of bots, they are mostly in low ranks.
Oddly enough, its one of the games where bots arent as bad as it sounds, and if you get high rank you will stop playing with them ( this is EU, no idea about NA )

[Broxxgar.6801]

@Leonidrex.5649 If you take a better look you gonna discover that you are totally wrong. There is people complaining that even on High ranking you can find bots. One of top ranks has a video with them. This kind of view is totally elitist.

The problem with the bots is that they are very predictable and they ruin your game. You are called to a match and them 4 of your team are bots and if the enemy team don't discover it fast you gonna win. But if they discover you gonna loose.

https://www.twitch.tv/im_grimjack/clip/BetterRamshackleHornetMoreCowbell-Zubyr_sJh4_78Aat


 

The bots has good combo builds that can easily kill you on burst. But after you discover their flaws than you can easily win them. I had a game that I my self said to my opponent team about their bot, they all saw the bot trying to reach me when I was on a pillar and the bot couldn't reach me and  it kept running for minutes...trying to reach me, it couldn't jump.

The more you play, more you have a chance to found them. If you just play 3 matches a day you never gonna find them or never discover that one of them was a bot.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Broxxgar.6801

[Leonidrex.5649]

7 minutes ago, Broxxgar.6801 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 If you take a better look you gonna discover that you are totally wrong. There is people complaining that even on High ranking you can find bots. One of top ranks has a video with them. This kind of view is totally elitist.

The problem with the bots is that they are very predictable and they ruin your game. You are called to a match and them 4 of your team are bots and if the enemy team don't discover it fast you gonna win. But if they discover you gonna loose.

https://www.twitch.tv/im_grimjack/clip/BetterRamshackleHornetMoreCowbell-Zubyr_sJh4_78Aat


 

The bots has good combo builds that can easily kill you on burst. But after you discover their flaws than you can easily win them. I had a game that I my self said to my opponent team about their bot, they all saw the bot trying to reach me when I was on a pillar and the bot couldn't reach me and  it kept running for minutes...trying to reach me, it couldn't jump.

The more you play, more you have a chance to found them. If you just play 3 matches a day you never gonna find them or never discover that one of them was a bot.

If you take a better look you gonna discover that I speak of EU, grimjack is NA and things can be different in NA.
I dont play in NA so I dont know the situation there.
Bots are no issues, all of them are deeply flawed and easy to deal with.

[Broxxgar.6801]

Just now, Leonidrex.5649 said:

If you take a better look you gonna discover that I speak of EU, grimjack is NA and things can be different in NA.
I dont play in NA so I dont know the situation there.
Bots are no issues, all of them are deeply flawed and easy to deal with.

For me is the same, if there is bot on NA, probably has bots on EU too. As I said the more you play, more you will  find them.

For a bot being on high ranking don't seems to be easily to deal with them. They probably run meta builds. But as you and I said, if you know their flaws you can easily deal with them.

[Metzie.3012]

5 hours ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

Not nearly as much as people complain about

But enough to make people aware of or talk (or even complain) about the increasing number of actual bots (especially in PvP and WvW).

Edited September 19, 2021 by Metzie.3012

[mortrialus.3062]

I occasionally notice people acting bot like.  Like they'll run onto a node I'm already capping and just sit there while I'm already capping and those definitely feel like bots.   More often I notice people accusing others of being bots whenever anything goes wrong in the match. 

[Ronald McDonald.8165]

3 hours ago, Leonidrex.5649 said:

there is as much as people claim, they are just low ranked so they are stuck with bots.
People that say there is almost no/no bots are usually plat 1/2 and dont have to deal with them.
But if you played in gold/silver you would see a bot every game, the fact that I can see bot in plat 2 games from time to time already tells me there is 100x more of them in lower ranks.

To OP, yes there is loads of bots, they are mostly in low ranks.
Oddly enough, its one of the games where bots arent as bad as it sounds, and if you get high rank you will stop playing with them ( this is EU, no idea about NA )

 Just made a fresh account to play ranked with a buddy who hasn't played since release. 10 placement matches and 10 or so more before I was back in plat and saw one person that I identified as a bot. A verrrrrry far way away from every single game. 

[Metzie.3012]

34 minutes ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

 Just made a fresh account to play ranked with a buddy who hasn't played since release. 10 placement matches and 10 or so more before I was back in plat and saw one person that I identified as a bot. A verrrrrry far way away from every single game. 

It depends ... especially at what time you play. For example, I had 2 games in my placement games where there were actually bots. In one game I had a Mesmer bot in my team, in the other game (on another day) there were even three bots (Mesmer). One in my team and two in the opposing team. And they were indeed bots (I noted them in a list, see link below).

Some people exaggerate, of course, and it has become common to misuse the word "bot". Many players play or move like bots, but they are actually not bots.

[Starlett.9087]

Yes, it really depends at what time you play. If you play after 23 or 24pm you could have between a 50 or 80% chances of playing with/against a bot but mainly because at that time there are not many people playing so if you face a bot and after that match you queue again, you will match with him again.

 

I am a returning player and i saw people complaining about bots and my first reaction were "they are just bad and people is so paranoid" but nope, there are a few guys botting pretty much everyday. Ive even see one guy with 3 accounts at the same time and he forgot to turn off the bot in the morning and he was still queuing "at a riskier time". Most of the bots are mesmers (mirrage spec) and a few of them are necros (minion master build). 

 

Tonight i saw a bot who was using the "target call" key just to look like less than a bot, it was kinda cute lol

 

Sadly Anet doesnt seem to be doing something because ive seen the guy with 3 accounts for 2 or 3 weeks in a row but it is true that this week i just see him with only one account, but i would be really weird that he got a ban in 2 of his account but not in the 3rd one when he was using them at the same time. 

 

Note: I know it is the same guy with different accounts because the account name it was the same but different number on 2 of them, and in the 3rd one his character name was almost the same as the one in other account

[greedywholesome.9081]

11 hours ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

 Just made a fresh account to play ranked with a buddy who hasn't played since release. 10 placement matches and 10 or so more before I was back in plat and saw one person that I identified as a bot. A verrrrrry far way away from every single game. 

 

Yup. I had 2-3 f2p accounts, new and fresh, that made plat 1 soloQing within 30 games, all core builds. Forgot the logins, LMAO and I hate not being able to talk.  

But yeah, during EST Prime and even PST Prime there were fewer bots or at least were outnumbered. They come out playing weird hours I guess although some are on 24/7. 

Also I want to add that when I did this experiment, I had to play unranked till I reached pvp level 20 to be able to play ranked. Did it in couple days and not enough for a new pvper to master anything but with the low population, I guess it's fair as they will probably end up in bronze or silver after placement. 

Edited September 20, 2021 by greedywholesome.9081

[Disney.7826]

14 minutes ago, greedywholesome.9081 said:

 

Yup. I had 2-3 f2p accounts, new and fresh, that made plat 1 soloQing within 30 games, all core builds. Forgot the logins, LMAO and I hate not being able to talk.  

 

But yeah, during EST Prime and even PST Prime there were fewer bots or at least were outnumbered. They come out playing weird hours I guess although some are on 24/7. 

They play 24/7, just there is less chance u get them at prime time because more players are in queue. Less players in q = longer q time = bigger rating differences allowed.

 

At PvP lobby waypoint u can see a lot of characters with starting equipment and bronze/silver badges, most of them are even in same guild [PvPx] - they prolly belong to same person.

 

I didnt meet them entire season except first placement match where i got 9 bots on core classes, all with offline status.

 

In another comment in another post i linked site with gw2 pvp bot, it got deleted and i got warned - looks like anet is trying to hide it instead of banning entire guild containing 90% bots in this game - really hard to identify they are bots.

 

 

[greedywholesome.9081]

1 minute ago, Filip.7463 said:

They play 24/7, just there is less chance u get them at prime time because more players are in queue. Less players in q = longer q time = bigger rating differences allowed.

 

At PvP lobby waypoint u can see a lot of characters with starting equipment and bronze/silver badges, most of them are even in same guild [PvPx] - they prolly belong to same person.

 

I didnt meet them entire season except first placement match where i got 9 bots on core classes, all with offline status.

 

In another comment in another post i linked site with gw2 pvp bot, it got deleted and i got warned - looks like anet is trying to hide it instead of banning entire guild containing 90% bots in this game - really hard to identify they are bots.

 

 

 

I saw your post with the link!!!!! I was going make a funny comment about it being our little secret despite pretending to be frenemies at the forum but it was the weekend and I wasn't near the computer.

 

When I logged on here, I was looking for your post and it was gone. I even stalked your profile in an attempt to look for it but yeah, it was deleted. 

 

I'm more than happy to post it on here again but I already have a warning and afraid to get banned. 

 

All I can say is, it's a rather good-looking site. They need to change the footer on their landing page to the current year. I think they had it at 2015. It should be 2015-2021 to show they've been around for a while and create trust. 

 

Thought it was rather cool of you to expose that. Granted though, PvPers in general, especially those that have been playing for a long time, tend to be very intelligent and good at recognizing patterns including rotations, build synergies, positioning etc.

 

It's quite easy to spot bots but it gets trickier if one is very knowledgeable with class mechanics and proficient with programming using Phyton (I think that's the programming language the bot software is using for their Open Source option)

 

So yeah, bots are not created equal and a few are better than humans 🙂

 

However, I would still steer away from using bot software as they take fun away from actually playing. We play to keep ourselves entertained. Do they exist? ABSOLUTELY. I just wish the good ones end up in my team. 

[Cynz.9437]

I think video below can answer your question pretty well, OP (courtesy of dani.5680; note their rank as well 😄 )

https://clips.twitch.tv/BetterRamshackleHornetMoreCowbell-Zubyr_sJh4_78Aat

Edited September 20, 2021 by Cynz.9437

[Mik.3401]

It really depends , at least in my experience there has been not that many. I think in lower ranked matches they are more common.

As someone said above, bigger problem are the toxic people. I may had no bots recently but I had quite some people either or my or opponent team just afking out of anger or rage quitting the matches

Edited September 20, 2021 by Mik.3401

[Disney.7826]

29 minutes ago, Mik.3401 said:

It really depends , at least in my experience there has been not that many. I think in lower ranked matches they are more common.

As someone said above, bigger problem are the toxic people. I may had no bots recently but I had quite some people either or my or opponent team just afking out of anger or rage quitting the matches

How are toxic people problem for pvp being dead, please explain.

[Mik.3401]

Just now, Filip.7463 said:

How are toxic people problem for pvp being dead, please explain.

Answer to your exercise - they drive away even more players and they keep doing it because they know they can (no ban waves).

[Disney.7826]

45 minutes ago, Mik.3401 said:

Answer to your exercise - they drive away even more players and they keep doing it because they know they can (no ban waves).

Speak for urself about no bans
 

https://ibb.co/F6gyS98

 

https://ibb.co/QvFydc6

 

And no thats not the reason for the game being dead, bunker and condi metas are.

[SevlisBavles.3059]

18 hours ago, Ronald McDonald.8165 said:

Not nearly as much as people complain about

https://clips.twitch.tv/BetterRamshackleHornetMoreCowbell-Zubyr_sJh4_78Aat

[Mik.3401]

14 minutes ago, Filip.7463 said:

Speak for urself about no bans
 

https://ibb.co/F6gyS98

 

https://ibb.co/QvFydc6

 

And no thats not the reason for the game being dead, bunker and condi metas are.

Ok, I wrong you good. I don’t see bans here though. Also it could be… both reasons make people leave!

[Disney.7826]

10 minutes ago, Mik.3401 said:

Ok, I wrong you good. I don’t see bans here though. Also it could be… both reasons make people leave!

well u dont get message “the player u reported got banned”

 

and if we are talking about actual competition in game, toxicty isnt even the smallest problem

 

anyways people in gw2 arent toxic at all, go check LOL or any FPS game

Edited September 20, 2021 by Filip.7463

[Avatar.3568]

It's a big mix of Different things, first of all the region, na has far less players than eu, which means the risk of having a bot in your team I was higher, also na has way more different time zones than eu which is splitting the player base even further, which results in even less players into the same bots. 

As an eu player I've seen not that many bots, but I am mostly at p2 at night I see rarely a bot, but in bronze/silver you will met bots more often

[Broxxgar.6801]

The problem isn't players behaving like a bot because of movements pattern. Bots has a very predictable way of think and move. If you have full of regen and protection build, you can pass the entire match face tanking one of the bots and it will never quit or run out of the battle against you. You can even bug the bot in someplaces.