Bots! How long before they are banned

[Kojiiko]

How long does it take ?

On my server Windrunner in Suramar their is now a train of Bots, 4 Dks Blood spec its crazy, Its so annoying, Ive reported them many of times, other ppl have reported them many of times but yet they are still busy farmingstealing my herbs (gggrrr).

Then they post 300 stacks of starlight roses on the AH driving everything down.

Its driving me crazy. Coz I know they are bots but yet blizzard are too lazy to ban them? wtf!!

/rant over

[ebony]

Best way is to get some nice video give as much information as you can and email to hacks@bliazzad.com (might need to check the email).

In other news I saw this they hang around the same nodes phaseing in groups of 4+ I can see mutitapping mining going soon .

[MiRai]

Coz I know they are bots but yet blizzard are too lazy to ban them? wtf!!
Why do you say that they're lazy? Wouldn't it make more sense to verify they're botting, analyze how they're doing it, figure out their methods, and then remove several thousand accounts at once, if not more, whom are identified to be using the same methods?

It's like having ants somewhere you don't want them. It solves nothing if you just keep killing them one at a time as they wander in. You have to figure out where they're coming from and nuke the source, albeit, in the case of bots, temporarily. Simply banning a few botters here and there doesn't help Blizzard figure out the routines and routes which are being used, and therefore, the people who are botting just turn around to make new accounts, and are back at it in less than a week.

[daanji]

Given Blizzard's track record, they seem to mass ban every six months or so. They will ban in between, but usually that is reserved for severe offenders.
Sad thing is, a ban doesn't even phase the serious botters. They will have a new set up and running in no time back at it on fresh accounts and IPs.

The only thing Blizzard can do is improve Warden to detect bots and autobans, but the bots keep better at avoiding it. Doubt they will ever truly eliminate botting as it is too costly to do a real permanent solution.

[beeq]

train of Bots

How can you tell they are bots? Sounds like multiboxing to me.
I'm able to gather over 1000 Starlight Roses in an hour, but I haven't gathered anything really for a month, as I don't have time, and even if I had, I don't want to tank down the prices.

Just saying, these DKs can be just a fellow multiboxer having some quality time with their gathering team?

Some players also try to reset market prices once in a while, as in buying a hundred stacks of anything, and relisting them with their fixed price.

Don't get me wrong, I might dislike cheaters and botters more than you do, but reporting possible boxer is just bad for us everyone :P

[Kojiiko]

They arent multiboxers, some go off some get aggro and then plant Dnd on the ground some contiune on the very same route, The very same route.

Yesterday we had 7 of them from different servers following like a train.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Yeah, it's very, very obvious when it's a multiboxer versus a loosely similar group of bots.

[edit] Things a bot does that a multiboxer does not do:

1. Stack up on the *exact* same spot.
2. Follow the same route *on top of each other* without a clear leader/followers.
3. Follow the same exact routes even though they are not close enough for follow to work that way.
3. Move around corners via the *exact* same path.

There are others, but a gimpy analogy is that multiboxers look like a tractor-trailer(aka 18-wheeler) with the followers attached to the leader by a fairly straight string, whereas bots look like lemmings, usually following identical patterns/routes/waypoints/distances and also usually tend to turn corners by "snapping" to an angle rather than a smooth turn or turn/strafe combo.

You used to also be able to discern bots easily because they were always jumping to maintain the keep-alive heartbeat, but there's so many people with spacebar Turettes these days it's harder to tell. :P

[JohnGabriel]

They should update warden to auto-ban because some seem to obvious. For example the fly hacks, I see them all the time at least 10 meters in the air traveling at 3 or 4 times normal speed flying from node to node. Seems they should be able to tell if someone is flying and just ban them.


...but there's so many people with spacebar Turettes...

Anytime I am moving I am tapping the spacebar. I don't know why I do it, but I cant stop doing it.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

They should update warden to auto-ban because some seem to obvious. For example the fly hacks, I see them all the time at least 10 meters in the air traveling at 3 or 4 times normal speed flying from node to node. Seems they should be able to tell if someone is flying and just ban them.
You would think it would be pretty easy, but I wonder how much processing overhead running some sort of positional analytics would incur; I suppose it would be a function of players x sample rate. It should be pretty obvious to any half-competent BigData-ish algorithm that if it sees waypoints where LOTS of things cluster in a non-human-non-random fashion, especially chains of waypoints that happen in sequence, it would be pretty easy to nuke them from orbit with very little error. Humans just don't have the tools to navigate as precisely as bots.

[MadMilitia]

Yep, doing it automatically entails having a lot of processing horsepower on the servers and then more manpower to reverse the inevitable false flags.

I'm 100% certain they are already doing checks on waypoint chains as those guys have been getting hammered with bans for using questing bots and gathering bots. Both of which are notorious for moving from one specific waypoint to another in a predictable pattern. That's an easier target to hit.

[Kojiiko]

Bots are back took them months to ban them and after 2 months they are back. Alot of them are coming up with Demon Hunters and now pallies.

I saw 4 pallies last night in High mountain collecting foxflower, I always say hi but normally I dont get a reply, but one last night did but he was a good 10 minutes later and then he put me on ignore.

I whispered him on a different toon today and I got no responce so these so call botters are actually on the computers doing other things and might say something just not to think they not botting but truely they are..

I know I shouldnt have bought this post back up. But it does drive me up the wall!!

I mean why do we have to wait for a 6months wave ban! Why cant it be monthly? I guess blizzard dont give a shit, at least they get a few months of what ever in the pocket and then when they feel like it put the ban on erm just to keep us happy, but we aint!!!

[Ellay]

I think it's frustrating as well.
The good news though is with Patch 7.2 and flying, which is a decent questline to complete. The time it takes to ramp up and do that, they won't be able to compete with actual players getting to nodes. I'm hoping that becomes some type of deterrent. Or who knows they may invest in completing the flying questline.

[Mosg2]

Whenever I herb on my team I multi-report every person that's botting. It usually takes a month or more for them to ultimately be banned/suspended; Blizzard uses that time to see what they can learn on their end to identify these people without reports.

Shrug. It's a process.

[ebony]

right well when i mine now i go places bots don't go the "isle of the wardens" is where i been farming lately i find no bots there and its kinda a nice place to mine.


A lot of mods there that will one shot a bot/single player.

[Ellay]

Will check that place out, thanks Ebony.

Suramar is just amazing for mining/herbs, especially in the northwest area with the satyr/bear cave. So many bots though running. I highly doubt anyone else over there is legitimate. Which is why I wish I was on the opposite faction, so I could pew pew them all.

[Lyonheart]

right well when i mine now i go places bots don't go the "isle of the wardens" is where i been farming lately i find no bots there and its kinda a nice place to mine.


A lot of mods there that will one shot a bot/single player.

Great idea! Will have to try that!

[Souca]

So you have to consider two things:

1. Prvention/Detection
2. Cost/Profit Ratio

MiRai touched on a lot of the reasons related to 1, but something he left out is Blizzard doesn't want to make it apparent how they found the bots. If they ban right away, bot writing companies (yes, there are companies that write bots and sell to farmers or players and it's healthy money for them) can go in and try different things and eventually figure out how they were caught and change their bots to not be detected in hours to days. New version of the bot is on the street and Blizz has to send time trying to detect the new bots by buying them or looking for them in the wild.

If Blizz detects them and then waits to ban them for 1+ months they get two main advantages. How do the bot writers know what caused the detection? Was it the feature they added way back, or the one they added yesterday? The even worse scenario is that almost all their customers will have been caught in this wave and will get pissed all at once. Some of those customers will notice everyone got caught and may go elsewhere to a bot writer that also had a ton of bans on their bots. This hurts the business of a writer and they have a harder time selling bots and they still haven't figured out the reason they got detected. The write spends more time and money when the waves happen further apart.

2. I don't believe in the argument that Blizz makes enough money from bot accounts to ignore them. I do believe that Blizz is a business and won't spend more money on the problem than they believe it is worth. Sure, they could have a dev team working on nothing but bot detection and a group of GMs to confirm and ban botters, but how much is this going to cost? And how many legit players will this keep from leaving? Spending 1 million or so dollars (5 devs and 10 GMs) to save $250k, or $500k, or even 1 million? And even then, people will still see enough people that look like bots to complain and then some people will want to be part of the mob and complain too. At some point it won't matter how many are banned and how much money/effort you devote to stopping botters.

Sorry for the sloppy nature of this post, I'm still not awake but wanted to get this down.

- Souca Got Too Much Sleep to Function

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Well, if they save enough money to only pay for the salary of the dedicated Anti-Bot Squad, then it's a net benefit as they also get the PR value of looking like they care. As you say, there's a cost-to-benefit ratio that has some tangible metrics and some intangibles. The interwebs mob rarely considers that as the player's view from a monitor in a 3-D game tends to be pretty myopic. ;) I'd hate to be in the support team for a major game studio.

[Ellay]

The druid bots in Suramar are out of control, destroying the herb/ore prices massively. Looks like this method of gaining tokens is diminishing.

[JohnGabriel]

I just don't see it on Bleeding Hollow. I have seen them before, I know what to look for, its just very very seldom.

Maybe because WPvp?

[Lyonheart]

I have not noticed any bots on whisperwind us, but i dont gather that much now.

Has anyone focused on targeting epics for disenchanting and selling mats? I'm not sure how efficient it is and whats the best way to do it.. but I get a good chunk of gold every time i go through all my toons bags and DE stuff. Between that and random mats i get from shoulder enchants ( harvester ) I make 700-900k. But this is just stuff i get from doing a few WQs..Mythics and WB each week. And i dont DE everything but once a month or so.

If you clear every mythic..do every WQ on each team per week..do every WQ that gives an epic..should add up nicely! Yes this means you have to have enchanting on every toon..but you can pick up those books to relearn your recipes if you switch back and forth.

[Ellay]

I just don't see it on Bleeding Hollow. I have seen them before, I know what to look for, its just very very seldom.

Maybe because WPvp?

Check out Suramar on the NW side near the caves and the satyrs. I can't usually go 1-2 min without bumping into a bot.

[omegared]

Blizzard are doing their best against bots, they just won a lawsuit against bot makers.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-04-04-blizzard-wins-usd8-5m-lawsuit-against-cheat-makers

But im sure there will be other bot makers taking their place...

[beeq]

Blizzard are doing their best against bots, they just won a lawsuit against bot makers.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-04-04-blizzard-wins-usd8-5m-lawsuit-against-cheat-makers

But im sure there will be other bot makers taking their place...

I'm reading a known bot forums and it's heartwarming to see all those cry posts all over :D

Blizzard appears to be way more aggressive with the hammer nowadays.
Some botters were banned in one hour after they got whisper from another player, that they have reported him.. Progress, yeah!

[Ellay]

Since the 7.2 patch I have not run into any that I could tell either. It's been amazing and prices on the auction house have sort of come back a bit.
It sucks we sometimes get lumped into that group of players, but the action they are taking is great.

[Kimchee]

Since the 7.2 patch I have not run into any that I could tell either. It's been amazing and prices on the auction house have sort of come back a bit.
It sucks we sometimes get lumped into that group of players, but the action they are taking is great.
is it the Quiet before the storm?

deleted my post. saw something i thought was concerning, but the video dates back to 2011. sorry!