I'm convinced Blizzard hasn't cared about this game for quite a while and each update has added something so ridiculous just to see how "loyal" the hearthstone community is, despite constant abuse... That being said, I believe the bots are intentionally added from Blizzard.
As far as I know, there are two kinds of bots: Blizzard bots, which you only encounter at very low MMR in order to keep wait times down, and player bots. Blizzard bots usually have names such as "CrazyMage" or similar two-part names, and they sometimes feature bugs, e.g. Priest of the Deceased being automatically infused or having 40 starting health with no Prince Renathal (as discussed here and here). These don't show up in the "recently played opponents" section.
Player bots usually have totally random names that looks like someone just smashed their hand across the keyboard, like "sergsght" and such. I've only encountered them in Classic, where they run rampant. These do show up in "recently played opponents."
Interesting, my experience has been the latter. I’ve reached 12 wins in a row with deathknight bots. There are still some at platinum, which I’ve since reached. I think they likely will be gone by plat 5 since they can’t reach higher tiers (I’m surprised bots manage to reach platinum).
Here’s what I don’t understand. Since the bots (non Blizzard) always follow the same patterns, couldn’t Blizzard set up a system of flags to flush all of the bots? If each card is played *exactly* the same way, couldn’t it identify it as being automated with no margin of error? Considering they have access to all the online data, why do users need to report bots in the first place? I mean, it’s not like the A.I. involved here is Chat GPT and super developed. I’m not a programmer but it just seems to me that identifying a bot based deck content and tun length alone should be fairly simple. I would imagine matches are always queued the same way as well.
Because Blizzard doesn't care about bot activity in any of their games. Bots inflate numbers and in games like WoW they're also generating A LOT of money. There have been some ban waves in WoW in the past but they do this only for show. It's not like they don't know how to catch them. They just don't feel the need to do so. If enough people speak about this they'll ban the bots for sure but they won't do anything to prevent them from coming back. They never implemented efficient systems that detect and prevent bot activity in any of their games.
Since blizzard is no longer in china, i guess chinese hackers finally found a way to "crack" this game in a way that they are not easily found out (yet). It's probably a spite move. The company from china "spilling" some specific data that made the game easier to bot.
At least blizzard's greed needs to have consequences. Definitely not enough, but it's a start.
If there’s ever a debate that aggro. requires skill, I hope this remains as a reminder that bots who aggro can still reach platinum. I’ve noticed some of them are starting to get names now, it’s improving. Also, the a.i. is getting better, less nonsensical plays.
Can confirm there were days when about 70-80% of opponents were bots from silver rank 5 to gold rank 5.
Always same delay between inputs, nonsensical trades when value ones weren't available, never concede no matter what the board/deck state was, most of them DK but also imp warlocks, battletags were random letters thrown around.
I'm happy with finishing my weekly 5 wins in ranked quicker but I hope the game doesn't turn into a player vs bots experience.
I am almost Diamond in Classic. I faced TWO humans so far, rest are bots playing only basic cards and going face for everything but spell damage minions.
If you have never been legend, it has never been easier, it is impossible to lose to the bot.
Rest of the time I play Wild and honestly didn't notice a real change
It’s not fun though. Reaching legend on farming bots would be meaningless. Winning in a competition only has value when opponents have similar skills. I actually considered de-ranking myself because of the wins I got against bots because it felt so hollow. I didn’t end up doing it because *all* I was facing were bots so at least I still got to play. Also, the higher rank you get, the less of them are.
This is definitely a new phenomenon. Is there a way to contact Blizzard about this although I would imagine they’re already aware of the issue?
I actually took advantage of this just to get the golden Warrior portrait (as it was one of the last ones I didn't have) and there are no good options for Warrior in Standard or Wild, so I ducked over to Classic. Not proud of the wins, but it was a means to an end. But yeah, it's a problem that needs to be addressed.
I noticed this too. Came back again with March of the Lich King and saw more and more bots in standard (or I became better at recognizing them).
So, like others said. The always play in the same pattern. Fast, no delay and often nonsensical (e.g. Amalgam on turn 2 on an empty board, buffing my minions, first attacking as a DH and THEN buffing his attackpower).
Often but not always russian names. I would rather say generic names consisting of two words, both starting with a capital letter.
They don't appear as current or last opponent. Pls check this carefully! I noticed this too late and reported real players I played just before a bot match because of this!
Additionally, what others didn't mention yet, you don't get XP for the Reward Track after a match with a bot! So I guess Blizzard knows about them and can detect them?! Now I'm wondering why they just don't ban them? Maybe they do, but after the match?
Edit: I just saw the Zeddy video mentioned above. So those bots are run by Blizzard but, other than the Blizz tweet said, they also appear in ranks higher than apprentice.
A summary of the video for those who can’t be bothered (like many videoson YouTube, the content can be summarised in 10 seconds but draw on longer for algorithm purposes):
* Shows the same screenshot I’ve posted, I thought it was my own at first but it’s someone else who had the same experience I did. More examples of more DK bots.
* As we had already discussed, there seems to be two types of bots: Blizzard and Non-Blizzard.
* A user requests more transparency when it comes to report feedbacks and information about bans (which would be neat). Blizzard replies it’s planned in the future.
* He speculates that it’s few individuals mass botting the game to then sell the accounts to other people. There’s probably a monetary incentive to do it. You really need to have no morality at all to poison a whole community for your own gain. Holy f.
I personally don’t think the scrambled letters are Blizzard bots, as confirmed from the video. Blizzard bots have names that makes sense, they don’t use scrambled letters.
Ok, did a bit of research and I think I might have an idea of what’s going on:
“According to their official press release, Blizzard is suspending game services for a lot of its major game titles. This includes World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft III: Reforged, Overwatch, Starcraft, Diablo II, and Hero of the Storm. They said, however, that Diablo Immortal will still continue as this is under a separate agreement. This suspension of game services sees an end to the 14-year partnership that Blizzard has with NetEase in publishing games in China. Once the license ends on January 23, 2023, the games mentioned above will no longer be available in China.”
“The events are still developing, and we are waiting for an official statement from Blizzards. While it's suspected that the regional price hikeHearthstone players from 14 countries suffered on February 14 was related to Chinese players "emigrating" to other servers so they could keep playing, Blizzard hasn't confirmed (nor denied) this.”
It’s all speculation, of course but this likely it.
Also worthy of interest:
”A post on a Taiwanese forum revealed that Blizzard banned hundreds of Hearthstone accounts for botting. These bot accounts allegedly belonged to Chinese Hearthstone players who registered them under fake Argentinian addresses to benefit from lower regional prices.”
Also:
”Botting is getting so bad we have more legends in Classic than Standard because there are so many bots feeding off each other they eventually climb to legend faster than regular players in Standard. Mercenaries bots hit over 100k MMR, and Even Shaman bots plague Wild in legend.”
I just played 2 bots on standard ladder in a row at Gold rank. It was VERY obvious. Not all bots are going to be as obvious but they were playing decks no human would play. Way below average WR aggro with basic cards no one runs.
The second one used Owl to silence his own minion's effect
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
It’s weird, they didn’t used to! Now, they do. I noticed the change today.
I'm convinced Blizzard hasn't cared about this game for quite a while and each update has added something so ridiculous just to see how "loyal" the hearthstone community is, despite constant abuse... That being said, I believe the bots are intentionally added from Blizzard.
As far as I know, there are two kinds of bots: Blizzard bots, which you only encounter at very low MMR in order to keep wait times down, and player bots. Blizzard bots usually have names such as "CrazyMage" or similar two-part names, and they sometimes feature bugs, e.g. Priest of the Deceased being automatically infused or having 40 starting health with no Prince Renathal (as discussed here and here). These don't show up in the "recently played opponents" section.
Player bots usually have totally random names that looks like someone just smashed their hand across the keyboard, like "sergsght" and such. I've only encountered them in Classic, where they run rampant. These do show up in "recently played opponents."
Interesting, my experience has been the latter. I’ve reached 12 wins in a row with deathknight bots. There are still some at platinum, which I’ve since reached. I think they likely will be gone by plat 5 since they can’t reach higher tiers (I’m surprised bots manage to reach platinum).
Well botting to plat seems possible with oppressive aggro decks, there isnt much room for failure if all you gotta do is to hit face.
I'd assume many of that bots are actually chinese ppl trying to "recover" what they lost, before they start to play serious.
On lower ranks and empty modes blizzard placed bots intentionally a while ago.
P.s. the chinese bot accounts could be more advanced and possible be played manually from time to time, thus they climb higher
Here’s what I don’t understand. Since the bots (non Blizzard) always follow the same patterns, couldn’t Blizzard set up a system of flags to flush all of the bots? If each card is played *exactly* the same way, couldn’t it identify it as being automated with no margin of error? Considering they have access to all the online data, why do users need to report bots in the first place? I mean, it’s not like the A.I. involved here is Chat GPT and super developed. I’m not a programmer but it just seems to me that identifying a bot based deck content and tun length alone should be fairly simple. I would imagine matches are always queued the same way as well.
I’m curious, why are they still around?
Because Blizzard doesn't care about bot activity in any of their games.
Bots inflate numbers and in games like WoW they're also generating A LOT of money.
There have been some ban waves in WoW in the past but they do this only for show.
It's not like they don't know how to catch them. They just don't feel the need to do so.
If enough people speak about this they'll ban the bots for sure but they won't do anything to prevent them from coming back.
They never implemented efficient systems that detect and prevent bot activity in any of their games.
Since blizzard is no longer in china, i guess chinese hackers finally found a way to "crack" this game in a way that they are not easily found out (yet). It's probably a spite move. The company from china "spilling" some specific data that made the game easier to bot.
At least blizzard's greed needs to have consequences. Definitely not enough, but it's a start.
I faced a lot of bots in standard since new season started. Util plat 10 where i'm now ( no bonus stars, so yeah ) i faced a lot.
Like 10 of games, 4 were bots. They din't show up in recent players. They used warrior and DK as class.
If there’s ever a debate that aggro. requires skill, I hope this remains as a reminder that bots who aggro can still reach platinum. I’ve noticed some of them are starting to get names now, it’s improving. Also, the a.i. is getting better, less nonsensical plays.
Aggro meta is easy for bots
Can confirm there were days when about 70-80% of opponents were bots from silver rank 5 to gold rank 5.
Always same delay between inputs, nonsensical trades when value ones weren't available, never concede no matter what the board/deck state was, most of them DK but also imp warlocks, battletags were random letters thrown around.
I'm happy with finishing my weekly 5 wins in ranked quicker but I hope the game doesn't turn into a player vs bots experience.
I am almost Diamond in Classic.
I faced TWO humans so far, rest are bots playing only basic cards and going face for everything but spell damage minions.
If you have never been legend, it has never been easier, it is impossible to lose to the bot.
Rest of the time I play Wild and honestly didn't notice a real change
It’s not fun though. Reaching legend on farming bots would be meaningless. Winning in a competition only has value when opponents have similar skills. I actually considered de-ranking myself because of the wins I got against bots because it felt so hollow. I didn’t end up doing it because *all* I was facing were bots so at least I still got to play. Also, the higher rank you get, the less of them are.
This is definitely a new phenomenon. Is there a way to contact Blizzard about this although I would imagine they’re already aware of the issue?
I actually took advantage of this just to get the golden Warrior portrait (as it was one of the last ones I didn't have) and there are no good options for Warrior in Standard or Wild, so I ducked over to Classic. Not proud of the wins, but it was a means to an end. But yeah, it's a problem that needs to be addressed.
Zeddy actually had a good video about it and Blizzard's response this morning, if you wanted to give that a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7toSuu0QDRo&ab_channel=ZeddyHearthstone
I noticed this too. Came back again with March of the Lich King and saw more and more bots in standard (or I became better at recognizing them).
So, like others said. The always play in the same pattern. Fast, no delay and often nonsensical (e.g. Amalgam on turn 2 on an empty board, buffing my minions, first attacking as a DH and THEN buffing his attackpower).
Often but not always russian names. I would rather say generic names consisting of two words, both starting with a capital letter.
They don't appear as current or last opponent. Pls check this carefully! I noticed this too late and reported real players I played just before a bot match because of this!
Additionally, what others didn't mention yet, you don't get XP for the Reward Track after a match with a bot! So I guess Blizzard knows about them and can detect them?! Now I'm wondering why they just don't ban them? Maybe they do, but after the match?
Edit: I just saw the Zeddy video mentioned above. So those bots are run by Blizzard but, other than the Blizz tweet said, they also appear in ranks higher than apprentice.
A summary of the video for those who can’t be bothered (like many videoson YouTube, the content can be summarised in 10 seconds but draw on longer for algorithm purposes):
* Shows the same screenshot I’ve posted, I thought it was my own at first but it’s someone else who had the same experience I did. More examples of more DK bots.
* As we had already discussed, there seems to be two types of bots: Blizzard and Non-Blizzard.
* A user requests more transparency when it comes to report feedbacks and information about bans (which would be neat). Blizzard replies it’s planned in the future.
* He speculates that it’s few individuals mass botting the game to then sell the accounts to other people. There’s probably a monetary incentive to do it. You really need to have no morality at all to poison a whole community for your own gain. Holy f.
I personally don’t think the scrambled letters are Blizzard bots, as confirmed from the video. Blizzard bots have names that makes sense, they don’t use scrambled letters.
Ok, did a bit of research and I think I might have an idea of what’s going on:
“According to their official press release, Blizzard is suspending game services for a lot of its major game titles. This includes World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft III: Reforged, Overwatch, Starcraft, Diablo II, and Hero of the Storm. They said, however, that Diablo Immortal will still continue as this is under a separate agreement. This suspension of game services sees an end to the 14-year partnership that Blizzard has with NetEase in publishing games in China. Once the license ends on January 23, 2023, the games mentioned above will no longer be available in China.”
https://clutchpoints.com/blizzard-pulls-out-of-china-after-agreement-with-netease-ends
Which coincides with the massive influx of bots on other servers. It might also be caused by the recent price hike:
“The events are still developing, and we are waiting for an official statement from Blizzards. While it's suspected that the regional price hikeHearthstone players from 14 countries suffered on February 14 was related to Chinese players "emigrating" to other servers so they could keep playing, Blizzard hasn't confirmed (nor denied) this.”
Source
It’s all speculation, of course but this likely it.
Also worthy of interest:
”A post on a Taiwanese forum revealed that Blizzard banned hundreds of Hearthstone accounts for botting. These bot accounts allegedly belonged to Chinese Hearthstone players who registered them under fake Argentinian addresses to benefit from lower regional prices.”
Also:
”Botting is getting so bad we have more legends in Classic than Standard because there are so many bots feeding off each other they eventually climb to legend faster than regular players in Standard. Mercenaries bots hit over 100k MMR, and Even Shaman bots plague Wild in legend.”
-Zeddy
I don’t know what the solution is.
Like i said above, it's a response to blizzard leaving China => many players from there decided to bot out of spite or whatever.
I just played 2 bots on standard ladder in a row at Gold rank. It was VERY obvious. Not all bots are going to be as obvious but they were playing decks no human would play. Way below average WR aggro with basic cards no one runs.
The second one used Owl to silence his own minion's effect