Pretty Sure I Saw a Bot Today in Random

[Lord_Argus]

I've heard people talking about bots or autoaim stuff before but I wasn't sure I believed it until today. Just finished a game where it was down to me and one other ship. I looked around for him and saw he was sitting way in the back near the beginning rea but he wasn't afk. He was moving in a large circle and firing guns but he wasn't firing at the enemy. Even as 2 of their ships converged on him, he was firing way over them and sometimes off to the side. He never once hit any ships as I watched him or even came close. when I first observed him turning I thought he was just trying to angle away but after checking on him several times I realized it was just a large circle he was making in the back there. I can't say for 100% that he was using some type of automated software but it sure looked suspicious. I know I can't post his name but I did look him up and it says he has over 25,000 games played. 

Not sure if it's worth reporting or not but it was weird.

[SgtBeltfed]

7 minutes ago, Lord_Argus said:

I've heard people talking about bots or autoaim stuff before but I wasn't sure I believed it until today. Just finished a game where it was down to me and one other ship. I looked around for him and saw he was sitting way in the back near the beginning rea but he wasn't afk. He was moving in a large circle and firing guns but he wasn't firing at the enemy. Even as 2 of their ships converged on him, he was firing way over them and sometimes off to the side. He never once hit any ships as I watched him or even came close. when I first observed him turning I thought he was just trying to angle away but after checking on him several times I realized it was just a large circle he was making in the back there. I can't say for 100% that he was using some type of automated software but it sure looked suspicious. I know I can't post his name but I did look him up and it says he has over 25,000 games played. 

Not sure if it's worth reporting or not but it was weird.

Very likely, I haven't seen one in years, but I can see someone trying it.

If you've got it handy, you should open a ticket and attach the replay. WG might see a pattern and do something about him.

[Tachnechdorus]

Probably just another human bot ........................... 

[Cit_the_bed]

Botting exists. Just wait until snowflakes.. WG doesn't punish botting.

[Khafni]

If you have the time do report it.

[anonym_dwPXzz2asd6M]

Waste of time to report it. You'll just get the auto response saying not to report bots since their anti-cheat system will catch them. Bot players spend money, that's the reason nothing is done about them. 

[RipNuN2]

Report him. I've seen some shady players I've reported end up banned.

[anonym_dwPXzz2asd6M]

26 minutes ago, RipNuN2 said:

Report him. I've seen some shady players I've reported end up banned.

How do you know that they were banned? WG doesn't release that info. 

[Herr_Reitz]

23 minutes ago, OuijaApologist said:

How do you know that they were banned? WG doesn't release that info. 

You can check their status by keying in their user name for chat? If they are grayed out... 

At least I think that's the way... 

[SgtBeltfed]

21 minutes ago, OuijaApologist said:

How do you know that they were banned? WG doesn't release that info. 

Unless you know the person through other means, you can only suspect it happened.

That said, I've heard and seen complaining about being banned for various things (some deserved, some only maybe), so it happens enough that some didn't keep quiet about getting caught and I actually heard about it.

[anonym_dwPXzz2asd6M]

13 minutes ago, Herr_Reitz said:

You can check their status by keying in their user name for chat? If they are grayed out... 

At least I think that's the way... 

 

10 minutes ago, SgtBeltfed said:

Unless you know the person through other means, you can only suspect it happened.

That said, I've heard and seen complaining about being banned for various things (some deserved, some only maybe), so it happens enough that some didn't keep quiet about getting caught and I actually heard about it.

So it's not really possible to know if they were banned after a report is sent. I have reported a bot player and received the auto response saying that the anti- cheat software does not allow bots in the game. It's worthless to report them, nothing is done or at least, can be proven was done. 

[IfYouSeeKhaos]

49 minutes ago, Herr_Reitz said:

You can check their status by keying in their user name for chat? If they are grayed out... 

At least I think that's the way... 

That might work if they have ever posted in the forums...but if they haven't their name won't come up regardless.

If you are in a clan you can check to see when the last time a player in your clan has played. Not sure if you can check that out for other clan's players...but I think you used to be able to as long as they were on the same server...but I may be mistaken...been awhile but for some reason I remember being able to in the past.

[SgtBeltfed]

45 minutes ago, OuijaApologist said:

So it's not really possible to know if they were banned after a report is sent. I have reported a bot player and received the auto response saying that the anti- cheat software does not allow bots in the game. It's worthless to report them, nothing is done or at least, can be proven was done. 

Worthless, no.

Reporting them gives WG another data point. The automated system provides even more.

Will your report alone generate a ban, highly unlikely.

Your report, the reports from others, and the automated system establishing a pattern, far more likely.

Back in open beta, and shortly after launch, I used to see bots frequently. There was no automatic system for catching them, and there were plenty of them. WG cracked down on it, and they've largely evaporated. Tells me the crackdown worked.

I can still see someone, with the number of people playing the game, saying to themselves "WG won't do anything about it" running a bot, and being surprised when they can't log in and have a nastygram from WG in the inbox explaining why they got banned.

[Pugilistic]

1 hour ago, OuijaApologist said:

How do you know that they were banned? WG doesn't release that info. 

Back when the stat site Warships Today was operating, you could see any time range you wanted to query. You could see bot accounts that churned games daily and then stopped, presumably when they got temporarily banned, and then resumed. One time I checked in one that was high volume/low performance that then had a lower rate of play but higher performance; I assume that was a bot account that started being played by a human player.  

[anonym_dwPXzz2asd6M]

11 minutes ago, SgtBeltfed said:

Worthless, no.

Reporting them gives WG another data point. The automated system provides even more.

Will your report alone generate a ban, highly unlikely.

Your report, the reports from others, and the automated system establishing a pattern, far more likely.

Back in open beta, and shortly after launch, I used to see bots frequently. There was no automatic system for catching them, and there were plenty of them. WG cracked down on it, and they've largely evaporated. Tells me the crackdown worked.

I can still see someone, with the number of people playing the game, saying to themselves "WG won't do anything about it" running a bot, and being surprised when they can't log in and have a nastygram from WG in the inbox explaining why they got banned.

The automated response from support says not to send in reports. Data points are not wanted, needed, or accepted by WG support. 

[SgtBeltfed]

5 minutes ago, OuijaApologist said:

The automated response from support says not to send in reports. Data points are not wanted, needed, or accepted by WG support. 

As has been stated by WG employees on the forums, that's not the case.

[sonoasailor]

1 hour ago, OuijaApologist said:

 

So it's not really possible to know if they were banned after a report is sent. I have reported a bot player and received the auto response saying that the anti- cheat software does not allow bots in the game. It's worthless to report them, nothing is done or at least, can be proven was done. 

that's priceless! and there is an equal chance of getting any ship out of the Santa crates!

[anonym_dwPXzz2asd6M]

2 hours ago, SgtBeltfed said:

As has been stated by WG employees on the forums, that's not the case.

Greetings Captain,

Thank you for contacting Player Support and we appreciate you for bringing this to our attention so that we can deal with this immediately.

I see that you have a report regarding a possible bot activity in the game. Rest assured that I will do my best to assist you on this.

Regarding your concern, we have our Anti-Abuse system placed in the game which automatically detects these kinds of scenarios. Should the system detect that a player is using a bot, it will automatically place the necessary sanctions/punishment.

Again, we thank you for bringing this to our attention and for your continuous love and support for the game.

We will conduct an investigation based on your information on the incident, but there is no need to file a complaint in the future because of the work of the previously mentioned system.

Please do contact us again should you have any questions/issues in the future.

Thank you and have a great day ahead!
 

 

Yes, this is the case.

[Cit_the_bed]

If they banned bots, the asia server would be banned in one week.

[Snargfargle]

9 hours ago, Tachnechdorus said:

Probably just another human bot ........................... 

Most of the time when I see a ship acting like a "bot" I'll ask the team if it's a bot and then the player of the ship in question will answer me, saying that he is not a bot. Some people just play weirdly. I was playing my Langley a couple of days ago when an enemy DD (a human, not a bot) came around an island right next to me and instead of torping me or even shooting at me, ran away from my secondaries. It then smoked up, sat there for a while, and finally proceeded to go attack another ship on my team, totally ignoring me.

My power once went out and when it came back on and I logged back into the game I found that my ship had killed two of the enemy with secondaries and capped without me.

[monpetitloup]

8 hours ago, RipNuN2 said:

Report him. I've seen some shady players I've reported end up banned.

Confirmation bias.

[LowSpeed_US]

I do wonder though, it's not too much of a stretch to think that there's a randomly generated bot with a non bot name in high tier random modes?

 

[RipNuN2]

2 hours ago, monpetitloup said:

Confirmation bias.

 

[old_radagast]

They are rare, but they do exist. I've seen maybe 3 for sure in about 5 years of game time, and I guess all of them could have been really poor human players, but their behavior was that of a dim-witted bot:

• Ship that sailed around in one area, constantly shooting behind its targets, even at absurdly close ranges. I guess a human could decide to miss that badly and precisely, but why?
• Ship that basically sat in one spot and after an enemy ship sank near it, it spent the rest of the match shooting where that ship was.
• Relatively recently, a Colorado that barely moved around on the red team, just shooting off at some target on our team. I was puzzled by his odd behavior as I steamed my NC (or maybe Georgia) within laughably close distance of him, and he seemed completely oblivious to my presence - somebody then commented that he was a bot, which makes sense.

Of course, you only notice the bad ones... 

[6thGuards]

Did you happen to note the user name?  Don't post it if you did, just curious.  What you described used to happen some what often when War Gaming had consoles setup at historic sites such as the USS Intrepid where visitors could log on and enter random games.  The historic site's name would appear as part of the user name.  I have not seen this done in some time but it is another possibility to consider.