Bots and pet battles.

[Dazer]

Seems to me like bots are growing big lately. In the past, there were bots to farm droped pets (whelplings, disgusting oozeling, etc). Now they also engage in wild pet battles (these are always leveling teams); some start wild battles in the middle of other bot-farming, like nodes. All these are the easy.

But the ones I'm the most intriged about is pvp bots. See, according to the blues, most bots are compromised accounts that are used in one way or another to produce gold. However, max level pvp doesn't produce anything that can be put up on the AH, so these are genuine players botting for cheevs (which is sad).

Anyway, this lockout I've been working on my 250 wins and have encountered many of the usual suspect teams (conflag, darkness, runts, direhorns, swap teams...). However, one team I encounter way more often than I would expect is 3 anubs. Not only it's a long and boring fight, it's also quite frustrating, so I imagine many people will flee on sight. I, on the other hand, stick to it (and usually win as I often run with a crawling claw); after 5 or 6 fights against this compo I started noticing they always follow the same extremely weird pattern:
-wait half a minute, then pick one of the 3 anubs
-inmediately swap for another one no matter what you do (!).
-rupture and then sandstorm.
-spam crush.
If I hapen to use a grip/portal to swap them around, they eventually start swaping themselves, losing turns and granting me the victory (of the 20 or so times I've faced it, this only hapened 3 times though).

So: predictability, unusual behaviour (starting swap), no sign of strategy at all. All in all, I'm inclined to believe these are bots. I'd like to report it or something, but you can't do that in pet battles. In any case, I wanted to share my case, and see if it's hapening to you guys.

Maybe it's worth noting: they're never named pets, just 'anubisath idol' except this one time that the team had matching names like 'the punisher' and 'the protector'.

[Tahsfenz]

I'm totally making a 3 Anub team to annoy people now, though Anub, emp crab, and emerald proto whelp may prove more annoying...

Edit, to answer your question, I have no encountered this yet

[Tuatha]

Ran into a 3 anub team over the weekend. They fled. *shrug*


^^True story. I had an undead. Maybe that mattered?

[Kring]

I'd like to report it or something, but you can't do that in pet battles.

You can always open a good old ticket.

[Domie]

I'd like to report it or something, but you can't do that in pet battles.

You can always open a good old ticket.

Problem is that you cant see the opponents name (atleast i cant Oo), also when you open tickets about someone cheating you just get a reply that you should use the "ingame" report button to do so, even if that isnt possible where you do it.

[Kring]

I'd like to report it or something, but you can't do that in pet battles.

You can always open a good old ticket.

Problem is that you cant see the opponents name (atleast i cant Oo),.

Yes, but GMs can look that person up. If you create a ticket at 19:37 about someone botting with 3 idols in your last game it won't be that hard to find your last opponent using 3 idonls before 19:37.

also when you open tickets about someone cheating you just get a reply that you should use the "ingame" report button to do so, even if that isnt possible where you do it.

That I didn't knew. Did they tell you that specific related to a pet battle report? Or to a report where other in game mechanics exist to report this player?

[Charnyl]

also when you open tickets about someone cheating you just get a reply that you should use the "ingame" report button to do so, even if that isnt possible where you do it.

That I didn't knew. Did they tell you that specific related to a pet battle report? Or to a report where other in game mechanics exist to report this player?

I put in a report because I came across a player using extremely offensive pet names (being 'clever' to get around the restrictions) and the right-click to report feature did not work because it was a PVP pet battle. I specifically mentioned the circumstances under which I encountered said player, and why I couldn't use the 'in-game' report button. And I still got a form reply, telling me to use that button.

Sometimes the GMs just don't read what you are actually saying. Sad but true.

[Kring]

I see tripple moth teams from time to time. I assumed that someone picked that because it's easy to play and not uneffective against an average team. Now I wonder if that's a bot too.

[Tahsfenz]

I see tripple moth teams from time to time. I assumed that someone picked that because it's easy to play and not uneffective against an average team. Now I wonder if that's a bot too.

Can't assume everything is a bot. If their behavior in the match seems odd, though, then I'd consider it.

[Dazer]

I've seen triple moths, triple kunlai runts and triple direhorns. If I think the triple anub team are bots is not for the triple compo but for the strange behaviour; coupled with my believe that no human being can keep playing that compo for longer than 2 battles =D.

[Exel]

I definitely encountered some bot teams since I do PvP a lot but it was an extremely small number. Only time I'm certain about it, is when I met the same team three times in a row, every single battle they used the exact same sequence of moves. Also there is no any delay between their moves, like a clockwork.

Call me old-fashioned or anything, but what's the point of it all? Get Stunted Direhorn so you can enjoy botting with it?

[Invictus]

I have noticed the same 3 anub team that seems like a bot also.

When they get to low health they always swap out, and once all 3 are below 25% they just keep swapping and never attack.... seems like a coglion to me, no real player would do that every time.

I've encountered this pattern with a 3 anub team often at late-night hours, another sign it seems to be a bot.

There's no way to report the player because pet battles are completely anonymous, so I just farm them for easy wins.

[Kring]

I see tripple moth teams from time to time. I assumed that someone picked that because it's easy to play and not uneffective against an average team. Now I wonder if that's a bot too.

Can't assume everything is a bot. If their behavior in the match seems odd, though, then I'd consider it.

When playing against this opponent I realised that moths should be quite simple to program. Just spam the stun, cocoon strike and if both are on cooldown use the attack. There's nothing else to consider. The team should be efficient enough to win some games if the RNG shines its way (goot matchup, multiple stuns). A bot doesn't care if his win rate is only 10%.

It could also be someone who doesn't invest the same amount of research into pet battles as we do and found out that tripple moths work sufficient enough for him to do the weekly quest.

[Darkalucard]

I've seen triple moths, triple kunlai runts and triple direhorns. If I think the triple anub team are bots is not for the triple compo but for the strange behaviour; coupled with my believe that no human being can keep playing that compo for longer than 2 battles =D.

lol

[Apocalyptica]

Hard to tell if they are bots or just people upset they are losing but I've run into a lot of people who will just stop choosing actions after a while or chose their action at the very last second to draw out the game. That just makes me want to stay and beat them even more! lol

[Graven]

I have run into the 3x Anubisath team that the OP is talking about, and yes he has some rather strange habits. As said, he has 3 pets all the same, and hasn't renamed any of them, but will take the entire time it gives you to pick your starting pet. In fact, sometimes he misses a turn entirely just because he ran out of time.

[Hazelnuttygames]

I think it's really hard to determine whether an enemy team is botting. Like you said, there's nothing they can get out of it that they can sell. There's also a huge amount of people that play WoW, and quite a few of them are just that stupid. Or new to PvP pet battles, or under nine years old.

The triple anubisath team just sounds like a giant troll, and a pretty good one at that.

[Invictus]

Actually, it's not hard at all to tell that this is a bot.

After running into the 3x Anubisath Idol bot team repeatedly last night and watching it make the exact same choices and exact same timing in more than 8+ battles, I decided to do a bit of research.

This is in fact a bot and I found the bot program that runs it, and the "Pet Battle addon" for this bot program. I'll not publish the names or links here, but it's fairly easy to find if you know where to look or just do a bit of searching.

This bot program is being used by botters for leveling characters through the XP gained from pet battles. Apparently a lot of botters have been banned for the traditional botting methods recently (farming herbs/ores and battleground PvP) so Pet Battles are a new method they are using to level up characters on fresh accounts, or to get their alts to max level. They are currently not being reported and probably have much less risk of being banned because of the way pet battles are anonymized.

The 3x Anub bot team is easy to spot, it makes the following moves EVERY time without deviation:

1. It does not pick a pet to start, rather it lets the time expire so one of the 3 Anubs is picked by default.
2. It uses Rupture, Sandstorm, then spams Crush until Rupture/Sandstorm are off cooldown.
3. When any of it's pets are below 25% health it will swap them out. Even if you get all 3 pets below 25% it will never attack you again but just keep swapping pets every turn until you kill them all and win.

The reason for #3 is that the bot is coded to swap out any pet below 25% health. The developer of the bot program thinks that this is what any "normal" person would do. I have found it makes this team very easy to beat when you know it is coming, so I was happy to farm this bot for wins

I suspect that there are actually many more bot teams which are less obvious to spot at first because they are using different pets and rotation. It will be interesting to see if blizz starts banning these or if we end up with as many bots in pet battles as there used to be in battlegrounds.

[Arji]

The 3x Anub bot team is easy to spot, it makes the following moves EVERY time without deviation:
1. It does not pick a pet to start, rather it lets the time expire so one of the 3 Anubs is picked by default.
2. It uses Rupture, Sandstorm, then spams Crush until Rupture/Sandstorm are off cooldown.
3. When any of it's pets are below 25% health it will swap them out. Even if you get all 3 pets below 25% it will never attack you again but just keep swapping pets every turn until you kill them all and win..

Ran into them too the other night. Especially #3 is very odd to behold [and made it an easy win for me
(and believe me I'm usually not very organised and playing by heart and intuition rather than logic )]

[Zalamander]

Today I ran into the first time ever I think I was up against a bot.
3x Mr.Bigglesworth(is that even possible? its a unique pet from achivement right?) anyways there might be some indentical looking cat with similar skills somewhere?.
Anyways kept waiting the entire 30sec at a few odd times when choosing what to use next after I killed one and stuff like that.